New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1871. THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 13, 22 April 1871, Page 11

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1871. THE WEEK.

—<3— ■ — . The Superintendence election is now over, but the battle of the Constitution has not been fought, and hus not at present even been fairly begun. It will be conducted but feebly in the Provincial Council, for with Mr Bunny a member ot the Executive the antiprovincial cause in effect, jf not in name, will have lost its most energetic advocate. When offices in the Provincial Government and Council are foiled such convenient means of attaining higher preferment, as witness the cases of Messrs Woodward, Best, Holdsworth, Knowles, &c, Mr Bunny will not feel disposed to knock down the Provincial ladder while yet standing on its rounds. The Provincial Secretary's or Superintendent's Office has not proved a bad way to take to reach a permanent secretaryship, or even still higher preferment; and we may rest assured that Mr Bunny will not feel disposed to close the doors of the one, if by that course he stopped his progress towards the other. Instead of blaming him for this, we should consider it a most fortunate circumstance if we could feel persuaded that he would infuse into the Provincial Government a. portion of that energy he has displayed in his own political life, for the purposes of developing a feeling of self-exertion in the Council and province instead of encouraging them to whine for aid from without. If he should do this he will practically prove to his constituents that -the Provincial system has far more important uses than merely serving as a convenient stepping stone to attain office in the General Government. The Provincial Council, when it meets, should assert its existence, and prove by deeds, not words, of what materials it is made. But if it should seek cowardly to abdicate the functions with which it has been clothed by the Constitution Act, the people would do well to petition the Governor for its immediate dissolution, for it will be at the next general election that the battle of the Constitution will bo fairly fought and decided. It will bo a curious circumstance in political, though it has sometimes been witnessed in private life, if it should turn out, as we firmly believe it will, that the professed friends of the Provincial system have been its worst enemies, and its open enemies, when it comes to the pinch its best friends. Had we space, we should be glad to give our readers the whole of the information contained in the voluminous report on roads, [ laid, the other day, before the New South

Wales Parliament; and we shall most certainly return to the subject in a future issue. At present we can only point out one or two of the most important and striking facts contained in the report'before us, for the information of our Provincial legislators and their constituents. The total revenue derived from tolls in New South Wales since 1857, amounts to the handsome sum of £204,452. The revenue from tolls last year reached £IB,OOO ; and yet goods are carried there at one-fourth the price they are carried in this province. In justice to our carriers, we may observe that they would not object to tolls if the money collected was expended on the maintenance of the roads, and not on official salaries. It has been argued here that tolls, if general, would be swallowed by the cost of collection. This has not proved to be the case in New South Wales. The collection there only costs 4 per cent, of the gross amount collected. To I prevent roads being cut to pieces with heavy loaden waggons, the Government has put weighbridges on the main lines, and cumulative tolls in proportion to the weight carried. A better and less expensive arrangement would be to prohibit, under severe penalties, the carrying of certain weights on certain widths of thre, as in South Australia. When roads in this province aro made and maintained exclusively out of tolls and taxes the public will discover that some legislation on this subject is necessary here, and perhaps not till then—that the fact to which we wish to draw attention is that relative to the cost of carriage in New South Wales as compared with its cost here. In that colony in some cases it costs 4d, and in no case does it cost more than 8d per ton per mile. Sixpence appears to be about the average charge, which would be at the rate of 25s per ton for 50 miles, or about one-fourth the price charged here for a similar distance. If it cannot be done for less, it follows that a railway here would prove four times more advantageous to us than a railway would prove to the inhabitants of New c 'outh Wales. Reckoning that in both countries goods could be carried by rail at the rate of 2d per ton per mile, there the carriage would be two-thirds less, and here eleventwelfths less than at present. We commend this striking fact to Mr J. C. Richmond's attention. The whole of last week it continued very wet. According to Saxby we were to have much rain in March, and his prediction, as it appeared, proved true. On the same authority we are to have much wet during the latter part of April. We trust that, in this case, he may prove out in his reckoning. This is the eleventh year, or last of the cycle, and noted by astronomers as a wet year, and therefore bad for agriculturists, but good for graziers and dairy farmers. Gbod also for planting or transplanting, besides possibly for other things/ if we only knew what. Nature's laws, unlike some Colonial ones, are always beneficent, and must be obeyed. The principle of " permissive compulsion" is unknown in its enactments.