THE Marlborough Express. SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 1869. MARLBOROUGH NOT DEAD YET!

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 190, 21 August 1869, Page 3

THE Marlborough Express.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 1869. MARLBOROUGH NOT DEAD YET!

« give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to ergue freely according- to conscience, above all other liberties.’ —Milton.

Hurrah ! The battle against Annexation to Nelson is won ; some measure of justice is to be accorded to Marlborough, and she is to be treated in some respects as the rest of the Colony. We have helped to fight, and we therefore feel a keen pleasure in being the first to congratulate the people who have manfully stood out for their rights upon their victory. Let us now sit down and count our gains. In another column, is the telegram from one of our friends, which tells us what has occurred, but which needs some explanation. Those who have followed our arguments from time to time, will only need reminding that under the Public Revenues Act, one-half the Ordinary Revenue, mainly arising from Customs, is taken for Colonial purposes, while the other goes to the Province where collected, but against which is charged the cost of all General Government departments therein. In our case, as we have before shown, this has caused an average loss of nearly £I,OOO per annum, because these departments cost more than we received j the difference being taken out of our Land Fund primarily, but ultimately resulting in the destruction of our roads and bridges through neglect. _ It appears that during the current financial year we are to have the entire half of the Ordinary Revenue \ and this will enable our public men to decide upon some permanet scheme which will give justice to all parts of the Colony alike. The amount of Customs Revenue paid at the several ports of this Province during the last financial year ending 30th June last, was as follows: —Wairau, £3,613; Picton, £842 ; 1 lavelock, £ 182 ; and Kaikoura, £IGS ; Total, £4,802. Taking this as a guide for the current year, will give one-half, or £2,400, which, if wo add the loss before named, will be equivalent to a gain of £3,400 per annum for appropriation by our Provincial Council. This boon is due to the manful stand taken against the proposed spoliation \ but gieat as it is, it is only about one half the sum we ought to receive, to place us on a level with the rest of the Colony. This by the way. What treatment we might have expected had the Annexation scheme succeeded, may be surmised from the following extract from the Nelson Colonist of Friday last, which is edited by a member of the Nelson Provincial Council: — “THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. • What did they kill each other for V Southey's Battle of Blenheim. Politics, like sociology, has occasionally its comical phases, and one of the most comical things in the political complications of New Zealand at the present moment is the attitude of the bankrupt Province of Marlborough. The proposition of Mr. Fox’s Government, suggesting the propriety of the two Provinces approaching the consideration of the question of re-union of Marlborough with Nelson, appears to have driven the Blenheimites almost frantic. The leading people of that moist capital—moist, it is maliciously alleged, in more senses than one, —have donned their patriotic harness, and are prepared to do physical battle—to resort to “force,” in order to prevent the consummation of the ‘ atrocious’ proposal for annexation. It appears that telling speeches were delivered; and, doubtless, ‘ the patriotic Tell and Bruce of Bannockburn,’ had given point and effect to the exordium of the speaker whose sentiments respecting force were so touchingly applauded. We can imagine this brave orator, amidst rounds of cheers, smiting his waistcoat near the region of the stomach, and declaiming those well-worn, though oft-misapplied lines, that • Freedom’s battle, once begun. Bequeathed from bleeding sirp to son, Though baffled olt, is ever wi n,’ Of course ; by all means ; who doubts it ? Let Blenheim bare its bosom to the bloody blade, and resist to the last shilling in its treasury. The fight of the free in that particular case will be very short, and not particularly sharp, if the said treasury has to supply the sinews of war. The difficulty in getting up a battle, however, is the finding of a foe. Against whom are these stalwart sons of freedom to fight ? They are prepared to gird on the panoply of war ; but for what ? To die victorious on the bloodless field ! • We Blenheimites,’ stout Sinclair cried, •Shall Nelson put to rout;’ But what the twain should quarrel for He could not well make out. ’ Do we want annexation ? Is Nelson pressing for further burdens, longer roads to repair, without anything coming to meet the cost of the wayward, penniless, cleaned out, but wonderfully ‘self-reliant ’ Province. We think not. It is true there is a largo tract of country, say as far

as the Pelorus (which should, at least, have been the nearest boundary of Nelson on that side), which would, by being annexed to Nelson greatly benefit by the roads that would be made through it but which roads Marlborough has and cannot make, any more than she can pay her official salaries or place in even moderate repair the quagmires she calls roads within her own boundary But that the people of Nelson are in the throes of excitement, or entertain even the most mildly expressed desire for re-union with Marlborough, is something which we have yer to learn. There seems not the smallest symptom of such desire, and we are rather lifeline d to believe that, if the thing were seriously proposed, an anti-annexation meeting might not improbably be held here and resolutions and petitions passed and adopted. But it is only a clever ruse on the part of our cunning neighbors of the next Province. They know very well that Nelson does not wish to ally herself with the debts, the bad roads, thg bankruptcy, and the turbulent demands for money which the valiant fighters would speedily make if they were annexed. We don’t desire to annex them ; they want to annex us, and, by this great meeting and pretended indignation, would fain have us believe that they are flourishing and well worth having; and so they hope to make us covetous of re-union. It is undeniably clever ; it is a bait, however, which will not take. So these imaginary grievance mongers will have, only the ‘ pleasing dear deceit’ left them of their own eloquence, and will probably, after their committee meetings, adjourn to some convenient ‘ Caucus Man cave, and fight their fancied battles of freedom o’er again, amidst fragrant incense ascending from dexterously manipulated mixtures of Wairau water at 212°, and something stronger.

‘ Freedom and whisky gan" thegither;— Tak all’ ) 1 1 dram!’” —Our readers will agree with us that this writer is quite off the track this time at least, and his own excitement must have led him quite astray. His ribald language now needs no other comment.