THE Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addiclus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY, 28th NOVEMBER, 1873.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1529, 28 November 1873, Page 30

THE Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addiclus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY, 28th NOVEMBER, 1873.

A stbiking illustration of our recent remarks relative to elected Superintendencies has just occurred in the neighboring province of Wellington, where the Superintendent and his Government has met with a defeat at the hands of the Provincial Council, resulting in a temporary dead-lock, but where at the same time it is the elected head of the province rather than the members of Council that holds the confidence of the

constituency. When Mr Fitzherbert took office in 1871, the financial state of the province was nearly at the lowest possible condition ; it was almost a matter of impossibility to carry on the Government for want of funds. The public servants, police, &c, were very irregularly paid; the Government was in debt to the tune of £300,000, and it appeared to many that there was but one course open for it, which was, quietly to give up its existence as a province, and let its affairs be managed by the General Government. Mr Fitzherbert, however, was not one who took so unfavorable a view of the aspect of affairs; he saw that there were resources undeveloped, particularly in the land reclaimed, and capable of being reclaimed, from the harbor: and that, under energetic and judicious management, the province might be restored to a state of prosperity. The result of his action has been quite equal to his anticipations; a large area ha 3 been covered with magnificent buildings; the revenues of the province have largely increased; communication with the interior of the province has been greatly extended; roads opened, and bridges built; the debt of the province reduced by £84,000, while upwards of £90,000 has been expended in public works and undertakings in various parts of the province. In short, the province has been restored to prosperity, and its credit so far improved that, on the recent failure to get its borrowing bill passed by the Legislative Council, it had no difficulty whatever in obtaining an over-draft from the Bank to the extent of £50,000; and this, after all, is the crucial test of the prosperity and credit of the province. When the proposal to obtain from the General Assembly extensive borrowing powers was made, it was in contemplation to carry on the same kind of policy which had, hitherto, been attended with such successful results. In the interior of the province there are extensive tracts of country, second to none in the Colony, but altogether unavailable at present, on account of inaccessibility ; but which, if opened up by

means of roads, and good communica-

tion with the port, would probably speedily become settled with a prosperous agricultural population. It was therefore a great shock to the Superindent of Wellington to find that, after all the expectations held out by the Premier of the Colony, those borrowing powers were refused, and, as it appeared to most, the progress of the province indefinitely checked. Mr Fitzherbert, however, saw a way out of the difficulty —that is, so far as the town and port of Wellington was concerned—more land could be reclaimed from the harbor. g The province already possessed the necessary power to do this, under an existing Act of the General Assembly, on paying over to the Government a sum of £25,000. It was therefore resolved to take advantage of this power, and, as we have said, double that amount was readily obtained as an overdraft from the Bank, thus placing the Provincial Government' in funds; and, so far, we suppose, there was no need to consult with the Provincial Council. Mr Fitzherbert, however, was not content to confine the projected works to the town and port of Wellington. His aim was to open up and people the agricultural country referred to ; in fact, to carry out the same schedule of work which had been contemplated under the borrowing bill, and he could not well do this without the concurrence of the Council. He had no reason to doubt that this concurrence would be readily enough obtained, as the works had already been almost unanimously approved of by the Council, under the supposition that .the General Assembly would grant the necessary borrowing power; but here it was he was disappointed. The Council, on being called together, refused to sanction the proposed works, and hence the dead-lock which has resulted, and brought the grand scheme to at least a temporary end. It will be readily believed that the action of the Council has caused much indignation in the province, particularly in those districts that were to be benefited by the public works, and much sympathy has been exhibited with the Superintendent in his defeat. This was especially shown, on the 21st inst., in Wellington, when a public dinner was given to his Honor in the theatre, intended as an expression of confidence in him as the elected head of the province, when 800 persons assembled, and gave abundant manifestations of their sympathy. The members of Council, also, who find themselves unpopular' on account of their obstructiveness, have given their reasons in a sort of manifesto to the electors. These reasons may be stated in brief as follows:—lst. The Appropriation Act, which it was expected they would pass when called together for that purpose, differed essentially from the borrowing bill that was thrown out by the Legislative Council, and which they (the Provincial Council) had approved of, in that when the latter proposed to raise a loan on definite security, the former provided no specific method of raising the funds, nor security on which they could be raised. 2nd. That in getting £50,000 over-draft from the Bank, the Superintendent had already acted illeglly, as not more than £20,000 (being 20 per cent, on the proceeds of the previous year's revenue) could be so raised under the Audit Act of 18G9. 3rd. They feared that the rate of interest might rise indefinitely, and therefore declined to give a carte blanche to the Superintendent to raise the money how and where he could. In fine, 'they say, "We threw out the bill laid before us, because it implied unauthorized provincial borrowing in its worst form, aud with the [avowed intention of throwing the burden of it eventually on the General Government; and because it commenced with an over-draft." To this it is replied that an Appropriation Act never does and never can provide the security, &c, which belongs to a loan bill, because it is a different thing altogether ; and, second, that if the lender (the Bank) chose to go beyond the protection afforded by the Audit Act, it only showed confidence in the resources of the province, and there was nothing Avhatever illegal, either in the lending or receiving the excess. This appears to us to be also a reply to the assertion that it was intended to throw •the responsibility upon the General Government. If the Bank went beyond the protection afforded by the law, it took upon itself all the risk of non-pay-ment by the Provincial Government. Another reason, still, for not passing the bill, was given by Mr Pharazyn, and perhaps this was the one that weighed most of all with the Council. He said, relative to there being no specific secu-

rity provided to meet the payment of the loans, "It was the duty of the Council to see that the taxation rendered necessary by raising money should not fall upon property, and that had been provided for in the bill of last session; but in the present bill there was no such provision." This was, no doubt, a very powerful reason for the rejection of 'the bill, though perhaps a most fallacious one, for property will be less likely to have to bear the brunt of taxation as the country is opened up, and settled with a large population. We are not justifying the Superintendent of Wellington. We do not hold with such extreme powers of borrowing and spending being held by any person; neither do we hold with going beyond the safe limits of the Audit Act, though it may not be illegal to do so. We only wish to show that, as in a former case, the elected Superintendent of a province represents a different element in the Government from that of the Council. To a great extent the members of Council represent Property, while the Superintendent represents People. It is not, then, to be wondered at if it be found that when there is a dead-lock it is the Superintendent rather than the Council that is in the enjoyment of the confidence of the electors.

Encumbered as the New Zealand Statute Book is with Acts and Amendment Acts on almost every imaginable subject, it might not unreasonably be assumed that every ordinary contingency was provided for, and that except in some very unusual combination of circumstances, a criminal could not escape on the ground that his offence was unknown to the law of the colony. But unfortunately our laws are as remarkable for their crudity, and deplorable inefficiency as for their number. A decision given in the Court of Appeal in Wellington a week ago has shown that while the Supreme Court can deal with a personator in an election for the General Assembly, it cannot reach a similar offender in a Superintendency or Provincial Council election. In the Supreme Court in Dunedin, in July last, before Judge Chapman, one Robert Moore was convicted on conclusive evidence of giving a false answer to questions at a Provincial election. The charge was brought under section 50 of the Regulation of Elections Act, 1870, which provides penalties for this offence in the case of a General Assembly election. The 70th section of the same Act provides:—" Subject to the provisions hereinafter contained, every election of a member of the Provincial Council of any Province, however established, shall be conducted in the manner prescribed by this Act for the election of members of the House of Representatives." For the prosecution it was argued that the 70th clause was sufficient authority to apply the 50th clause to provincial elections. On the other hand, (we quote from Judge Chapman's statement of the case before the Court of Appeal) "it was contended on behalf of the defendant that this section was not sufficient to make penal clauses apply to provincial elections ; that in terms, it only applied to the manner of conducting elections; that the Act being silent as to the penalties under section 50, was a casus omissus which could not be supplied by inference from the words " shall be conducted in the manner prescribed by this Act." " This view," says the Judge, " impressed me strongly ; but I thought it better to leave the facts to the jury, and reserve the question for the Court of Appeal." Accordingly, on the 21st instant, the point was considered in that Court, before Chief Justice Arney, and Judges Johnson, Richmond, and Chapman. It is quite unnecessary to reproduce their decision at length ; suffice it to say that the objection was held to be good, and therefore fatal to the conviction. Serious as may be the consequences of this defect in the law of the country, it cannot be rectified until next session of Parliament, when we presume the requisite patch will be applied without delay to the defective piece of legislation.

A mail for Poverty Bay and Tauranga will probably close by the p.s. Luna, to-day.

Owing to the re-establishment of the District Court in Napier, the extended jurisdiction of the Resident Magistrate's Court will be abolished after the end of the present year. Messrs Routledge, Kennedy, & Co. have been appointed agents in Napier for the Standard Insurance Company. The prospectus of the Company may be found in our advertizing columns.

Our Waipukurau correspondent sends us the following information:—"Mr Drummond passed on Wednesday, with 300 head of cattle, in splendid condition, for Mr J. N. Williams. Shearing, in this neighborhood has been much delayed by the rain, and it is anticipated that it will be late this year, owing to the scarcity of hands,"

The Napier portion of the English September mail .arrived yesterday, per p.s. Luna. , We have received three numbers of the Poverty Bay Standard, since outlast issue, but they contain very little of interest. Mr H. R. Lascelles, for some time past clerk in the Napier Telegraph Office, has been promoted, and left by the p.s. Manawatu, yesterday, for Wellington, en route for Blenheim. The "National Punch" Is very favorably received by the Aucklaud papers, and would seem to be progressing. Possibly the unfavorable notice given by the Southern Cross was due to the fact that the editor of that paper occupied a somewhat undignified position in

the cartoon of the first nnmber. The mystery attached to the windowbreaking and other depredations at the Athenaeum has been solved—partially, at any rate. The offender turns out to have been one of the household—a little servant-girl, named King.' Suspicion having falle;i upon her, she was watched and detected, and afterwards confessed to having committed the whole series of outrages, with one or two exceptions. She denied having thrown some of the heavier stones, which, in fact, are apparently beyond her strength. She was promptly discharged, and the annoyances ceased forthwith. No motive can be assigned for this extraordinary conduct on the part of the girl, which appears more like the result of a morbid love of mischief than of any special malice against her employers, by whom she has always been treated with kind-

ness, On Monday evening last our contemporary the Telegraph published a long leading article referring in strong terms to the conduct of affairs in the local Crown Lands office, and reflecting upon the Mr Scaly, R.M. On the following morning, after the close of the proceedings in the Resident Magistrate's Court, Mr Sealy made a public reference to the article in question. He had, he said, a personal matter to refer to. Charges had been brought against him in the evening paper of the previous day, of so serious a kind that if a tenthpart of them were true, he should be

unfit to continue to hold either of the offices he possessed. In justice to himself, and for the credit of the civil service, of which he had for many years been a member, he intended to bring

the matter before the notice of the General Government, and to ask their permission to take further proceedings. We quoted last week a paragraph from an Australian paper, relating to

the so-called " scientific " hoaxes, which occasionally appear in newspapers. One of the latest has been perpetrated by the Australasian. It described, under

the name of the " Photobolus," a contrivance by which a light had been thrown upon the surface of the moon so powerful as to produce brilliant artificial moonlight. The invention had been worked out by Professors " Wildman" and "Lighthead." The article would not bear examination, yet it deceived a good many, both in Australia and in New Zealand. These discreditable hoaxes, which are continually making their appearance, are melancholy examples of perverted ingenuity, and it is to be regretted that so respectable a paper as the Australasian should give currency to any such production.