The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 424, 26 November 1856, Page 6

The Lyttelton Times.

Wednesday, IFovemher 26. Wb propose to-day to go through Mr. Fitz Gerald's letter to the electors of Lyttelton, rather with a view of laying the substance of it succinctly before our readers, than of commenting upon it at any length ourselves. At a time when most of the thinking politicians of New Zealand have come to the conclusion that the Constitution will not work long without some important changes, it is a satisfactory thing for the public to have laid before them the opinions of those who have made the subject a study, and who have been most fitted by ability and position to form a valuable judgment, and to express that judgment with precision and clearness. In looking forward to the changes which appear to us necessary, we were certainly far from being able to see the path clearly before us. No path is without difficulties, real or apparent; the leader who points out the path with the fewest difficulties, who shows good and substantial reasons for adopting his advice, and a practical and tangible end to strive for, certainly deserves the' thanks of the community. This, we think, Mr. FitzGerald has done ; he has pointed out a means I which is likely to procure for us all the ad- | vantages of local self-government, without the dingers of ultra-provincialism. Our : preconceived ideas certainly pointed to a * more thoroughly central policy; but we did not see clearly the means of holding fast our local advantage while we got rid of the burden of the double government; it appears to us that Mr. Fitz Gerald has at any rate hit upon one way of solving a very difficult problem.

The: leUercommencesby stntingthe writer's regret at iiayii:^ L"j^::-::::::b!'j ihr-jui'li i:::lifposhion to lay bis \i;ws personally before the cl(Ct»is of Lyitelton. on his return from Auckland, lie then proceeds to comment upon the financial polhty initialed by Mr. Seweil, and adopted by thu lluu.se; the principal on which that policy is based does not meet with his approval. A?, however, llic rc-opeiiin;,' of the fr^ncial <jue-tio:i will <*epcn 1 upon Mr. h-oweU'r? success in raiding the loan of £.000.000 on linueiiu! L".)ar.u:tt*e,

iwe '.vill not now follow Mr. Fit/, Gerald's I ;u-ir,jineiit on U.e subjef.-t. Mr. Smvell'ii j policy certainly appeared fo us th« culy sound oiie which was propounded during Uie late sessioii of lli'i C;ucral Asteinhly. The greu*. tjut^tion for Uie colony is that

of Centralism and Provincialism. Tins is the principal subject of Mr. Fitz Gerald's letter :— "It becomes (ho says,) every clay more obvious that) tho whole colony is over governed ; that tlio .machinery of Government is too weighty, too cumbersome, too costly." He shows how Ihe General Government, which in 1853 was mnintititieti with onethird of the General and none of the Land revenue, has gradually absorbed five-eighths of our General revenue, and £4,000 a-year from the Land revenue of this province. Thus is necessitated either a reduction of establishments, or additional taxation. " So apparent was this to the present, ministers that they passed a new tariff with tho avowed intention of i*aising additional revenue. The first act of a Responsible Government is to increase taxation." Mr. Fitz Gerald then calculates t uat the probable expenses of the General Government, out of a revenue of £1*20,000, will^be from £75,000 to £80.000. leaving from £40,000 to £45,000 .to be divided between the" provinces; so that we shall probably hereafter only receive one-thud of the gross Customs Revenue. He proceeds: — " I will now ask you to mark how this affects our own province. The General Revenues raised here may amount in future years to about to £12,000; of this, £8,000 will be appropriated to the service of the General Government. Of the £8,000 so appropriated there is expended within the province the cost of the Customs and Post-Oince establishments; that is, about £1,650'; the whole of the rest—that is £6,350 —is sent up to Auckland to be expended there ; and this in addition to the £4,000 charged on the Land Fund; so that the amount of actual money abstracted from this province and sent to Auckland will be upwards of £10,000 a-year.

Now, you must bear in mind that the money spent in a place increases the consumption of taxed articles ; and thus increases the Custom* Revenue collected there ; so that all the money raised here and expended there goes to swell the apparent revenues of that place, and so to diminish our own comparative revenues, and thus to diminish our share of the General Revenues under the division provided for hy the Constitution Act. We net only lose the money this year, but it actually goes to provideJbr our obtaining proportionally less next year. Now, setting aside all theories of government and all party questions, such as Provincialism against Centralism, —for I wish to lay this question before you free from all party considerations whatever, —I ask you to consider whether the advantage which this province derives from the General Government as compared with the Provincial Government is fairly measured by its monopoly of two-thirds of the revenues. Out of Provincial Revenues are maintained —the Hospital, Police and Gaols, all the expenses of the Supreme Court, except the Judge's salary, the costs of Prosecutions and Witnesses, all tho Local Courts, the Registration of Deeds, the Harbour Department, the Land Department, the Survey Department, the Inspection of Sheep, the' Execution of Public Works; that is to say—almost every oilice and departmental" Government in which the practical and daily work of Government is carried on for the benefit of the community, is under the control oi the Provincial Government, and is paid out of the Provincial Ryvenups. The money expended in the Province by the Provincial Government amounts to from "£IO,OOO to £'30,000 a-year, .1.-,,,,,,.;;,,./ .",;; Mir.-Limd Revenues. The money expended ln r tho General "Government i»l the province amounts to £1,050, and yet the General Government claims .£B,OOO a year out of a revenue of £12,000. Now yon cannot think, this state of tiling^ I satisfactory. Any reasonable man will say, U this General Government cost us .£B,OOO a year, surely it ought to do all the work, without any Prov'incwd Government. . Or, on the other hand, if this Proyindul Government really uoea I all the work, why should the General Government cost so much, or indeed cost anything at all."

Either the Genera! or the Provincial Government muKt he given up unless we resort to increased taxation. More tuxes i'uv supporting the machinery of Government

would be intolerable. Which Government then shall we give up, the General or the Provincial ?

Mr. Fitz Gerald declares himself for Separate Provincial Chests. The colonists who were: leaving England in 1850 were anxious that Canterbury should be made a separate province under the Cofistitmtjon of 1846: such a province " would have had a separate chest, and all monies collected as revenue would have been spent in the Pro■> vince and not sent out of it."

" Gentlemen, I am quite awai'e that there are some persons who consider that the expenditure of the Provincial Government is unnecessarily great. I will not discuss that subject here, further than to remark, that, with all the immense increase of work thrown on the Government by the extension of its powers, Government properly so called, is not, I believe, more costly than as it was in the year 1851, when the population, the wealth, and the trade were so much smaller than at present' But this is not the proper place for a defence of the Provincial Government; the cost of which I shall be prepared at tho proper time and place to justify; whilst, at the same time, I shall be very glad to find that it can be diminished. I admit at once that that man will do a public service who will show how Government can be economised without being rendered inefficient. But, however this may be, are there any who imagine that the centralising of power in the General Government will cheapen the machinery of Government ? Do any suppose that when the expenditure is controlled by the General Assembly—of which your members form less than one-sixth part —it is likely to be less than when controlled by our own Provincial.Council? Are any so ignorant as not to know that the very fact of the expenditure being controlled, authorised, and audited at a distance, tend to increase it, by complicating the machinery by which it is managed. When the Provincial Government came into power in 1853, in all the departments placed under its control, the vouchers were rdeuced to one third —that is—receipts were taken singly instead of in triplicate, as under the old system ; whilst the whole labour of explanatory correspondence was got rid of by verbal explanations. If those departments were again transferred to the General Gevernment, the additional labour would require additional hands, both here and at the seat of Government. There cannot be a greater delusion 'than to imagine that the Provincial expenditure would be limited by the control being removed to Auckland. But, I will go much further than this, and say, that after the experience of three sessions, I am satisfied that the House of Representatives is a body not fit to be entrusted with the expenditure of public revenues. It is composed of members who never have, and, as I believe, never Wwill, sink their provincial character and sympathies in the General Assembly. And this money is voted away, not because the public service requires it, but because provincial jealousies must be appeased. A salary in one province must be raised, not because the officer deserves it, but because a similar salary has been raised elsewhere. The passing of the estimates is a disgraceful scramble for money by the delegates from, different communities; not the discrimt-

mite judgment of senators, upon the several exigencies of the public service of a coHrmon country. I was in hopes that this would disappear when a responsible ministry came into power; but I have lost that hope. A ministry will always be compelled to purchase support by the sacrifice of opinion, and by the process of ■what is called in America " log-rolling :" that is —purchasing support to the perpetration of one job by the promise of assistance in another. In a House formed of such conflicting elements it cannot be otherwise.

I have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that the remedy for these evils is a return to the Constitution* of 184(3, in the financial system of the country : I mean that there should be no General Revenue, and no General Chest, whatever : but that the separate provinces shall keep each its own revenue separately. There are, no doubt, some few matters which must be paid for by all the provinces—such as the salary of the Governor and the officers of the General Government, and tin public debts. But a careful perusal of the General estimates has shewn me that £20,000 is the whole amount

necessary for paying all the charges which are really " General "to all the provinces. Prom this General charge I exclude all native expenditure, all the cost of the Post Offices, the Custom Houses, and even the Supreme Court, because I cannot perceive why we, at Canterbury, should pay the salary of a Chief Justice, whom we never see or hoar of. I will not trouble you with the details of these estimates. Suffice it to say—that the expenditure of the General Government would be decreased from £80,000 to £20,000 ; and consequently that instead of paying, as now, upwards of £0,000 a year, to be sent to Auckland, our subscription would be about £1,500. The rest, whether spent under the authority of the General or Provincial Government, would be spent in this place and not out of it. Gentlemen, I hope you will agree with me that no financial scheme will be satisfactory to the colony which is not based on this doctrine —Separate Phovincial Chests. / I have said the General Assembly slioirfd not vote money. The whole of the expendif uro of £20,000, of which I spoke, should, I think, be settled by an Act, should be in short a Civil List created by the colony: not an annual appropriation. You understand, of course, that I mean the present Civil List to be abandoned. But, besides this, I think the General Assembly ought by Act to settle a Civil List on every province : that is—■ to render certain payments oat of each Provincial Chest permanent, by Act, and not liable to alteration by the Provincial Legislature. I mean, such items as the share which each. Province is to pay towards the general expenses of the colony; the salary of the Judge, which all will agree, ought not to be liable to change; the salaries of the Resident Magistrates ought to be included. If a Judge were appointed for two provinces—such as this province and Otago— part of his salary would appear on the civil list of each. All candid thinkers will perceive that, without the settlement of such a civil list on each province, the present General civil list' could not be given up: and the doctrine of the Separate Chests could not be carried out. We find that we must take up the letter here in the next issue. It is next to impossible to give any idea of a pamphlet on so comprehensive a subject without copious extracts. For a complete view of the whole argument we must refer our^eaders to the letter itself.