The Lyttelton Times

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 557, 6 March 1858, Page 5

The Lyttelton Times

Saturday, March Qth. Another instance of the wrong done to the Southern Provinces of New Zealand by establishing the Seat of Government at Auckland was brought to our notice prominently by the last General Government Gazettes. Two Ordinances, passed in June last by the Provincial Council, have been disallowed by the Governor, and the news of this disallowance has just reached us. For the last eight months we have been wondering ana debating as to whether these Ordinances were or were not law; business has been interrupted and public works put off, owing to the uncertainty. One mail was . lost j our communication with Auckland is so uncertain and infrequent that we knew nothing about the loss. At last, after sending up a second copy of these Ordinances, the Provincial Government learn their fate in about the same time that it would have taken to receive an answer on the subject from the Queen in Council. And yet we are told that we enjoy all the advantages of Local Self Government. We shall never have Local Self Government, or any Government of a satisfactory nature, until its seat is in a more central position than Auckland.

Our readers have by this time probably forgotten the exact provisions of the two Ordinances which have been disallowed. They may be summed up in a few words.

"The Diversion of Roads Ordinance" provided for the diversion of any public road or the construction of a new one through private lands by special Ordinance; for the construction of highways through private lands by consent of the owners; for giving up old road lines to the owner of the property through which they passed, in case of such road lines being closed up; and for awarding compensation to private owners who may be injured by the closing up or diversion of any road. "The Governor's Bay Road Ordinance" was intended to legalise the diversion of the Governor's Bay Road from the line originally laid out. It was declared by Clause 3 to be a special Ordinance in connection with the "The Diversion of Roads Ordinance,"' so that "all the notice required to be given by the said Ordinance shall be taken and deemed to have been given in the case of this Ordinance." The grounds on which his Excellency's Government have advised the disallowance of these measures are,, we understand, contained in the 6th clause of the firstmentioned Ordinance, which enacts that "if any public road shall be closed up, passing through any private property, the land occupied by such road shall become a part of such property, and shall become vested in the owner or owners thereof, in the same manner and subject to the same trusts as the remaining- part of such property." But the General j Government hold that the land occupied by such road would, if the road were closed up, become either waste lands of the Crown or Crown lands reserved. In the first case, any Ordinance affecting waste lands should have been reserved for his Excellency's assent; in the latter the Provincial Council had no power to legislate. The Governor's Bay Road Ordinance depended so entirely on the Diversion of Roads Ordinance that it would have been useless without the latter.

The General Government has intimated that, although these bills are disallowed for the above reasons, the principle of them is not objected to, and that during the ensuing Session of the General Assembly a bill will be brought in to give to the Provincial Council full powers of legislation for the alteration of roads, streets, &c. ; such a subject being one in which local knowledge is essential. Whatever temporary inconvenience it may put this province to, we do not quarrel with the decision of the Government respecting these Ordinances; but it is a grievance that we should only hear of it eight months after the measures have been passed. "We do not know at this moment whether a quorum of Members of the House of Representatives will assemble at Auckland at the time appointed for the ensuing Session. How long is Auckland to stand in the way of the interests of the whole colony ? Every day the' Seat of Government'question is becomingmore and more the one important question that must be decided before anything worthy of the name of a General Government can be established in New Zealand.