IMMIGRATION AND PUBLIC WORKS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1074, 21 July 1871, Page 2

IMMIGRATION AND PUBLIC WORKS.

[EVENING NEWS, JULY 15.] A very sensible letter in many respects, appears in the last number of the Nelson Examiner to hand, on the Immigration and Public Works Act. It professes to deal with that Act in connection with Me Gisborne's circular to the Superintendents of the different provinces, and with some strictures of the Nelson Examiner on, that circular. With some portion of this letter we are entirely in accord., from, others we strongly dissent. The letter opens thus:—" The country being now committed, for good or evil, to the great ' Immigration and Public Works' it appears to me useless for our pnblic men to strive against the inevitable. Jt rather behoves them to endeavor, by every lawful means, to render that, scheme as little dangerous as possible." Doubtless: but the astute writer of this, letter places before us such a Niagara of ruin in prospective, as to make us ex* ceedingly chary of committing ourselves, to anything that he or any others may offer as a panacea. " After a few years of lavish expenditure of borrowed money," he tells us, "it is probable that many years of extreme depression will follow." " Before that time comes," he continues, " all those who have made their —contractors, loan commissioners, editors, of ministerial organs, and other thick and thin supporters of the Vogel ministry, —i will probably have departed. There will then remain a small but devoted band of landed proprietors, who not having had access to the ' flesh-pot,' but having spent their money in trying to subdue the wiU derness, will have no means of getting away. They will somehow have to pay the taxes necessary to preserve the credit of the country ; they will also have to support a mighty host of who having been imported by the government, and paid high wages while the money lasted, will naturally object to being starved." After such a declaration oi what will probably be the result of the Immigration and Public Works Act, when brought into operation, unless some means are taken to counteract it, —we were naturally anxious to know where this counteractive was to be sought, and we confess to some dissatisfaction with that suggested by the writer of the letter in question. He evidently thinks that it lies in getting the land out of the hands of the provincial authorities, and restoring it tp the Colonial Government, much in the way suggested by Mr Gisborne in his circular, that is to say, by " Superintendents and Provincial Councils recommending lands to be set aside for the construction of railways, and for the introduction of immigrants." Now, without for a moment wishing to convey the impression that the resumption of the waste lands by the Colouial Government would not be a most statesmanlike proceeding, we must still be permitted to ask, where is the authority for this under the Immigratiou and Public Works Act, even in the mild form in which Mr Gisborne puts it in his circular ? We know of none; and we, therefore, thiuk the Nelson Examinerright in contending that no one is bound, by acquiescing in the acts of last session, to take the irregular course of going outside of them for the purpose of carrying into effect any portion of them, however excellent its object. Nay, more ; what follows from the Nelson Examiner on the subject, we quote with entire approbation, and think it contains all that needs further to be said The tendency of New Zealand Legislatures and Administrators to this sort of irregularity has grown into a dangerous vice, as Mr Gris* borne has fully recognised in formeryears. The land laws ought to have been frankly discussed and freely dealt with last session. The Government re«. fused to lead in this, or to permit it, ami it is highly unbecoming in them now; t§

«sk inferior authorities to do without law *yhat the Legislature, the supreme authority, was forbidden to undertake when it was not unwilling."