MONTHLY SUMMARY FOR EUROPE. POLITICAL.

North Otago Times, Volume I, Issue 12, 12 May 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

MONTHLY SUMMARY FOR EUROPE. POLITICAL.

The most important items of business transacted in the Provincial Council during the past month, so far as the interests of this district are concerned, are, namely, the appointment of a Select Committee to take into consideration the petition from the inhabitants of Oamaru and the Waitaki district (praying for the appointment of a Commission to enquire into the necessity of improving the Roadstead of Oamaru), with power to call for persons, papers, and reports ; and the appointment of a Select Committee of the House to enquire into and ascertain the quantity and quality of the unsold land in the Province, and the character of the goldfields. By the immediate and faithful discharge of the responsibility incurred by each Committee, all controversy as to the resources of this district, will be set at rest. We are convinced that, while the one will point out the necessity of providing some accommodation for the landing and shipping of cargo at Oamaru, the other will lav before the House such evidence of the agricultural and pastoral capacities of this district as will put beyond all doubt the fact of its being the richest and most important of all the districts in the Province. The general question of the capabilities of a country, and the peculiar products for which it is adapted, ought to be made less a subject of dispute amongst the legislators of a country than it generally is. When a country has been inhabited for a lengthened period of time, there is generally ample information obtainable to enable persons to form sufficiently accurate conclusions on the matter. Men may differ as to the relative fertility of one spot as compared with another, but as regards the country in the aggregate, there ought to be no serious difference of opinion, inasmuch as agricultural capabilities are a question of climate and physical geography. Possessing information on thoho subjects, everyone may analogically determine the question for himself, without possessing that special topographical information to which pome persons think every person ought to be subjected. Notwithstanding there is a groat diversity of opinion existing amon« a certain section of our lam-mnhen and non-residents in the district on this point, but which we predict will be entirely set at rest by the work of the Select Committees. The Executive Council again returned to office soon after the departure of the April mail, and the first important item of business transacted was the making of the financial statement bv the Provincial Treasurer. It was made during the delivery of one of the ablest speeches ever listened to in the Council Chamber of Otago. The gist of it is that the Government have exceeded the amount they had to expend by £304,544 : but had the £500,000 loan been negociated, there would have been a balance in the Treasury of £338,455 7s. 5d. How the loan is to be negociated is the great question : for, unless foreign capital be obtained at a date not distant, all public works must stop, and the anticipation of this is creating the most gloomy anticipations thronghout the Province, but especially at the capital — Dunedin. But, should the newly-diseovpred goldfield at Marlborough prove a rich field, it will put the finishing stroke on the prosperity of the Province for sometime to come. There is nothing, however, to prevent the Government f.iom effecting the loan, and thus preventing a crisis. Surety there is, to any extent, in the shape of unalienatod valuable land, and other property. It remains only for the Government to represent this fact with a statement of the kind of works proposed to be carried out with the money to be borrowed, their extent, and the probable revenue to be derived from them : and, if needs be, to have the statement endorsed by a number of the leading commercial houses in the Province. This done, our Debentures will sell, and sell advantageously.