THE Marlborough Express. SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1868. SIR DAVID MONRO AND FINANCIAL REFORM.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 107, 14 March 1868, Page 3

THE Marlborough Express.

SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1868. SIR DAVID MONRO AND FINANCIAL REFORM.

« Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties.” —Milton.

Any attempt on our part in the nature of remarks upon the address lately delivered at Nelson by Sir David Monro, would be far too lengthy to be generally read, and yet the various points raised by him are so fraught with interest to the public at large, that we cannot let them pass by entirely without comment. We propose therefore to notice a portion this week, and defer the remainder to another convenient season, He commences by laying down two propositions as follows : 1. “That Provincial Governments are the main cause of the excessive expenditure, and •consequently high taxation of the colony.” 2. “That the application to local objects of revenue, raised by general imports, is erroneous in principle, and has been followed by unfortunate results.”

He then draws a comparison of the taxation of New Zealand with that of other countries, in which he gives the taxation of the United Kingdom, including tithes, poor’s rates, &c., at £2 12s 6d. and that of New Zealand, nearly all levied by Customs Duties, at £6 2s 6d. per head ot gross population per annum. Upon this head, he makes a strange mistake, in stating that of the British Revenue is absorbed by the interest on the National Debt! The fact being that the revenue for the year 1865-6 was £69,797,150, while the interest of the debt and management, amounted only to £26,829,067. It seems impossible that Sir David can have made such a glaring error, and it must be a misprint, although it is strange that neither of our Nelson contemporaries have noticed it. In effect, Sir David Monro states that by the Constitution Act, the whole revenue, Ordinary and Tei’ritorial, was vested in the Colony, and subject to the appropriation of the Assembly, and any remaining surplus to be handed over to the Provinces. As the whole revenue was originally subject to appropriation for Colonial purposes, and the Provinces only entitled to any surplus which might remain, it would appear that the framers of that Act intended the Provinces to be a species of Municipal bodies, with the power of making bye-laws ; their revenue to be raised by local taxation, supplemented by any surplus remaining after the General expenses were defrayed. The functions of the Provinces were therefore intended to be administrative—not legislative. But they had been called Provincial Governments. The title of Mr. Fox’s work, “ The Six Colonies of New Zealand,” was the idea followed out by the Assembly, odd as it may seem. Each of the “ Six Colonies,” sent as Representatives their Provincial authorities, and the old proverb about many hands in a purse, was fully verified. Sir David, with great precision traces the modus operandi. First, in 1856, the Land Revenue was settled upon the Provinces; next, by the Surplus Revenue Act, each Province was to be credited with the whole of its Ordinary revenue, and after being debited with its share of the Civil list, interest of Colonial debt, and General Government departments, was to retain the balance ; as however, a long time must elapse before a balance could be struck, a practice was introduced of paying the Provinces |ths of the sum on account. It afterwards turned out that this -|ths of Ordinary revenue was £IBO,OOO more than than the Surplus, but as the Provinces had spent the money, the Assembly released them from returning it, and in fact, they 1 ' now have one-half the Ordinary revenue settled on them, less the Departmental expenses only. Sir David says that the Provinces do not give Local Self-Government, but are only lesser He must however be aware, from the active part taken by him at the time, that the New Provinces Act was professedly designed to remedy this, and so far as the Land revenue is concerned, it has answered the purpose. But five out of six of the original Provinces, possess good ports, and have a practical monopoly t of the Import trade. The duties on the goods consumed in Marlborough, Hawkes’ Bay, Southland and Taranaki, are collected in Wellington, Nelson, Lyttelton, and Port Chalmers ! The more the Provinces have been divided, the greater the injustice has become. The part of the original Province which contains the port will receive all the Provincial share of Customs; the others will get none, as Marlborough has proved by painful experience. But when Sir David suggests the taking from the Provinces their interest in the Customs revenue, he hits the right nail on the head ; for of this the larger Provinces get not only their own shares, but those of the smaller ones. As we have just stated, the Customs revenue on goods consumed in Marlborough and the other New Provinces, are collected in, and consequently credited to Wellington, Nelson, Auckland, and Otago ! Pro tanto, the Local SelfGovernment of the larger Provinces is conducted at the expense of the smaller ! Sir David here points out the true Take the Provincial fingers out of the Colonial pocket. Let the General Government, retaining the whole of the Ordinary Revenue, pay for the administration of law, the postal services, the support of gaols, police, &c. Let roads and bridges, be paid for by the Land Revenue, and asassessed taxes, locally raised, and locally administered. But the dissolution of the Provinces is a very different thing, as we shall endeavor to prove, and here lies the reason why some of our contemporaries rail against Provincialism, and would bring it to an end were they able. Canterbury has a debt of £830,000 ! Is that Province, which has i

done more than all the rest put together, in bringing things to the present pass, to be allowed to permanently saddle this debt on the Consolidated Fund 1 This is the real point at issue, and let it be well understood. Seven-eighths of the Provincial Debts already guaranteed by the Colony, are due from the Provinces of Canterbury, Otago, and Auckland! About one-third from Canterbury alone ! Now, bearing this fact in mind, will Sir David Monro, or the most ardent Centralist, advocate the splitting up of Canterbury into Counties, with its Land Fund, or Territorial revenue divided amongst them—and its enormous debt to be paid by the Colony % Yet this is the present dodge, (for it deserves no better term,) and it will not want supporters. Another respect in which Sir David’s assumptions are, in our opinion, based on error, is when he tries to prove “ that Provincial Governments are the main cause of the excessive Expenditure, and consequent high taxation of the Colony.” We attribute these to the reckless conduct of the Assembly of the People’s Representatives, in days gone by, and shall endeavor to show good cause for this belief in our next issue.