The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 565, 13 September 1851, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Be just and fear not: Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

'AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, SEPT. 13, 1051.

The Auckland Municipal Corporation Charter has now been for a week in the hands of the public, and has no doubt been read by very many with the attention due to a document bearing so extensively and influentially on our local interests. The matters with which it proposes to deal come home di-

lectly to us all ; we cannot, if we would, feel unconcerned about them. If they involve some theoretical and abstractedly political questions, yet they are moie eminently and immediately of a piactical character. While therefore, the candid advocate of free institutions may find in the Charter an establishment in this district of the system of self-government, moie large and liberal than peihaps three months since he would have ventured to anticipate as so close at hand, the man also whose views centre, though they may not terminate, on objects and purposes of tangible and available utility, can find in its provisidfts elements of good which only need to he fairly and judiciously employed, in order to secure great and permanent benefit to the community collectively, and therefore necessarily to himself as a constituent member of it. This general approbation of the measure is of couise quite compatible with an opinion that one or another particular might have been placed upon a more satisfactoiy footing. To asseit that it is absolutely faultless, would be to claim for it a perfection which, common sense and experience being the judges, it would be unreasonable to expect. If, on the whole, its merits gieatly and obviously preponderate over its supposed defects, — if, in its due administration it is calculated to produce public advantages far outweighing any inconvenience or loss that can justly be apprehended from its woiking,— then it is entitled to the favour and co-operation of those whose disposition leads them rather to a geneious appreciation of what is piaiseworthy, than to a lynx-eyed seaich after deficiencies, or a perverse rejection of a good actually brought within their reach, because it is not, in all its accompaniments and relations, everything that they— sitting in the easy chair of irresponsible criticism, without feeling, if not without knowing, the difficulties which environ rulers, — dogmatically affirm that it might have been. The advantages derivable from a wellworked Corporation here — (and let it always be borne in mind that its being well-worked mainly rests with the people themselves, who have the unrestricted power of chosing the men in whose hands the authority is to be lodged) — are so apparent that they need scarcely be pointed out. Do our streets and roads need impiovement 1 Are, some of our thoroughfares all but impassable, and some of our most densely occupied localities almost pestilential in hot weather from waiffc of prope r drainage 1 Is there a generally felt necessity for precautions against fire, which might in a few hours desolate our town, composed, as to so great an extent it is, of wooden buildings'? Is there a want of efficient police regulations on various points of detail, which, though they may seem small individually, are yet impoitant to the health, comfort, or good order of the town, but which at present there is confessedly no law to enforce? On these and other matters the people are most competent to legislate for themselves, and it is rather their province to do so than the province of the General Government, which has to take oversight of the affairs of the colony at laige ? The Charter meets these demands by vesting the most ample control in all that relates to such arrangements in a Council which will be as fully a representation of the people as election by a franchise virtually tantamount to universal suffrage can render it. The only limitation imposed upon the action of the Corporation is that the Bye Laws which the Council may adopt shall not be repugnant to the general legislation for the colony, and shall not come into operation until they shall have received the approval of the Governor or Lieutenant - Governor. This limitation, however, is rather apparent than real, so far as useful legislation is concerned. The power of veto vested in the Governor is the only restriction against which we have heard any objection urged. But this, we may reasonably conclude, would be exercised, not for political or thwarting purposes, any more than the corresponding authority possessed by the Governor in relation to the Bye Laws made by the Wardens of Hundreds has been so exercised ; but simply to secure — under the advice of the Law Officer of the Crown — that nothing illegal shall be included in them. A correspondent in our own columns on Wednesday urged, indeed, that this condition establishes an unjust distinction between the Queen's subjects here and her subjects at home ; but ; we apprehend that if he refer to the English Municipal Corporation Acts he will find that there is a clear reservation to Her Majesty of a corresponding right. At all events, in the preparation of the Auckland Charter, the point was not left open to the discretion of the colonial Government ; it was one on which the provisions in the Royal Instructions left Sir George Grey no alternative. An important question is the source from which the Revenue necessary for the purpose* of the Corporation is to be derived. It has been said that the Government should have endowed the Corporation more largely. Let us, however, bear in mind what has been done in this respect, and let those <vho object point out, if they can, a similar Corporation which has come into being with an equally large birthright of endowment — in proportion to the work it is called to perform. Institutions already exist, such as the Hospital, &c,, which have increasingly valuable landed property conferred upon them ; and these are to be unreservedly made over to the Council. For lloads, Hospitals, Relief of the Sick, &c, they have a Grant of neaiJy £2000 from the General Re-

venue placed at their disposal for the fust year, and a probability, little short of certainty, that similar support i\ill be granted in future years. Again, a must important source of permanent income is piovided in the " Land Fund Appropriation Ordinance" of the late Session, which (in* conformity with the "Additional Royal Instructions" of August 1S50) enables the Governor to authorize the application of as much as one third of the whole pioceeds of the Crown Lands Sales, to such purposes as the Corporation may judge fit. It is true that one-half of the money so applied must be expended within the limits of the Hundied within which the sum shall have arisen ; but what grievance or injury results to the other parts of the Borough fiom that arrangement ? The sum appropriated to proper undertakings within the Hundred, will by so much diminish the claims of that locality on the General revenue of the Corporation, and involve no conceivable injustice to other places. Over and above these sources of income, indeed, there will be a certain amount of toxation required, and to some this seems the great bugbear. No doubt it is not, in the abstract, a pleasant thing to be taxed ; but there are objects to be attained by it, when it is judiciously managed, which induce men in general to prefer it, as, if an evil, yet the lesser of two. Here, we think, Taxation may be kept low, and so appropriated as to satisfy the payers that the amount levied on them has been turned to account for the benefit of themselves as a pait of the public. It will be for the Burgesses to take care of their own interests at the coming election, by returning to the Council men on whose judgment, and integrity they can depend. If they are negligent on that occasion, they will have no just ground of complaint afterwards, should Councillors in whom they may not confide be placed in office. Moderate taxation, 'for the accomplishment of really useful purposes, will be cheerfully submitted to by that poition of the community who have at all times been prompt and liberal in aiding by their contributions the various local improvements for which private and un* forced help has been required ; and if there be any who have been unwilling to aid voluntarily in such undertakings, it will be only righteous that they should be brought by gentle compulsion to bear their share of the burden, and that the willing should not always go on paying for the unwilling. The property of absentees also will thus be caused to bear, as it righteously should, some portion of the expense of general improvements. In connexion with this part of the subject, we may observe that there seems somewhat of ad captandum special pleading in the objection that the Pensioner settlements will be exempted from taxation, and that, notwithstanding, those settlements can return Councillors empowered, and even disposed, to tax the other parts of the Borough unfairly. Now, admitting that the pensioners' military grants are not yet in that legal position which would subject them to taxation, still they, in a very few years, will be in that position, and the Charter is not issued as a mere temporary measure, but one which is prospective, and which will, we trust, be still in progress of beneficial development when the expiration of the pensioners' term of service will bring their lands under the same liabilities with all others. But this is only part of the tiuth. Many of the pensioners have already acquired, and are still acquiring, propeity independent of their military lelations, and that property of course becomes equally subject to the general levies as any other. As householders also, they must bear their share of the levy. To disfranchise the pensioners in such a measure as this would have bejHi an act of real injustice ; and we cannot apprehend any injury to the general interests of the district from the representation of their settlements in the Council. Even should the pensioners return their own officers, we are not afraid of the result. We believe those officers to be honourable men who would not abuse their station to sordid purposes ; and even if they were disposed to do so, we are satisfied they would not have the power in a Council in which Auckland and its suburbs will have six: members out of the whole fourteen. We deliberately refuse to deal with the supposition that the Officer-Councillors (assuming that such would be returned, which, however, is the merest assumption), and the representatives of the rural Wards would combine to inflict wrong upon the town for the attainment of selfish ends. We believe the imputation which is thus suggested to be wholly unwarranted ; and we earnestly deprecate its tendency thus early to sow the seeds of jealousy and suspicion between the town and country Wards. The length to which this article has extended obliges us to leave some points untouched for the present ; but the subject will necessarily engage our attention again and again. It is undoubtedly also engaging the attention of many of our readers, and, in proportion as the scheme is understood, it will, we are satisfied, command at least a general approbation. The Auckland public are not likely at this time of day to be clique-led into blind hostility on so important a measure as this. They will, as they are doing, examine and judge for themselves ; and as the result of such investigation will, we believe, conclude that the Charter gives the people a power to self-government which, if they rightly use it, must be beneficial — which, indeed, can produce evil only by the people's own fault.