MR. W. JOHNSTON AT FOXTON.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4306, 8 January 1875, Page 3

MR. W. JOHNSTON AT FOXTON.

(FROM OCR OWN REPORTER.) Mr. Walter Johnston addressed the electors, at Fox ton, bn Saturday, the 2nd inst., in the Schoolroom. There was a considerable number of electors present. * ■Mr. Johnston said that no doubt the ..electors in the several districts of the North --Island would feel more than usual interest in the . deliverances of then’- members during this re■J „ cess, because they would expect not only to hear an account of the proceedings of Parlia- • meutin thclastsession, butthey would also naturally look forward to receive a declaration of ..members’ views on the great question to be submitted to Parliament next session—the question of-, the abolition of provinces in the North Island. And before he concluded ho would place Iris views plainly before the meeting. Ha would only say this, that the idea was evidently a sudden one, which had not: occurred to Ministers until some time after Parliament had met ; for in the speech with which his Excellency opened Parliament, he said that the demands upon the administrative attention of Ministers were so urgent that they thought it expedient not to legislate upon matters whicb did not. press for immediate solution, and among the few subjects to which he informed us the attention of Parliament would be directed no inention was made of a design to alter the Constitution. We were told that the principal subjects to which our attention would be called were measures for the conservation of the New Zealand forests-t d for making the Polynesian Islands sort dependencies of this colonjr; 'and on both these he would make a few remarks. Indeed, as the proposal to do away with provincial institutions in this island was admittedly begotten by the treatment the New Zealand Forests Bill received from the House, its history had an importance outside the merits of the Bill itself. The preamble of the Bill sets forth that “it is expedient" to make provision for preserving the soil and climate by tree planting, and for providing timber for future industrial purposes, subjecting some portions of the native forests to skilled management and proper control, and for these purposes to constitute State forests ; and that it is also expedient that the revenue derivable from such forests should be specially dedicated to meeting and discharging the present public debt ot the colony, and all additions thereto up to 1901.” In order to prove all this, the Premier made an exceedingly elaborate statement, in which he pointed out that some parts of the world had suffered heavily, and others had been made desolate, owing to the destruction of their forests, and he cited as instances some of the West India Islands, Mauritius, and Ceylon, and Babylon, Nineveh, and Carthage. He further showed that at the present time there remained in Europe and America only about two thousand five hundred millions of acres of forest, besides what there might be in Asia, Africa, Australia, and Polynesia, and that, consequently, it was quite a fallacy to r-npose that the timber supply of the world -s inexhaustible ; and with reference to the. question of profit, he gave the extent of the . State forests in the various countries of Germany, where the art of forestry was best understood, and the revenues derived therefrom ; notably, that Prussia had over sixteen million acres of State forests, that the receipts therefrom were in 1871 £2,100,000, and the cost of management, £1,200,000, leaving a profit of rather less than a million. Accordingly-, he asked the House to hand qver to the colony 3 per. cent, of the lands of each province, or about 2,000,000 acres altogether, and also to vote an annual sum of £IO,OOO for the next ten years, to be applied to the management of the forests, and to dedicate the profits to be made to certain purposes, and ultimately to the extinguishment of our public debt. There were also some clauses in the Bill enabling the Government to select the lands to he handed over in localities accessible to shipping places, to lease parts of them, or to cut them up into townships and sell them. Now, as in Great Britain the extent of forests, plantations, and copses amounts to only a million and a half acres, and as this extent is found sufficient for the preservation of the soil and climate, it appeared that the soil and climate of New Zealand, which has more than twelve millions of acres of forest, were n t in any great danger, and since the management of the State forests of Prussia, where labor is cheap, costs £1,200,000 per annum, and that with the advantage of proximity to markets where all parts of a tree are of value, the annual profits were less than a million, there was reason to think that £IO,OOO a-year in New Zealand for the management of a number of State forests, one in each, province, would not produce wonderfully large profits. So that many members were of opinion that the real object of the Bill was to transfer to the Colony, from the provinces, 2,000,000 acres of Crown lands. And it became necessary, to consider whether this was a desirable thing to do, even if the Immediate necessity for the conservation of New Zealand forests was not quite clear. He (Mr. Johnston) thought it was a desirable thing that the colony should resume possession of these lands, and therefore he voted for it. But the meet-ia-r would readily imagine that the Superintendents, and what is known as the provincial party in the House, lifted up their voices against such a robbery. They declared they were quite ready to vote £IO,OOO a year for tree-planting, or for schools and colleges to teach forestry, or for other purposes in connection with forests, but that they would not consent to he despoiled of 3 per cent, of their lands. Foremost in defending the provincial estates was our own Superintendent, and the upshot was that the clauses enabling the Government to take land were struck out of the Bill, with the further consequence that Mr. 'Voc'el brought down resolutions affirming the desirability of abolishing provinces in the North Island. But before touching on this question, he would say a few words on another subject, referred to in his Excellency’s opening speech, the project of making New Zealand a sort of depot for all the Polynesian Islands, and the head-quarters of the Polynesian trade, and so, little by little?, causing the islands to be in effect dependencies of this colony. Papers were laid before the House showing the extent of the islands, the character of the natives, their present productions, and what they were capable of producing, and informing us of the heads of the agreement entered into between Mr. Vogel for the Government of New Zealand for the one part and Mr. Whitaker and other promoters of a company of the other part, according to which the Government guaranteed interest at 5 per cent, per annum for fifty years on. the paid-up capital of the company, not exceeding £1,000,000, and the company undertook to bring to New Zealand all the produce it exported from the islands, to ship from New Zealand all the merchandise and supplies it imported into the islands, to run the steamers it employed up and down the New Zealand coast from Auckland to Dunedin, and to establish manufactories to utilise the products of the islands at Auckland, Wellinton, Lyttelton, and Dunedin. Then the Government has to appoint two managing directors, one in England and one in the colony, and if it was 'of opinion that if the operations ’ of the colony were not carried on with sufficient prudence anil vigor it might take over and conduct the business until Parliament : should otherwise order. His opinion on the subject was that it would not be wise on our part to subsidise trading companies, unless we |iave the money to spare, and he did not think that, is the case at present; and if we do subfbSlse, that it is. best to give the money without imposing injurious conditions. He considered that, inasmuch as New Zealand cannot consume the produce of the islands, and does not manufacture , the goods they want, the con"dition that the company shall bring all island ' produce here and ship from hero the manufactures and' supplies required by the islands is unwise. Indeed, he did not see how the company could- successfully compete with , traders who would obtain their imports direct from the European manufacturer, and send tho inland produce direct to the beat market. Ho had no' doubt that the condition to establish several manufactories in this colony would

cause a heavy loss, and lie did not approve of the condition that the steamers to be employed in the island trade should also trade as coasters up and down the New Zealand coast, to the loss of existing steam companies. -Arm he especially disliked the condition that the managing directors were to be appointed by Government, and the proposal that in certain eventualities the business should he taken over by the colony, and the Government trade with the resources of the people, though this idea of Government’s trading seems to be rather a favorite one of tho Premier's. In 1872, the Government brought forward a measure called tho Government Annuities Extension Act, enabling them to appoint a Deputy Commissipner of Annuities to act in the United Kingdom, who should establish offices, and appoint such officers, clerks, agents, or members of boards as he might think necessary; m short, an Act to start New Zealand as a sort of insurance society abroad. That Bill w as dropped, and he only referred to it to show that the Premier has had more than once m his mind the idea of “ running ” the country as a trading body. Indeed, he remembered to have read at one time a book written by Mr. Vogel, entitled “ Great Britain and the Colonies,” in which Mr. Vogel pointed out to the statesmen of Great Britain that they had an enormous unused credit, and suggested that they should trade with it, and he was good enough to recommend a particular line of business to them. He recommended them to borrow a very large amount, many millions, he (Mr. Johnston) thought it was several hundred millions, at say 3 J per cent., and lend it to the colonies at a higher rate, and he compiled a table showing that the annual profits, with compound interest, would in a certain number of years be sufficent to pay off the national debt. He (Mr. Johnston) remembered wondering why the author had stopped at only paying off the national debt; when by merely carrying on his calculations of profit to the bottom of the page, he might have bestowed on the Imperial Government all the wealth of the- world. Mr. Vogel was still animated by the same benevolent desire to diminish public indebtedness; as already mentioned, he dedicated the profits to be made from the State forests, to be constituted in New Zealand, to the extinguishment of the New Zealand public debt. He had referred at some length to the Polynesian scheme because it was possible that, although it was dropped for the moment, yet that next session it might be revived. He would express his earnest hope that Mr. Vogel will return to the colony without bringing with him a fresh scheme or a fresh contract. He felt sure that the contracts he entered into when he was at home last time for the construction of our railways had cost the colony a large sum of money. Indeed, after the statements made of the urgent demands upon the administrative attention of Ministers, he thought it would have been better if Mr. Vogel had remained is the colony. He did not think his presence in London would add anything to the value of our debentures, or that the Agent-General and Crown agents could not negotiate the £4,000,000 loan as well as he could possibly do. When the question of further borrowing, was under discussion, some members (as no doubt the electors had seen in the newspapers) seemed to feel some alarm at the rapid rate at which our debt is increasing ; they pointed out that the amount of debentures in circulation on which we pay interest, or, interest and sinking fund, is £13,411,000, that of loans authorised there remained £2,050,000 not raised, so that the further £4,000,000 would make a total of 19J millions, on account of which we shall have to remit to the debentureholders nearly a million a year, and they expressed the opinion that if when our income ceases to be swelled by the sale of an annual crop of debentures, there should be a serious fall in the value of wool, or a considerable decrease in the yield of gold, it would not be possible to send to England yearly the whole of our Customs’ duties without having recourse to direct taxation. He (Mr. Johnston) believed that the principal cause of our present prosperity, as of the prosperity of the Australian colonies, was the great rise which had taken place in the value of wool since three years ago. It had caused great urgency on the part of colonist both to purchase laud and to improve it, and had induced them to borrow during that time more than £3,000,000 from the banks, and large amounts from the loan companies, so that it was no wonder with these large sums put in circulation, in addition to the amount of the rise in value of wool, estimated at about a million a year, and the expenditure of the Government on roads and railways, that the revenue showed a great increase. He was glad to say that there was an increase of £300,000 upon the revenue of the preceding year, the increase of Customs’ duties alone being £260,000, though more than half of this was the result of additional taxation imposed last session. Yet, even if wool did go down and our revenue diminish, and if we required a considerable sum of money to pay our interest, he was disposed to think we need not apprehend the imposition of a property tax, he was strongly inclined to think that the colonists would prefer to pay interest out of the la d revenue rather than submit to a property tax, and he knew of no purpose to which the land revenue could he more properly applied than in defraying the interest of the cost of railways; The meeting would be aware that by the compact of 1856 nearly all the land revenue belongs to the Middle Island, yet representatives of the Middle Island have shown more than ever they do not consider the compact should not be broken if the circumstances of the colony as a whole make it expedient ; for instance, they out away the expectations of the North Island provinces obtaining a large land revenue by joining in enacting that tho Maoris should have power to sell to private parties, and now they propose to abolish the North Island provinces altogether, and place the disposal of the North Island land revenue in the hands of Parliament. After having mentioned that alarm at the extent of our debt existed in some minds, he though it only right to place before the meeting Mr. Vogel's description in the Financial Statement of the condition and prospects of the colony. Mr. Vogel says :—“ Since last year we have had further experience of the effects of the immigration and public works policy, and the results are of an eminently gratifying nature. It has become so clear that the railways, when completed, will have been accompanied by such an increase of the means of the country, and will themselves be of so productive a nature, that all reason for doubt as to the wisdom of constructing them is at an end. More than this is apparent ; it is evident that the colony, as fan as its own arrangements are concerned, need not desire to devote the land revenue to the construction of the main trunk lines of railway. H it were necessary, the Government would be prepared to come down at once with proposals to relievo the provinces of all risks and responsibilities in connection with the payment of interest on the amounts expended and to he expended on the construction of the railways already authorised, and those which are necessary to complete the trunk system. With pride, which I hope you will think pardonable, I dwell for a moment on so splendid a result. It is a happiness for me now to be able to express the unqualified conviction—a conviction which the logic of actual figures sustains —that that policy of railways and immigration lias proved self-sustaining. We have an augmented revenue, a promise of successful working that makes the railways and the immigrants, so to speak, a present to tho colony, without any. strain on the land revenue, but, on the contrary, with the addition of millions to tho value of tho unsold lands. When we consider what the country will be when tho railways are completed, when wo think of tho prosperity that will accompany the progress of the works, and of the revenue the lines will themselves yield, we need have no hesitation in accepting the railways as a colonial responsibility.” To him (Mr. Johnston), who believed that our prosperity was mainly attributable to the rise in tho value of wool, and tho increase in our revenue to be largely due to this cause, and very largely to increased taxation, this seemed to be tall talk, almost more close a copy of the “ Let there be light, and there was light ” of tho Creation than tho circumstances quite warrant; but this is a mere matter of taste, ami, on the other hand, it cannot bo denied that tho picture presented is a most agreeable one, and ho looked with particular satisfaction

on the last paragraph quoted, in which the Premier says, “ We need have no hesitation in accepting the railways as a colonial responsibility,” because this implies that the assets of the whole colony will be made available for the payment of interest. The administration of the public works under the hands of Mr, Richardson met with cordial approval; lie does not spare himself in earnestly and Iryally carrying out, as fast as possible, the works authorised ; in fact, we cauuot help noticing, in reading tho papers from different parts of the colony, that the active and conscientious way. in which the works are earned on -has almost silenced criticism. Ho (Mr. Johnston) was glad to say that last session the Government took a vote of £OO,OOO to convert the tramway to Palmerston into a railway. He had no idea how much the traffic had outgrown the capabilities of a tramway until he arrived, and heard on every side how inadequate the tramway was to meet the requirements. However, locomotives were being built to run on the tramway until the change could be made, and he hoped, therefore, there would soon be greater facilities for transport. Whilst on tho subject of public works, he would refer to a paper sent to him from Sandou during the session, containing a copy of a resolution passed at a public meeting, that it was desirable a branch railway should be constructed to connect Sandon with Foxton, and giving various reasons iu support of the resolution. Of course, he brought the matter under the notice of Mr. Richardson, who said he could do nothing, because branch railways formed no part of the scheme of the Government. He thought Mr. Richardson was right to refuse, or he would have had a similar experience to that of Brigham Young when he gave a brooch to one of his wives. Another wife at once asked him if she wasn’t as good as the first, that no brooch was given to her, and she was furnished with one. Then a third wife said she wasn’t going to be insulted and trampled on that way ; what did Brigham mean by leaving her out when he was distributing brooches all round ! All the wives had to be given brooches, and Brigham said that whereas when he bought the first brooch he reckoned it would cost him .$25, its ultimate cost proved to be §2500. And if Mr. Richardson had announced that the Government would construct this branch railway, every member in the House would have asked for one or more in his district for most excellent reasons, and the colony would have been committed to a very large expenditure. He now came to the question of the abolition of provinces in tho North Island. It was a great surprise to some of Mr. Vogel’s wannest Supporters that he should he the person to propose the resolutions. It was only the session before he declared experience had taught the Government that no central administration could do justice to what he termed local works, such works as roads, bridges, harbor works, reclamation, buildings for educational and charitable purposes, goldfields’ works, and light branch railways and tramways; that they desired the provinces should take charge of these works, because the colony could not, and to neglect the works would be disastrous, and he went on to say that he looked upon the provincial system as the highest form of self-government, and that even if the colony-, had been subdivided into road districts aud counties originally, these would have gradually developed into provinces. The resolutions were that the provinces in the North Island should be abolished, the compact of 1856 be confirmed, and Wellington remain the seat of Government ; and further resolutions that the island "should be divided into districts aud sub-districts, endowed with substantial revenues,' and the residents therein be enabled to take a larger and more direct share in the management of local affairs and the expenditure of local revenues, than •is at present the case. Mr. Vogel placed before us a statement, showing the income and expenditure of all the provinces in the North Island for 1873, from which it appeared that they received, in round numbers, £19,000 from the General Government for capitation allowances, less the interest of the provincial debts, £llß-,000 of land revenue, £33,000 from ordinary revenue, and about-as much from tolls, &c., altogether rather more than £200,000 a year, and that they spent £58,000 on harbors, hospitals, lunatic asylums and charitable aid, police, gaols, and education, £91,000 on surveys and public works, aud that the cost of provincial executives and legislatures was £13,000. Mr. Vogel proceeded to denounce this expenditure. He (Mr. Johnston) did not see why. But it was quite clearly shown that all the provinces together had but a little more than £200,000, and this is quite insufficient for their requirements; £58,000 is very little out of which to defray the cost of the harbor departments, hospitals, lunatic asylums, police, gaols, and education of the four provinces; Why, it is estimated that merely to provide proper school buildings and teachers’ residences would coat about £IOO,OOO, to say nothing of the salaries of the teachers, and no doubt our gaols require large sums spent on them. Unquestionably, the provinces have no money, and to his mind they could commit no heavier sin ; and, therefore, if another form of administration will give Us greatly increased means, let us have it. Hear what Mr. Vogel says he will do for ua. He says, “The North Island will support a much larger population than the Middle Island. It has many advantages for so doing. It is altogether such an island that I think we ought to look upon the opportunity of tailing possession and starting it upon a career of prosperity as a thing to be done with the utmost satisfaction. We have it free to our hands to assist to colonise it thoroughly, and to make it, as quickly as we think it desirable, the home of an immense and thriving population.”- This language showed, the confidence Mr. Vogel felt in his powers For Ills own part, he thought it desirable the North Island should bo made the home of an immense and thriving population within a twelvemonth, and if Hr. Vogel brought forward a measure to do this, or do it in any reasonable time, whilst at the same time endowing each district with substantial revenues, ho would- deserve their gratitude. Possibly others of them might wonder where the money was to come from. So did he. No doubt, if the Manawatu district were given the proceeds of all the Crown lands within its limits, that would give it a considerable revenue for a time ; but it must be remembered that there were many districts, like the neighboring one of Rangitikei, whoretheCrownlands are all sold, and these are all promised' substantial revenues. But doubtless Mr. Vogel saw his way to providing tho necessary means, and ho was quite prepared to support, next session, a Bill which would realise Mr. Vogel’s proposals. After some questions were put and satisfactorily answered, A vote of thanks to Mr. Johnston for his address, and of continued confidence in him, was" carried unanimously ; and, after a vote of thanks to the chairman, the meeting separated.'