New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4185, 19 August 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1874.

If the proposition of the Premier to abolish Provincialism in the North Island may be supported on grounds that were not at first alluded to in the House, it will also encounter opposition for reasons that escaped his calculation. One of these is that striking a blow at the institution in the one island, and allowing it to go unscathed in the other, creates aninvidiousdistinctionbetweenthem. The fact may be a literal one that Canterbury is very wealthy as compared with any Province in this Island, but it is not the less correct that the people of the Province of Wellington, justly proud of the_ progress that has recently been made in it, do not exactly relish the idea of Provincial Government being knocked on the head, primarily because the Provinces are in so very impecunious a condition. The financial state of this Province was shown by the Superintendent in his opening speech to be in a very improving condition. Up to the close of 1871 there was an annual deficit between the estimated and the actual revenue. The Estimate for 1871-2 was exceeded by £11,699, for 1872-3 by £14,389, and for 1873-4 by £19,086. During these years the revenue was doubled, and this arose not alone from the greater sale of land : it was a consequence partly of the increase of direct taxation from £4278 per annum to £19,086. Doubtless this state of affairs warrants Mr. Vogel in his assertion that the Middle Island need feel no apprehension that a portion of its land revenue would be wanted for the North Island. But it does not seem to us either to aflect the question of the enormity of the sum of money the General Government has had to provide for expenditure on public works in the North Island, or to be affected by this. Mr. Mtzherbert denies the fact that there has been this enormous expenditure, but supposing it to be granted, Mr. Vogel is about tho last man to reproach the Island with it. Expenditure in introducing immigrants to the Colony, and upon public works, is his own policy. If, during the last three years the sum of £2,387,777 has been expended out of the Colonial Exchequer on the North, is not this simply carrying out his great scheme for lifting the Colony out of the Slough of Despond into which it had drifted? There is no slight to Wellington in uttering the fact, or in adducing itas evidence why Provincialism should be abandoned in this island. In his budget speech the Premier said his sympathies were very warm with Provinces in both tho North and South Islands which contributed heavily to the general revenue whilst they had but very slight ones of their own. The largo amount of money that the General Government has to find for its own expenditure in the Provinces of the North Island, and for tho Provincial Governments, is one reason why the responsibility of judiciously expending it should rest with those who have to find it, but this is only one of the causes that led to the change boing proposed. The Province of Wellington has had a full share of the money voted for immigration, and borrowed for public works. Notwithstanding this, the Superintendent and his Treasurer are constantly asserting that Mr. Vogel will not lot them have money, that their Treasury is empty, and that he is actuated by an animus against Wellington. Then, when he proposed to take three per cent, of tho acres in the Province for State forests, they described his Bill as an insidious attempt to , filch Provincial estates which" he could not take openly. Mr. Vogel, recollecting what troublo the Government had in the Supreme Court with the Provincial Executive, tho amount of financing the Colonial Treasurer has to undertake for the Provinces, and the hostility Provincial Councils havo manifested to the development of public works—refusing to take over roads made expressly for the benefit of the Provinces, and allowing others near to their boundaries to go out of repair lest these should benefit other Provinces—bogan to consider whether Provincialism, which was a constant thorn in the flesh of the General Government, and a drain upon its resources, might not better be abolished. The 1 figures he obtained in his researches, the impoitance of which can orilv be ascertained by reference to the tables compiled and published with his speech, were eminently suggestive to his own mind, and will doubtless be so to other people. But,

let this be as it may, the break which has precipitated the proposal of the change will be generally regretted. If the Provincial Government would but have honestly admitted that the Ministry had been spending large sums of money in the Province for its benefit, the admission would doubtless have been made in return that Wellington is in a much more prosperous state since Mr. Fitzherbert's administration of affairs than it ever was before. But Ministers would still have remembered the fact that seems so Very distasteful to the Provincial authorities, of there being a limit to the oxtent to which it is desirable to borrow money. As the Premier said, "if we put millions of money in their hands for public purposes, they would still find means of showing that they wanted-a million or two more." The figures Mr. Vogel collected respecting the specific disbursements and receipts of Provincial Governments are, as he said, worthy of careful study. It would seem that the capitation allowances paid to the Provinces of the North Island during the financial year 1873-4 amounted to £BB,OOO. This sum was to pay the cost of certain services such as harbors, gaols, asylums, &c. The sums paid for these purposes amounted to £51,145 net. This showed that the general revenue was bled to the oxtent of nearly £40,000 for no purpose but to allow Provincial Treasurers funds to operate upon. The rate of expenditure„on such objects varied in the Provinces.. In Wellington, it was 12s. 6d. ! per head of the population ; in Auckland, 7s. 7Jd ; in Taranaki, 7s. Id. ; and in Hawke's Bay, 7s. 2d. Why in Wellington it should be nearly double what it is elsewhere does not clearly appear. Wellington had a land revenue that year of £51,034 against Auckland's £4396, and Hawke's Bay's £02,455. Auckland again had a goldfield revenue of £14,603, against Wellington's nil, and she also received £13,217 for licenses against Wellington's £4153. The Harbor Department of Wellington [yielded £2703 against £662 received at Auckland. The expense of this j department was £25.86 at Auckland against £2902 at Wellington. An item closely relating to this subject is that which showed that the cost of harbors, hospitals, lunatic asylums, charitable aid, police, gaols, and education, was Bs. 10|d. per head of the population in the North Island, and 16s. 6id. in the Middle Island. As Mr. Vogel said, either the management in the Middle Island is exceedingly extravagant, or the North Island is wretchedly starved. There were services, he continued, that, "in the interest of the Colony, ought to be conducted efficiently; whereas our lunatic asylums were, with some few exceptions, a disgrace, as also were our gaols. The provisions in the North Island for education were far from satisfactory." These facts and figures will go far to convince persons who read them impartially that the time has arrived for a great change to be made. A stronger case may be made out than many persons would anticipate.