Provincial COuncil.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 487, 4 July 1857, Page 4

Provincial COuncil.

Feiday, June 26th. Present,—The Speaker, Messrs. J. and S Bealey, Blakiston, Brittan, Dampie'r, Hill' Packer, Ollivier, Thomson, Westenra, Barker Moorhouse, Davis, Fooks, Donald. ' LOAN OF COUNCIL BOOKS. The Speaker read a letter from the Collector of Customs, askingfor the loan of certain statutes Council agreed to request. SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE AGENCIES. Message 43 was considered in Committee, and the following resolution agreed to:— That his Honor be authorised to:expend a sum not exceeding £500, in establishing agencies in Sydney and Melbourne, to facilitate the sale of land, in accordance with Message 43. EOADS DIVERSION BILL. This bill was passed through its remaining , stages by suspension of Standing Orders. ° goveenoe's bay koad hill. This bill after some alteration was also passed through its remaining stages, IMMIGRATION. Mr. Blakiston moved that the Council should go into Committee to consider his Honor's Message 42, on the subject of immigration. In Committee Mr. Bowen moved the following resolution : — This Council, having considered the vital importance to the Province of,/taking immediate steps for furthering the Immigration, resolve: That the sum of £20,000, voted for this purpose by the Council, be placed at the disposal of the Executive Government, in pursuance of the provisions of the Immigration Ordinance. After a long debate, in which almost every member present took part, there appeared on division. AYES, 7. NOES, 7. Messrs. Barker Messrs. S. Bealey J. Bealey J. Brittan Blakiston v Dampier Bowen Hall Davis Ollivier Moorhouse Thomson Packer. Westenra The Chairman gave his casting vote for the Ayes, and the resolution was carried. ; The House adjourned till Tuesday at 2 o'clock.

Tuesday, Jttne 30. The Council met a little after 2 p.m. Present, the Speaker, Messrs. Barker, J.and S. Bealey, Blakiston, Bowen, Brittan, Dampier, Fooks, Hall, Morgan, Moorhouse, OlHvier, Packer, Khodes, Thomson, and "Westenra. - The Committee on the petition of C.-E. Dampier presented their report. That on available Mill-sites was discharged. On the motion of Mr. Bmttan, seconded by Mr. Packer, the following resolutions were, after some conversation, agreed to : — 1. " That this Council desires to record its grateful sense of the many valuable services rendered to the province of Canterbury by Mr. Godley and Mr. Selfe." 2 "That this Council is of opinion that a fitting recognition of such services .would be the presentation of some memorial, and for that purpose the Council. undertakes to indemnify his Honor the Superintendent in the outlay of £200 for the purchase of such memorial; and .further resolves that his Honor the Superintentendent. be respectfully requested to prepare a suitable inscription to be placed thereon, expressive of the object for which the memorial in each case was presented." The following resolutions were also adopted; the first proposed by Mr. Hall and seconded by Capt. Westenka ; the second by Mr. Olwvier and Mr. J, Bealey :— 1. " That the thanks of this Council are due to Charles Bowen, Esq., for'the zealous and efficient manner in which he has discharged, the duties of Speaker of this Council during, the last three years." ' ■; 2. "That the thanks of this Council are:due to C. B. Fooks, Esq., for the zealous and efficient manner in which he has discharged the duties of. Chairman of Committees to;this Council, during the last three years." The business of the Council being finished, the following address was received by message from his Honor the Superintendent, and, read by the Speaker ;-—

■Mr, Speaker, and gentlemen of the Provinm' cial Council, fifteen bills have been presented to me for nwent of which eleven are public and four • tf n hills Of the former, I have assented to private l"1" iieht, namely:-— The French Magazine Ordinance. The Scab and Catarrh Amendment OrdiBaThe Education Ordinance. The Canterbury Association Reserves AmendEa<The Public House Amendment Ordinance. The Roads Diversion Ordinance. The Governor's Bay Road Ordinance. The Appropriation Ordinance. . - Three I have reserved for the assent oi his ! :— The Akaroa Jetty Ordinance. The Kaiapoi Town Ordinance. The Provincial Council Extension Amendment Ordinance. ' And one I have disallowed: — The Superintendent's payments Ordinance. Of the four private Bills I have assented to Mill Ordinance, and White's ■Kaiapoi Bridge Ordinance. And the other two—the Puller Remission of Purchase Money Ordinance and Peacock's Wharf Ordinance—l have reserved for his &x----•cellency's assent. I have disallowed the Superintendent s Salary ■Ordinance, because I find it provides for the payment of the salary of a chaplain. It is clear that this is contrary to the intent and design of the Bill, which was to provide for payments to be made to members of the legislature in order to avoid the unseemliness ot their having periodically to vote money to themselves I can see no reason why the salary of any other public servant should be included in such a bill. It may or may not be desirable on .other grounds to have a civil list created; but L think that question ought first to be fully considered by the public. At all events, the arguments for permanently providing for the salary of any public servant are wholly different from those for providing for the payments of those who are entrusted with the public purse. If the session had not been so long protracted, I would have returned the bill to you for amendments ; but, considering that all the payments to which it relates are provided for in the estimates, and that no alteration Avill be made in the payments for the present year, I thought you would probably agree with ma that the subject had better stand over for reconsideration to another session. t It is a matter of very great congratulation to me that the measures which you have passed tend to complete and confirm the line of policy which I laid before you when we commenced our ■duties in 1853. The Diversion of Roads Bill read along with ■ the Roads Ordinance of last year constitutes a law for the province respecting roads which will be most valuable, ,and of which I believe, as time goes -on, the public generally will gladly avail themselves. The plan of making the Justices of the Peace the sole arbitrators of the damage done by taking new and necessary lines of road through private properties is strictly in accordance with the English law, in cases where : the amounts m arbitration are small. Such will be the case with almost all alterations of roads in this province. When interests of great magnitude are likely to be affected by the law, it may be desirable at some "future time to reconsider it. We shall then have had the advantage of seeing how the law has worked with the most simple machinery which can be provided. I am especially gratified that an Education Bill has been passed before the term of my office expires. Not that I wholly approve of this .measure, but that it is a very great improvement upon the former plan, and that it gives stability and permanence to a system of education. For this reason alone, it gave me great pleasure to assent to that law. I am greatly gratified that you finally decided tio establish permanent agencies in the Australian colonies, and to establish a postal communication with Melbourne. I fully believe that you will find the province amply repaid by this expenditure at the end of a year. Equally glad I am, gentlemen, that you have •determined to adhere to the appropriation of the sum voted for the purposes of immigration according to the terms of the Immigration Ordinance. I entirely agree with those who think that it is possible to spend that sum unwisely, and even that it may prove too large a sum to spend in one year. On the other hand it is possible, and not at all unlikely, that three years hence the province may determine to ■expend forty thousand instead of four thousand in the- service of immigration. The rapidity with which labour should be" introduced depends solely upon the rapidity with which capital is introduced, or accumulates in the country, and, so far as I know, on nothing else. And no one in a new country can foresee for three years, or even for one year, "what the economical condition of the colony will be. For this reason I believe you will always do Tvisely to place at the disposal ofHhe Government every year even a larger sum'Hhan you think is likely to be wanted, in the full confidence that a rash use will not be made of it. With regard to the sum you have voted for the present year, I have the most entire conviction that, long, before it can possibly be spent, the province will call for the expenditure of still larger sums, to provide for the demand of labour merely to carry on the ordinary occupations of the colony—to till the land which has been bought, to shear the flocks, and to make the i; ■ is: and I say this, g tericnce

of the available labour in the colony during the last four years, of which the Government contracts afford a very good index. Gentlemen, you have done me the honour to reiterate a request made to me by a great number of the electors in the province, that I would myself undertake the immigration agency in England. I certainly did not think it would be worth while sending home an agent at so great a cost merely to spend the small sums specified in your resolutions of the 11th instant; but, gentlemen, if the Government of this province be about to undertake the work of yeal colonization for the next three or four years, I shall be glad to resume again the labours which I underwent in 1850, as one of the most active agents in the colonization of this country, and, I earnestly hope, with similar success. The Council is aware that the loan which I was authorised to raise some months ago has' not yet been raised. The reason ia that the Union Bank of Australia offered to negotiate the loan upon terms fair and reasonable in all respecta but one; namely, to charge the same commission 1 upon monies raised in England,and spentinEngland on immigration, as upon monies raised in England and sent out to the colony. It is clear that the two transactions differ by the cost of transmitting money to the colony. Subject to this deduction I agreed with the Bank for the loan. But, on being referred to Sydney, the managers, to my great surprise, declined to ratify the agreement. A good many months were thus lost. I sent immediately to Mel-" bourne to have the debentures prepared and am now daily awaiting them. But, so long as the land fund retains its present rate, it will not be possible to borrow money with any advantage in this country. The treasury is in fact more than supplied. I shall propose therefore to raise the whole loan in England; raising it as wanted to pay for ships, and providing that, if there should be anynecessity for money in the colony the local government can draw upon the English agent for what is required. But I believe that with sufficient immigration the land fund will more than supply all that can be spent in the country, and that the whole loan will be available in England for immigration, to be expended .as it is voted by the Provincial Council, year by year. I have transmitted the Bill for the extension of the Provincial Council and the re-arrange-ment of the Electoral 'Districts to Auckland, with a request that the writs for the new elections may be returned by the next steamer. And I will make every arrangement to facilitate the making up of the electoral rolls, so that the elections may take place as soon as possible. The public works are being carried on as speedily as the supply of labour will admit. The Sumner Road will be open for the passage of carts, by the temporary track over the head of the tunnel, on the first of September. The Weka Pass will, I hope, be open by the same time; as soon as that ia done, a cart will be able to trayelfrom Lyfctelton to the Hurunui River, without obstruction. This, gentlemen, is the line of road on which you may anticipate most of your future land sales will take place. The other, line is the Lower Lincoln Road, and I am arrangiug for carrying on that work with the greatest expedition. I think within the year you will be able to ride from Christchurch into Lyttelton by that road, and even from Christchurch to Akaroa Harbour: both branches passing through a very fertile district, on which sereral thousands of acres of land will be open for sale in the neighbourhood of good wood and water. With respect to the vote for a bridge on the Waimakariri river, which you rejected, it ie my duty to acquaint you that I have had a report from the Provincial Engineer, from which it becomes apparent that the river is filling so rapidly that no ferry will much longer be possible any where near the line of the North Road, and a bridge will become indispensable. The site for the proposed new ferry, which was ■ selected two years ago, is now destroyed. The present ferry has been sold to a person who is 1 willing to work it on the present fares, taking a lease from the Government for two years. I think it will not be desirable to go to any expense for an object so uncertain. I, therefore, propose to make such a lease in the hope that you will determine in the meantime to build a substantial bridge. I am sorry that the Council has not reconsidered the question of selling a site for a mill in Hagley Park on the Government Domain, as suggested by the message which I addressed to you upon that subject. A severer blow on the prosperity of the province cannot be inflicted than the creation or encouragement of monopoly, or the placing restrictions on mercantile or manufacturing; enterprise. The refusal of the Council to allow the occupation of the best, I may say the only, available site for the erection of a mill in the neighbourhood of Christchurch, will be a great;.drawback to agricultural enterprise for theinext year; not for more than a-year, for I am* satisfied the next Council will reverse this decision../. The Government will consider what steps it will be most proper to take to get rid of the nuisance created by watercresses in the rivers in the neighbourhood of ■ Christchurch. But the first thing to be done is to collect information on the subject from all quarters. The Government has, therefore, determined first to offer a reward for the best plan which can be suggested, before committing itself to any operation which may be at once costly and ineffectual. Gentlemen, your duties ara now at an end, and I cannot allow you to separate without thanking you most sincerely and cordially the disposition yen bavo ever shown to view j with consideration and candour the acts of the ' Government over which Iliav^ presided.

It^ will ever be deeply grateful to me to consider that throughout the four years which we have been connected in the Government of this province, the utmost cordiality has prevailed between the Executive Government and the Provincial Council, and still more that that cordiality has prevailed amidst much difference of opinion upon many points of public importance; and I earnestly hope that the example which has been set by the first Provincial Council in this respect may long be remembered and imitated in the province. JAMES EDWARD FITZ GERALD, Superintendent. 30th June, 1857.,