THE Marlborough Express. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1869.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 194, 18 September 1869, Page 3

THE Marlborough Express.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1869.

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

We extract the following from the Auckland Southern Cross , fhe editor of which is reputed to receive a salary of ,£1,500 a year. Such a person ought to be wellinformed, and we believe he is so. " How, then, shall we account for such a positive perversion of facts as will be apparent to the merest tyro in official statistics, which are accessible to all in the profession? We fail to perceive what object he seeks to gain by such wilful mis-statements, made too with such apparent exactness. How, we may ask, would Auckland be benefited were Marlborough to cease to exist 1 Is it not rather to the benefit of the whole Colony that all its members should be satisfied and contented ? We shall not, however, moralise at any length on the subject, while we cannot allow the matter to pass without some brief remarks. He says:—

“ The case of Marlborough is one that is now brought very prominently before the public, as it has been the first Province not only to break down completely, but to admit the completeness of its failure. Marlborough was, as our readers are no doubt aware, part of the Province of Nelson, until in an evil hour it took advantage (or, to speak more correctly, availed itself) of the NeW Provinces Act, and set up on its own account as a full-blown province. Since then it has been employed mainly in finding out its mistake. Nelson has prospered as a province during the whole period, and has even prospered to an unusual extent during the latter part of it,; but Marlborough has been consistent and has never prospered at all. Gradually she has sunk lower and lower in the scale of Provinces, till for the last year she has been absolutely living on charily from the Colony at large. On turning to the expenditure of the Province of Marlborough for 1868, we find that its whole amount was £10,511 4s. 6d. But moderate as the total is when divided amongst Executive and Legislative officers, roads, harbors, police, gaols, and a hundred other things, it was just £6,411 12s, Id. more than the province had of its own to spend on the year, and the money was advanced to the Province hy the Colony. Under the circumstances, it would be foolish to deny that the Province of Marlborough is a failure. There is not anything like enough of it to support a lobal Government of anything like the scope and pretensions of a Provincial Government as at present constituted. Yet the Government proposal to re-annex Marlborough to Nelson finds anything but favor in Marlborough itself. There it appears the' people have been holding meetings, and have shown a truly pat-

riotic spirit by preferring (in words) any thing, to absorption. It is no easy matter to see what they do want. It is ciear that the Colony cannot go on allowing Marlborough or any province to exist at the cost of the rest of the colonists. The advance of £6,411, made last year, cannot be expected year by year, that Marlborough may retain the dignity of being a Province apart from Nelson ; and, if not, it is hard to see what is left but what has actually been proposed.”

That Marlborough has not prospered, in an official sense, is but too true; on the other hand, Nelson has prospered through adventitious a**! from the Western goldfields, while Wellington has gained largely from similar aid through becoming the seat of Government, and the terminus of ocean steamers; both largely aided by Marlborough’s Customs Revenue. That we have been living on the “ charity of the Colony” is a base calumny founded, we presume, on the incorrect figures quoted above. The statement that the expenditure of the Province in 1868 was £10,511 is simply an exaggeration, and we cannot conceive whence the writer has drawn his figures, which appear to us a pure invention. What are the facts'? Our Ordinary Revenue for 1867 8 was £9,235, out of which we contributed to the Colonial Services £4,617, end for General Government Services, within and for the Province, £4,239, leaving only £376 to supplement our Land Revenue in defraying the necessary Provincial expenditure, Thejollowing year showed a different state of things : our Ordinary Revenue was reduced to £7,866, and our contribution to Colonial purposes was accordingly only £3,933, while the General Government Services within the Province reached to £5,537, or £1,604 of a deficiency, which was, with the trifling sum of £BB received by the Province for appropriation, deducted from our Land Fund. Consequently the latter did not suffice, and an advance of £3,000 was then for the first and only time allowed by the Assembly of the Colony, which tacitly permitted an Auckland Bank to seize our remaining funds, while it refused to allow us to contract a loan among ourselves for the erection of the very necessary bridge over the Wairau. How this sum got magnified into £6,411 is beyond our skill to divine.

The next point appears to be an expression of wonder that Marlborough has an objection to give up her independence by being absorbed into Nelson ! Setting aside our experience of the parental affection which was not lavished on this district when formerly a portion of Nelson Province, we have a strong objection to give up our political rights, and local supervision, or to stultity ourselves as would be the case if annexed to any other Province. What we seek is to govern ourselves ; and it must be within the knowledge of the astute writer that our Provincial Council passed a petition to the General Assembly stating most unmistakably what we did want, and this prayer was duly reported upon in the early part of the session in the following terms ;- “This is a petition from the Provincial Council of Marlborough praying that the House will, by enactment, abolish Provincial Institutions in Marlborough, and make other provisions for the management of the Province... The subject matter of the petition involves a great principle of policy, and it rests with the Ministry to originate, and the Legislature to determine, what course should be adopted in the case of Provinces similarly circumstanced as that of Marlborough.” What we do want is to be placed in the same position as the rest of the Colony; to receive the same benefits from the Government, the same share of Revenue, and pay the same share of Taxation. We care not by what process this is accomplished—whether by an increased grant of Revenue, or by all the Revenue of the Colony being absorbed by the General Government, and the Taxation consequently decreased. Our prayer is—Serve us all alike.

We are glad to inform our readers that the Flax Manufacture is progressing successfully. Messrs. Sinclair 3nd~JU>gan’s mill is now IrT'full operafiom A double machine from Mills of Wellington, arrived per Amateur on Thursday, for Messrs. Powick and Burroughs which they intenct, to erect near the Tua Marina bush, on a | splendid flax field of their own. Their scutcher is in course of construction, and. they expect to commence work during the coming week. Of those intending to commence the manu-l facture, we may mention that Mr. Cornej lius Murphy purposes utilising the flax in his vicinity, having ordered the requisite machinery from Price «fe Co., of We understand also that Messrs. MaskellJ Bull, and Pavetfc, of Canterbury, have de| termined to commence active operations on an extensive scale in the Spring Creek district, where they have the refusal of d capital piece of flax country for the purpose, where the Spring Creek will be avaih able for motive power.