Page 4 Advertisements Column 3

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 576, 22 October 1851, Page 4

respect of tl eir Mow-townsmen by an honourable course ofinduhlrious effort, should think of me as one worthy of their confidence in so responsible an oflice. I deem it my duty, however, before accepting any pledge from you on the subject, to state to you, as briefly ' as I can, the views that I hold respecting the Charter and the manner in which f think it should be received and carried into effect by the inhabitants. in the first place, J believe that whatever amount of local power is transferred by the Charter from the Executive Government of the Province to the Corporation will be more efH- | cicntly and lebS expensively exercised by the Corporation than it has been by the Government. Therefore, the larger the amount of local control the inhabitants can have placed in their own hands, the better will the interests of every locality within the Borough be attended to. The authorities in whose hands are placed the general government and administration of the aflaiis^ of an extensive Countiy or Province, seldom give more than secondary attention or thought to the wants of individual districts or localities, and while the grievances of every settlement is well known and keenly felt by the settlers therein, they feel astonishment that the Government should manifest so little concern about them. But so it is, and so it has ever been here, even at the seal of Government. And hence the desire that we have felt for the day to come that would give us the management of our own local affairs. In illustration of the apathy with which the Executive have looked upon our demands for their interference in our behalf, I might point to the frequent presentments made to the Chief Justice by Grand^ Juries respecting dangerous and unwholesome nuisances in the town, ilis Honor could only move in such cases by forwarding the representations of the Grand Jury to the proper authorities, but after that the public heard nothing further of them. As regards the outlay of money by the Government on public improvements, there can be no question but that if the amounts that have been thus expended had been placed under the management of lo al boards chosen from any of the localities in which such improvements were to be made, much more than has been done would have been accomplished by the same expenditure. I therefore think that, for these reasons alone, to which many others might be added, the instalment of local management that has been placed in our hands should be received turned to the best account. Of course the duties that will be performed by the Corporation will curtail the demands on the revenue for the support of establishments hitherto maintained in the Borough, and the result of the abolition of expensive departments must leadtoa reduction of the provincial taxation, so that in a short time the inhabitants will not be required, nor will they suffer themselves to be taxed for the maintenance of a revenue larger than will be sufficient for the general purposes of the province, strictly and economically witched over by the members of the Provincial Council. Certain endowments will be handed over to the Corporation immediately on its formation. Those endowments, it is true, so far as they can be employed for general purposes, are small, but I believe that the Council, after it has once entered upon its duties in a proper spirit, will have no difficulty in obtaining larger and valuable endowments. Auckland is clearly entitled to an equivalent for that portion of the proceeds of her lands which should have been expended in the formation of roads, wharfs, and bridges, but which was applied to other purposes, and the extension of the Borough so as to take in the Epsom and Tamaki Districts enlarges this claim very considerably. It may be said on the one hand that the streets and roads that have been formed must be taken as instalments on account of this claim ; but it is well known that the most productive Land Sales in the Town, the suburbs, and the adjacent country districts took place in the early years of the colony, the proceeds of which were expended for the general purposes of the Government long before these roads or streets were made, and that the cost of their construction was partly paid out of the revenue of the colony and partly from Parliamentary Grants. On the other hand it has been said by those opposed to the Charter on account of the paucity of endowments, that the share of the proceeds of Crown Lands, to be sold within the Borough, which has been made over to the Corporation, will be but very insignificant, and gradually become extinct ; and that there is now no land in the town wherewith to endow the Corporation. Now it appears that the most valuable (for Corporation purposes) of the Town Lands still remains in the hands of the Crown. I mean the under-water allotments in Commercial and Official Bays. It is some of this that I should recommend the Council to ask for as compensation, and there can be no just grounds for withholding from the Corporation whatever quantity of land it may reclaim from the sea in Commercial Bay at least . This would become valuable to the Borough by affording the Corporation scope to erect commodious wharfs and docks for the convenience of our own trading vessels, and the occasional reception of the numerous whalers that frequent the Pacific which visit our port to refit. I do not see that there need be any fearful forebodings of grinding taxation under the New Charter. The members of the Council, I have no doubt, notwithstanding the no-property-qualifica-tion title to seats, will be men liable to be taxed more or less themselves, and there is no danger but the power of taxation will be exercised but very sparingly. Nor do I sec any immediate needf or collection of property taxes within the Borough. The AVharf in Commercial Bay, which is in course of construction, will be completed with funds supplied on loan by the Government, and, notwithstanding that we are on the eve of the advent of our Corporation, several other necessary works of improvement are being carried on by the LieutenantGovernor. The Wharf is the only costly work of immediate necessity that should be urged speedily to completion. When it is once finished, it will become a source of income to the Corporation of no small amount. Moderate taxation will no doubt be necessary, by-and-by, but even then the present voluntary lax-payers will be considerable gainers. It has been customary, when any local improvement was resolved upon, for those who took an interest _in the undertaking to call on a few of the inhabitants to contribute towards it. There are some generous men among us Avhose pockets I have never been closed against demands of this kind. But this system of taxation has fallen very heavily upon individuals, while the community at large, although contributing nothing, have enjoyed equal advantages in the improvements made. This is a system which is open to many objections. Tt is very partial in its exactions, and seldom sufficient to the satisfactory accomplishment of the object in view. _ The following are the sentiments of Mr. Elliott, of the Nelson Examiner, when speaking at a Meeting there on the subject of Municipal Corporations, which expresses my own views on this subject so fully, that I adopt them and say, "that in the alarm at the prospect of taxation I cannot participate, believing that no amount of rating to which we should be subjected (by the Corporation) would amount to as much as has been given voluntarily, and we should moreover have the satisfaction of seeing all persons called to contribute —every one according to his means, and the money so raised expended wholly by the direction of the people themselves." On the subject of the suffrage my humble opinion is that the Charter has bestowed nothing upon llie Burgesses of this Borough than that to which every bonu fide inhabitant has in justice an undoubted right. For although there may be