THE REVENUE OF VICTORIA.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 788, 2 November 1853, Page 2

THE REVENUE OF VICTORIA.

[From the " ATgus," Oct. C] From a very elaborate tabular statement of the Revenue, which appears in yesterday's Government Gazette, we extract the following particulars. We omit fractions. ORDINARY REVENUE.

The following table will show at a glance the amounts of the revenue, both ordii ary and territorial, and the ratio of increase for the respective quarters, and years, ending 30th September 1852 and 1853 :

It will be observed that the rate of increase is much greater on the year than on the quarter, so that the revenue, particularly the territorial revenue, has fallen off |in the lust quarter, as compared with the three former. The diminution in the ordinary revenue is easily accounted for by the comparative stagnation of trade in our midwinter; but the diminution in the proceeds of sales of land can only be accounted for by the quantity brought into the market not having been proportionably increased. Be this as it may, the result, notwithstanding, is truly astounding, as it shows that during the past ye'ar, taking the average of the population to have been about 220,000, each person has contributed upwards of £l2 to the Government of the countrv,—a circumstance, we venture to say, altogether" unprecedented in the annals of the world.

THE CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION AND THEIR LAND PURCHASES. (From the "Australian and New Zealand Gazette," Jnne, II.) Some months ago, towards the end of the exposure which wc deemed it necessary to make of the misappropriation of the funds of their colonists by the Canterbury Association, an account or balance-sheet of that body was set forth by the Government auditor, and transmitted to* and published in the Times newspaper; which account, even as it stood, proved all we had said relative to the operations of the Association. Our own statements being thus verified, we permitted the matter to drop, with an expression of opinion on our part, that " the Association ought to refund the money, or take other steps to satisfy the land purchasers who had been duped out of their money." Since that period, the land purchasers have by much importunity, and with great difficulty, been permitted to have access to a portion only of the documents of the Association. The result is a pamphlet containing the truth of the matter, as far as they have been permitted to get at it. This pamphlet has just been put into our hands by a Canterbury land purchaser, and we are sorry to say, that it ptoves the account sent to the Times to be an unworthy imposition upon the Government auditor. It is almost difficult under such circumstances to adhere to a polite nomenclature. According to the statement now made by the accountant of the Association, the receipts of that body were, 205,2592. 7s. 7d. His accounts of the expenditure are as follows; i. e., his accounts as given in the balance-sheet of the Association, and— his explanations afterwards ; as set down in the pamphlet alluded to : AnVEKTISIXG AND PbINTING.

A protty heavy amount this, being in round numbers 3£ per cent, on the gross receipts of the Association. AVe will only remark on one item, viz., the amount paid to the "New Zealand Journal" from the first February 1851 to the Ist of March 1832. The title of this paper, as our readers are aware, was taken from us, the "Australian and New Zealand Gazette" being only a nev series of the "Journal." On complaining of this, the Association denied having anything to do with the appropriation of our paper ; and every number of its issue bore on the face of it a standing protest, diat it had nothing whatever to do icith the Association. At page 45 of the statement before us is the following minute:--"In Feb. 1851, the " New Zealand Journal" was reeked under the Editorship of Mr. Bolder, the Committee agreeing to tukc 200 copies at each issue." It. is thus proved that the statement of the Association as having nothing to do with a paper so disreputably acquired, and of the paper itself as having nothing to do with the Association, were wilful and premeditated falsehoods, one of their principal officers being, moreover, its responsil le editor. It is hardly necessary to say that, these items do not appear in the Government auditor's account.

The next item to which we shall allude is a charge of 731/. 9s. lOd. for public breakfasts! This, we suppose, was old English hospitality, and much after the fashion of feudal times, when the serfs were not unfrequently made to supply the materials. What right had the Government auditor to pass such an item as this ? What shall we say to the following items in the account and its explanations?—

Outfits—Clergy 1,208 14 7 " Schoolmasters 328 18 4 Passasje allowance to Clergy and Clergymen's Salaries (? at home) 772 14 0 Schoolmasters SI 0 o Salaries in the Colony to Clergy and Schoolmasters 2,422 13 8 Rev. Thomas Jackson ]4 10 10 Salaries —Emigration Department 945 18 10 Salaries in Colony 98 2 10 Salaries and Allowances (Miscellaneous Fund) 2,659 0 0 Salaries in the Colony 4,082 1 6 Rev. Thomas Jackson 736 7 1 Salaries —11. Sewell, Deputy Chairman 1,300 0 0 " 11. F.Alston, Secretary ... 938 10 6 " Lefroy, do 105 0 0 " T.J. Blachford, Accountant 473 13 6 " Sidney Alston _ 91 2 8 " J. Knowles, Emigration Department 343 1 3 " Charles Aylmer 250 0 0 Clerks, Servants, &c 1.257 5 9 Shipping Agency 5,278 15 4 Total £25,968 1G 9 Amongst these salaries we find Mr. Sewell, the deputy chairman, set down at 1.300/. We presumed this patriotic gentlemen did everything gratia, for the good of the sacred cause in which he was engaged. Mr. Goilley, too, is put down at 1000/. a year ; and Mr. Bowler, the shipping agent, has 2,554/. for his services, By the by, this shipping agency account seems to have puzzled the Government Auditor, who was not, we suppose, used to such things. The shipping agency appears to have been rather an expensive affair, thus : W. Bowler, 2,554/. 3s. ; F. Young, 871/. 55.; C. Aylmer, 250/.; Filby and Co., 53/. 7s. 2d.; C Aylmer, 43/. 19s. 6d.; C. Aylmer, 20/. lis. Gd.; F. Filby, 572/. Gs. 9d.; J. Siavner. 591/. 17s. lOd. Total, 4,957/. Us. 9(1. paid to shipping agents alone, or, in round numbers 5,000/. paid" to shipping agents for the transaction of shipping business set forth by the balance-sheet at 34,587/. call it 35,000/. ; and the shipping agents got just one-seventh of the ivholc jjassagc money and freight, or a traction over fourteen per cent. " Crcdai Judreiis."

There is one item about tfio shipping account to which we must yet refer. Mr. Bowler gets £2,554 as agent for despatching seven ships. Mr. Young gets only 87 for despatching thirteen ship?, Mr. Aylmer despatching two for his share of the agency. There is another curiosity ahout the matter. On resigning his shipping agency, Mr. Bowler—or rather Mr. E. G. Wakefield in his name—wrote a pamphlet, proving the great fortune which the Association was making hy shipbroking. The Association —as in the case of the "New Zealand Journal" —had of course nothing to do with the pamphlet, except—to pay for its printing. The large profits made hy the shipping adventure turn out to be a loss of some 8,000/ or 9,000/. It is difficult to believe that statesmen could have been such simpletons.

But the above salaries and commissions are not all ; for we gather from odd items here and there, that the bishop designate got 2,000/.; Mr. Godley 2,500/.; in addition to a mysterious item of " sundry payments, J. Godley, 324/.;" ('apt. Thomas's salary, 1,793/. 12*. 6d\; Mr. Felix Wakefield, 3,257/.; besides an expenditure annually in the colony of 2,756/. for officers of all sorts, from the chief agent to the draughtsman. From the way in which the accounts are stated, it is difficult to pick out these items ; but we shall underrate payments of this nature by setting them down ii round numbers at 30,000/., lor administering 295,000*.

Now, who does the Canterbury Association expect will believe, for one moment, the above, expenditure on clergy and school-masters, in a colony in which were neither churches nor schools ? We will not, at any rate. Let us look at some of the minor ikms in the aecount: —

Eight thousandpounds and upwards for " sundries, &c." All we can say is, that they were very expensive sundries, and we should very much like to see the vouchers for them. But let us dive again into this precious statements o accounts. We have not got to a single colonization item yet, though we have accounted for 45,000/. out of the 205,000/. received, or nearly 25 per cent, of the whole ?

Not a word about colonization yet, notwithstanding that we have accounted for 103,000;. out Of the 205,000?. received by the Association from its land purchasers and godly persons who contributed to the Church Fund :—or more Ihanowehalf of the whole amount. Did our space allow we' might swell this list farther by a few thousands, but enough has been adduced to show the way in which the funis of the Association have been spent. As we st ited on a former occasion, there must have been nice pickings somewhere. The results above given, be it remembered, are not in a single instance taken from any statements of the land purchasers; but they are in eeery item taken from the accounts of the Association's accountant, Mr. Blachford, and from some dozen pages explanatory of his general account, whereby the latter is rendered almost as unique as have been the operations of the Association itself. lis for the account furnished by the Government .auditor, which appeared in the Times, he, poor man, had no dozen explanatory pages to guide him, so that we may rank his version of the matter as innocent fiction, to be classed with the history of Ali Baba, or the forty decidedly mistaken gentlemen. In short, he was emphatically done, as is further evinced by his having set down the 734/. for the breakfast account above alluded to.

We have devoted this article to the non-coloni-zation operations of the Association. This noncolonization is what the land purchasers complain of; we will, however, at present have nothing to do with the colonization portion of their expenditure. If the land purchasers are not compensated, we shall have to come to that also, and it will afford items not a little curious. We had rather also not touch upon it on another ground, —that if we told all we knew, none of our readers would believe that a body of gentlemen could have been so deluded as to what was going on under their sanction. Of these gentlemen themselves we stick to our old version—they, too, were done ; and in this belief they have subscribe! some 11,000/. out of their own pockets, to repair damages. They saw something was wrong, and they opened their purses to set matters right; but the sum extorted from their sense of honesty has followed the rest. They are complaining of disbursing thousands for their pet scheme, and with good reason; whilst their coadjutors, who, previous to the formation of the Association, had not a penny to call their own, have left it with the odour of thousands in their bank-books. The Association has fallen out with us for laving bare these things, but they have never been able to gainsay one word that we have written; and we have never in any instance blamed them, except for their want of perception in not seeing that they were mere tools in the hands of men as deeply versed in the arcana of company-managing, as they themselves were in the rubric. The position of Mr. Felix Wakefield has apparently been the most unhappy of the lot. In hU capacity of land agent he worked like a horse to collect dupes, and what little success the Association had is due to his energy, —the rest were too busily engaged in dividing the spoil as he collected it, to interfere with him. His reward appears to have been reaping the whirlwind as he sowed the wind. Worse than this, —when he himself reached the colony, the settlers, who had gocd cause to remember his activity, turned upon him like a pack of bull-dogs, as having been the means of deluding them there! forgetting the principles in the The press, the organ of the Association in the colony, was only too delighted at the turn things were taking, and turned on him too, hallooing the mob on, as though he, and not the Association, had been the delinquent. Mr. Godley appears to have thriven pretty well considering the scheme was a failure. The private payments to that gentleman, as per accounts ami explanations, stand thus, as far as we can understand such a document: —Paid Mr. Godley, chief agent, 2,500/. Another portion of the account tells us that his salary commenced in October 1849, and that to the 31st of December, 1851, he was paid 1,600/., whilst in another place, to the same date, we rre told that he was paid 2,7507. Bs. Here are distinct and contradictory statements. In addition to these items, we find J. R. Godley, repaid 120/. 19s. o"d. • sundry payments, J. It. "Godley, 324/. Is. 9d. We confess that we can make nothing of such accounts, and therefore dismiss them. The only thing we can comprehend is, " Ihdanee-sheet as rendered by the accountant of the Canterbury Association," and ten pages of "additional statements by Mr. Blachibrd, concerning various items of expenditure." The hecounts as given, are, however, very far from complete, and the Association owes to its own reputation for common honesty—let alone its religious pretensions—that the fullest information should be made public. Nobody suspects such men as Lord Lyttelton of having misappropriated the funds of the Association, but they have been most extensively misappropriated, and the " honourable men" of that body cannot come out of it with clean hands, unless they not only give every facility for arriving at the truth, but actually aid, heart anil soul, in discovering the delinquents. The land purchasers are endeavouring to sift the matter to the bottom, and they have a right to every paper in the possession of the Association, which has paraded itself to the Avorld as only their agents. Should not an honest agent disclose every thing to his principal I The number of high and honourable names who volunteered to become the agents of the land purchasers, have a tenfold motive in clearing themelves from the charge of fraudulent concealment

| whieh is imputed to them. We can understand a mere city jobber making all he can out of his principal, then laughing at him, if legally protected, or if there be difficulty in obtaining a legal remedy; but dukes, colonial ministers, peers of the realm, baronets, archbishops, bishops, cannot practise this worldly wisdom with impunity. It is to us matter of great surprise that the Duke of Newcastle, holding as he does the sceptre of our colonial empire, did not, under all circumstances, signalize his accession to office, by instituting a parliamentary inquiry into a matter in which his own hor.our was so deeply implicated, as being himself a haling member of the Association. Yet we suspect that the land purchasers have been denied access to such documents of the Association as are wanted to clear up the practices which have been pursued. This, in a common mercantile view, would be discreditable ; with such names as compose the Canterbury Association, it is disgraceful, and we trust there is honour enough left amongst members of parliament to demand the information required.

Quarters ended 30th Sept., 1052. 1863. Gold Licenses . 80,500 . . . 147,854 10,0)7 . . . 15,710 Customs Duties . 83,446 . . . 179,252 Port ami Harbour Dues 2,9(17 . . . 4,0411 2,638 . . . 7,292 Auction Duty . 879 . . . 2,0/9 Assessment on Stock . 137 . . . — Licenses — Auctioneers' . 37 . . . «70 Publicans, &c 1,729 . . . 4,906 Fines, Forfeitures, and Fees 5,791 . . . 13,977 Miscellaneous . 1,500 . . . 3,940 1'JO.GOG 305,032 TERRITORIAL REVENUE. Proceeds of Sales of Land 207,751 . , . . 333,593 Leases and Licenses to occupy 2,97« i , . . . r >,0fi6 Miscellaneous 1,00c 1 , 3 . . . 12,619 OKI OOft 27L73 402,3 40 730,3::o

Quarter f ended Ratio of 30th .Sept.. increase 1032 1053 per cent. Ordinary Revenue . . £l»M>0f> £386,032 102 Tentorial Revenue. 271,733 361,298 2!) Totals . . £402,340 £726,330 5'J Years ended 30th September. 11)52. 1853. Ordinary Revenue . . £505,324 £l,4i;<Ulfl5 100 Territorial Revenue 868,600 1,236,341 124 Totals . £1,123,823 £2,725,220 142

£ S. il. Ecclesiastical Fund ... 115 a 10 Emigration Fund ... ... 1,157 3 0 Miscellaneous Fun 1 1,133 11 10 School Books, &c. ... ... 1,487 5 1 Printing 499 4 4 Stationery 28 18 10 Stationery and Copying 700 11 4 Stationery and Surveying Instruments 781 1 11 Printing in the Colony 121 5 4 Amount paid " New Zealand Journal" 9G 12 0 Books, Maps, and Newspapers. ... 498 10 11 £G,G19 9 7

£ s. d. Communion Plato for ships ... - .. 139 18 0 Casual expenses 2.3 16 3 Discount (!) 20 0 0 Sundries 11 0 0 Sundries .. 102 1 10 Travelling expenses ... .. 53 6 8 Casual expenses .. 26 7 8 Casual expenses .. 46 14 4 Legal expenses .. 891 4 2 Note of hand : Gallop (!) 5 0 0 Postages and parcels . 233 14 8 Rents, Fuel, and Light . 1256 3 7 Travelling expenses, carriage hire .. . 330 9 4 Boating . 175 6 4 Preliminary expenses . 5196 3 5 Travelling expenses . 52 12 2 Sundries 32 5 10 J. It. Godley, repaid . 120 19 6 £8717 3 4

A. 3. Building materials and church furniu. ture 1,064 19 2 Commission on Land Sales 1,334 6 0 Endowment of the Bishopric ... 10,000 0 0 Investment in Land 15,108 G 0 Passage money 209 7 0 Buildings, &c 1,087 13 5 Customs duties 91 3 0 Funeral expenses 64 2 4 Freight 147 4 X Medical Inspector 63 0 0 Customs duties 489 4 7 Pass'go allowances 174 r> 0 Gratuities to ship doctors (!) ... 2,905 7 ]] Flour and coals 837 10 2 Commission on Land Sales 667 3 0 Furniture and repairs 481 1 0 Freights and Insurance ' 217 15 8 New Zealand Company 8,333 6 0 Passage-money 328 0 0 Purchase-money—Reserves (!) 4,271 17 3 Buildings 5,436 8 5 Coram'ssion and Discount 309 0 1 Bills drawn from the Colony ... 2,870 16 8 Discount COO 0 0 Local Government of New Zealand 1,600 0 0 £58,691 17 4