PROVINCIAL APPROPRIATIONS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 383, 14 July 1876, Page 3

PROVINCIAL APPROPRIATIONS.

The proposed expenditure for the current half year ending 30th September, is now before ua. The appropriations indetails show the impolicy of preventing the Council from meeting in its usual course. The result has been that the Executiveuncheckedhave been able to frame Katimates which are singularly unfair to interior districts, while at the game tirr.o they present features indicative of future acta which we hardly like to characterise. For instance provision ia made for the cancellation of IGO,OOO acres, at present leaned as pastoral runs. Thij country can only be about to bo cancelled to bo sold to the tenants as was attempted lateiy. The l'Jstiinntca also show the reason for this largo appropriation of £20,000 for cancellation purposes. Wo take out the items:— Railways.— Division No. 43. Awamoko £4OOO 0 0 Waiarclfa Valley ... 12,159 0 0 Main line to Outram via a o sgiel 20,000 0 0 Southland lines 57.745 0 o Rolling Stock and ship- ' ping... ... CO3O 0 0 Main line to Seaward Bush 25,000 0 0 £124,535 0 0 Of this eum £57,789 are required by the 80th Heptember. This schedule explains the sacrifice about to be made of pastoral estate. JNot only do we suffer thus, but in order to make the .Estimates acceptable to th« General Government the votes for roads and works aro pared down to what practically means a total waste of money in what ia proposed—for it is well lui.iwn that patchwork roadmnking is uuoleßH... <)ur district has nothing to boast of. We notice Manu-

lierikia bridge, £3OO, but the Government knows very well that that euinis insufficient. The only other appropriation is £350 for the Kyobur:i bridge, which is already built. There is positively not a single vote for the St. Ba* thans district, while the wretched state of the roada on either side of the township is well known. £IOO ia granted for the Strathtaieri road, on which £IOOO would scarcely be seen. £SO is down for Hyde to Upper Taieri bridge ; £SO for Upper Kye'ourn (probably in connection with the bridge approaches); £l5O, Sbag Valley to ICyeburn, via Macraes ; £SO. Naseby to Hamilton (a vote that has been on the Estimates from the beginning of time, and which ia ne?er spent). On the main road things are worse ; £I2OO is the only grant from Palmerston to Mnnuherikia, and £GOO from Manuherikia to Dunstan. Such appropriations are merely a byeword and reproach.