THE HON. C. C. BOWEN AT KAIAPOI.

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

THE HON. C. C. BOWEN AT KAIAPOI.

(Condensed from the Lyttelton Times.) On the 4th Inst, tho Hon. C. C. Bowen, Minister of Justice, met tho electors of tho Kaiapoi electorate district, at the Kaiapoi Institute, with the object of explaining his views. Tho Mayor presided. The Hon. C. C. Bowen was received with loud cheers on rising to address the meeting. Ho said— Mr. Chairman, eloctorsjof tho district of Kaiapoi, I have been desirous of addressing you at as early a date as possible, in order to explain to you more fully than I have hitherto been able to do, the reasons which have induced mo to ask for your votes on this occasion, and the grounds on which I desire to bo returned as the representative of tho Kaiapoi electorate district in the General Assembly. When I joined the Government, as you are already aware, I was called to a seat in the Legislative Council, but 1 accepted that seat with the distinct understanding that as soon as a vacancy should arise, by tho resignation or otherwise of any member of a district whore I should bo known to a constituency in Canterbury, I would endeavor to bo elected to tho House of Representatives for that district. (Hear, boar.) The fact is—and it must be obvious to most of you—that it Is more convenient a member of the Government ohould bo in the House where most of the business of the country is conducted: and 1 confess that I did not feel myself entitled to the dignified case of the Upper House, so long as I saw any opportunity of facing tho fiercer strife, and bearing the heavier burthen and cares of the House of Representatives. (Hear, (hear, and cheers.) Therefore, as soon as I heard that there was likely to bo a vacancy in this district, I thought I ought to have a great many old friends In it; I felt that a great many resided in it who knew my connection with public affairs from tho earliest days of tho settlement: people who know that I had been connected with the foundation of Canterbury; who knew—and I can now recall it with.satlsbiction—tho fact that before I was Resident Magistrate, I was a member of tho Govern-

merit who initiated the first railway and the first electric telegraph in New Zealand. (Loud cheers.) I mention these circumstances in order to show you that I have some right to claim old acquaintance; and therefore the moment I heard that Mr. Studholme intended to resign, after consulting a few friends, I made up my mind to come forward as a candidate for the vacant scat, and to address you in that behalf through the newspapers, without waiting for any requisition from the electors. (Hear, hear.) I am not acquainted with any circumstances that may have arisen out of previous local elections, and I am sure I shall not be held responsible for them. (Hear, hear.; If I am returned, I shall represent the whole of the district, and I shall succeed a gentleman who exercised a very largo influence in the House of Representatives. All I can say is that if Kaiapol will elect me, I will stick to Kaiapoi as long as Kaiapol will stick to mo, and any influence I shall be_ able to exercise shall be exercised for the benefit of : the district as a whole and the colony at large. (Cheers.) The present moment is a very critical one in the history of New Zealand. Hitherto, there have been rather six or seven governments in New Zealand than one for the whole colony. have been six or seven divisions of the colony, and this was necessarily the outcome of the colonisation of New Zealand. It was colonised from a variety of centres ; in the early days of its existence. There_ were no means of communication between the various parts of the colony such as we now possess. The absence of the means of communication made the distance proportionately enormous, and the only method to .secure local self-government was to give to each province an almost absolute autonomy; but as the size and pretentions of the colony grew, the necessity for this autonomy became less ; the means at the disposal of the provinces began to dwindle, and at last it came to this, that it was necessary for the Colonial Parliament to raise funds by taxation, which were to be handed over to the other legislatures to expend, without any direct responsibility to the taxpayers. It is enough to state the proposition that one legislature should raise funds for another legislature to spend, to prove its absurdity and ensure its condemnation. In my opinion, there is no more fruitful source of log-rolling than the existence of such a system of government. (Hear, hear.) The first nail that was driven into the coffin of provincial institutions was the public works and immigration- scheme of 1870. At that time one of the great functions of the provinces was the peopling and opening up of the country. By this scheme, these functions were assumed by the colony at large, and necessarily so. A large amount of money was required for the prosecution of that scheme, and it would have been impossible to borrow the necessary amount on the credit of six or seven different colonies, or portions of the colony, instead of the colony ns a whole. If it had been possible to borrow the money, on the credit of six or seven provinces, it would have been at a rate of interest which would have been absolutely ruinous. But although one of the great reasons for the existence of the provinces came to an end, an expensive and cumbersome machinery still remained, and in one instance, at all events, lias acted as a clog on State enterprise. Owing to the great flush of land revenue we have here, a system of public works has been carried on in the South, independently of the great public works which have been initiated by the colony ; and for that reason I think that where there is a large work t • be done in the way of almost a legislative revolution, it is better to begin at the end where the demand is moat needed for a change, than at the end where these large works are conducted by the province. And the fact is, that such a change as this must be initiated in the place where it becomes most necessary at first. (Hoar, hear.) Our object is to secure local control of local revenues. It is essentially a practical question, and must be met as the exigencies of the case require. Last session, the first great step was taken towards a national policy; and the news has only come to us .of a speech made by Lord Duffcrin, Governor-General of Canada. If Lord Dufferin could congratulate the Dominion of Canada on getting rid of small local prejudices, and on the first throbbing of its heart of national existence, I think we can congratulate a state like New Zealand a great deal more on the gradual extinction of still narrower provincial jealousies and the prospect of its becoming a great nation rather than a congeries of parishes. (Hoar, hear, and cheers.) Gentlemen, when the Government did me the honor to invite my co-operation in this work, after consideration I certainly thought that for one who had taken an interest in the public business of New Zealand, it was not a time to bo weighing questions of mere personal advantage ; and I think I ought to be proud to take a part in the work, and I felt, too, and I hope you will agree with me, that it was not disadvantageous to the provinces of the South, that another southern member should be added to the Government (Jiear, hear). The work which is before the country is one that will not be completed in one, or even two sessions, It will require all the care that the Government, in this and the succeeding session, can bring to bear upon it, and care must be taken that the mass of legislation necessary in instituting such a change as this, should not be rashly thrown on the table of the House ; on the contrary, ‘it should be carefully considered, and the legislation should be of a tentative character. The legislation, there is no doubt, must embrace both islands; and as I said before, I have given my reasons for thinking that as "It is to begin somewhere, it should begin where the work is absolutely needed now. Here, we have our public works administered in a manner that has been satisfactory on the whole ; and in Otago also I believe matters have been satisfactorily managed, But we must not fancy that our province is New Zealand. (Hear, hear.) We have been favored with exceptional circumstances lately, but he who looks upon his province as New Zealand is prepared to walk with his ©yes bandaged, and his head in a parochial bag. (Hear, hear, laughter and cheers.) At this present moment the North Island provinces have come to an en I financially, and must either die of inanition or live by suction. The colony is not prepared to see a number of colonies coming up constantly dodging round, all with the intense desire to milk the poor State cow, morning and evening, aurreptiously in the dark and openly in the full blaze of day. I do not for one moment suppose that you would be satisfied with a state of things such as this. (Cries of “No, no.’’) If we hope to become a nation, to see the public works scheme carried out to its legitimate end, to see the trunk railway carried on so far as to ensure its paying interest on the money expended in its construction ; to see population introduced to this country so as to give us in this generation.that degree of civilisation which otherwise the country would have to wait for for three or. four generations, we must put our financial house in order, and that cannot be done unless we get rid of our complex, duplicate form of government, arid place before the public creditor in one uniform shape the affairs of the colony as a whole, so that the burden of the public debt may bo diminished. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) But in determining to make the change, wo must take care to secure local government and local control over local revenues. (Hear, hear.) That is one of the most important functions of any Government. One of our objects should be to secure good government, and a part of good government was local self-govern-ment. At one time nothing was better or more suitable than Provincial Governments ; now, however, we must' look for something better. There would be no difficulty in dividing the islands into counties or shires, and sub-dividing those again into districts, and giving powers, as in the case of municipal institutions, to make whatever bye-laws were necessary. But the difficulty which besets the present question is one which will make any measure'brought forward by the Government the subject for severe criticism from all sides of the House—viz., the question of the distribution of the land revenue. ‘Whenever there is a revenue that drops, as it were, from heaven, that appears to come without any exertion, that is not raised by taxation, there Is always the greatest difficulty in appropriating it to the satisfaction of everybody. (Applause.) Now, when wo consider the question of how the land fund should be appropriated, we must just cast a glance •backward at the history of this land fund, and consider again the circumstances of what wo have heard a great deal of lately, of what has been called “ the compact of 1850.” I must say that a great deal has been written and said about that compact of late, without very much consideration as to what that compact really meant. The real authors of that compact of 1850 were the men who were believers in the land creed of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, in contradistinction to those who said that you could put a price on the land at any time, and say that that was the absolute value of it. The land creed of Edward Gibbon Wakefield was, that the land was absolutely valueless in itself, and that what gave value to it was the people who were put upon it, and its opening up for bearing produce. .The consequence was, that they looked on tho produce of the waste lands of the Crown rather as contributions for those purposes than for any intrinsic value given to tho land itself. In 1850, when this was discussed at Auckland, tho question was involved by a great many considerations, and at a time of compromises there were many questions considered before they came to an issue. The first great objection which was made to tho state of affairs existing at that time was from Auckland. Tho Auckland people complained that they had received no benefit from the expenditure of the New Zealand Company. Tho New Zealand Company’s debt had been handed over to tho colony with tho lands, and Auckland said, “Wo will not pay one penny towards it; this expenditure was for tho benefit of the Cook Strait settlement and tho Southern Island, and we do not feel called upon to pay anything towards it.” Tho South Island urged that tho expenditure, had been in Cook Strait; but, in consideration of the' waste lands which hod been purchased for the Southern Island, it was at last agreed that tho Southern Island should take tho whole debt of the New Zealand Company on itself, that each province should decide for what price the land within its owir borders should be sold, and that that price being agreed upon as a contribution towards tho carrying on of public works and immigration in that province should go towards that province, that tho scrip of the New Zealand Company, which was outstanding, should go to tho Cook Strait settlements, to which it should justly be allocated, and that £IBO,OOO should bo raised on the credit of the colony for purchasing land from the natives for tho benefit of tho North Island—to give it a land fund. At that time £IBO,OOO was a very largo sum, and tho proposal was looked upon as a very advantageous arrangement for tho North Island, and as such received the support of Northern members. The provinces have very different views of what the price of tho land should bo, and of the manner in which the land laws should be administered. It is a remarkable fact that tho Canterbury land laws are tho only ones which have not been subject to constant legislative tinkering; they arc the only ones which have, stood the tost of experience. I think it is very probable that it will soon bo found necessary to have one land law for Now Zealand, and I should not bo surprised If people generally agree that £2‘per acre everywhere is not too high a price. (Applause.) However that may be, I think a consideration of tho history of tho land laws of Now Zealand will lead us to tho conclusion that it is just and right th&t there should bo an absolute distinction, *a broad lino drawn between tho land revenue in the North and the land revenue in" tho South. I think that this is the first broad lino that will have to bo drawn as to tho question of revenue. The General Government, which will be tho administrator of the funds for the largo arterial works, must retain in both islands a fair proportion of tho revenue for arterial communication. Whatever sum is reserved for those purposes in cither island, ought, I think, to bo expended in proportion pro rata, as it has been raised in tho old territorial divisions of tho islands. (Applause.) Tho remainder of tho laud fund ought, I think, to bo administered locally, that is, in the differ-

ent districts, or sub-divisions of the. colony. But here a very great difficulty will arise, and one which will require some care to deal with. It is obvious that we cannot at once draw a clear line, and say that every district will expend the land revenue raised in that district, because in a district like this of Kaiapoi, where all the land has been sold, there would not bo one penny for the district, whereas you might have, in a hill district yonder, an enormous revenue accumulating in the bands of the settlers, who would not expend it for opening up and peopling the country. You cannot, therefore, take that as a rule. There are a number of districts in the colony, and in this province too, where the whole of the land has been sold, but where tho district has not received a fair share of its revenue in past times ; and then we have to consider that some districts—this district for instance —are centres to some extent, and act as a means of communication for more sparsely populated districts, who use their labor market, and make use of them in every possible way, and it would be monstrous to say that they should be kept up without spendinga penny on those means of communication. circumstances have all to be taken into consideration, and therefore it will be very difficult to allocate the land revenue among the districts, but is no reason why it should not he done as fairly as hitherto. (Applause.) Of course it would be impossible here to go into all the intricacies of the question, but I have mentioned these considerations to show how long and carefully tho attention of Parliament must be devoted to the matter before the whole revolution can be successfully completed. (Applause.) Of course the greater part of the time of the Legislature, at its next session, will be devoted to this topic, hut I do hope that a fair attention will be given to several social questions which I think should not be neglected because there may be a large political question under consideration, (Hear, hear). • The remainder of the speech had reference to the necessity for consolidating the Stamp Acts, for a Police Offenders’ Bill, a contra! penal establishment, and education, so far as the means were defective in the Middle Island, as well as the Insolvency laws. The Chairman : Has any elector a question to put to Mr. Bowen ? Mr. Birch: Mr. Bowen, a question has been put before me by certain electors to-day, and I hope they will be supporters of yours ; I am sure they will be. But as they mooted the question, I thought I would bring it before you, so that you might answer it—viz., as to the amount of tho public indebtedness at the present time, and also to what extent the interest on that Indebtedness at present bears on tho colony; also, as to whether you are in apy way able to state whether any further sum will be borrowed before a fresh Parliament is called together ? The Hon. Mr Bowen : The indebtedness of the colony, including the provincial indebtedness, will amount to a little over £18,000,000 when tho whole amount that was authorised is raised. I am now assuming that the whole of the debts of the colony are united. Mr Vogel has gone to England to endeavor to negotiate on the best possible terms tho £1,000,000, of which a certain amount has been already pledged, and which has been already author ised. The interest on the whole amount will bo about £920,000 a-year. There is a sinking fund, of coarse, which is accumulating tho means of paying off that debt in time, and it is hoped when the trunk line is made throughout tho islands, it will be remunerative. There is no reason to suppose that it will not. In Victoria and New South Wales, where railways have been made at an enormous cost —sometimes at £30,000 and £40,000 a mile—the railways are paying. With regard to Mr. Birch’s other question, there will be no request on the part of the Government to get authority for any further loan until a fresh Parliament is called. A Voice; Is that £4,000,000 included in tho £18,000,000? The Hon. Mr. Bowen : Yes; I mean that when all the authorised loans are raised, tho whole indebtedness of the colony will ho a little over £18.000,000. In reply to Mr. I. Wilson, The Hon. Mr. Bowf.n said that Iris feeling was, as lie before stated, that the most prudent and best policy was to begin in the North Island, where a change was most required: but, as he before explained, he thought it would take more than one session to have the whole change completed. During tho coming session, it would bo enough for the Government to bring in a Bill with reference to the North Island, as they pledged themselves last session to do; but tho principle that the change should apply to both islands, he entirely agreed with. As to the question of time, ho should not like to pledge himself absolutely. He had stated his own opinion as to the best way of doing it, but lie would not pledge himself that he would not vote for a Bill which would bring about a change in both islands. (Hear, hear.) At the same time, ho begged distinctly to state his own opinion that the best policy would be to commence tentatively where a change was most needed, and in the following session to bring in a Bill to include the Southern Island. The Chairman : Has any other elector any question to ask ? Mr. I. Wilson : I should like to know froin what fund you intend to supply the deficiencies in the provinces who come up every year for loans, when they are abolished ? The Hon. Mr, Bowen: 1 don’t mean to supply them at all. (Applause.) The granting of these provincial loans has done more mischief in the colony than almost anything else. I have already explained that the local funds should come from the land revenue, but most decidedly not from loans. (Hear, hear.) If a municipality can show a property such as a wharf as security, there is no objection to its borrowing on that security, but I object to all these different divisions of the colony borrowing money on the credit of the colony. (Applause.) Dr. Dudley : I shall bo very glad to propose a resolution to this meeting. I am sure we have all received a great deal of gratification from the eloquent address delivered by Mr. Bowen. lam a very old colonist, and I have been much pleased at having my memory refreshed in respect to the transactions of 1866. I have no doubt that Mr. Bowen has determined many wavering electors in their choice, as they cannot have two opinions as to who is tho best man. Some people say, “We have no occasion to vote for Mr. Bowen as ho has a good billet” ; and others say, “We. had bettor vote for the other man, so that he may have a chance of getting a good billet.” (Laughter.) I am sure you will agree with mo in proposing a very hearty and cordial vote of thanks to Mr. Bowen for his kindness in coming here to-night, and for tho very eloquent speech which he has given us. (Cheers.) Mr. Woodford : I have much pleasure in seconding the resolution. I have known Mr. Bowen for more than twenty-four years in different offices connected with tho province, and ho has always filled them with honor to tho settlement. As in the old country so in the new, we want young men to come forward as Mr. Bowen has done, men who have something in them. The old ones arc dying out, and if New Zealand is to become a great country we want the best talent wo can find, and I say that in Mr. Bowen you have that. (Applause.) I sincerely trust you will return him to tho New Zealand Parliament with flying colors, and let us see what he is made of. (Applause.) We know what he has done hitherto, I do hope you will give him a fair trial and send him to Wellington. (Loud cheers.) The motion was then put and carried, there being only two dissentient voices. The Hon. Mr. Bowen : Gentlemen, I have to thank you very cordially for tho vote of thanks which you have just passed, and I am quite sure that if Mr. 'Keswick had been hero, ho would not have grudged tho thanks, although opposed to me. I am sorry he is not here. I was really in hopes he would have been hero to-night, and that I should have known on what grounds I was being opposed as a member of the Government. However, I hope it is not tho first occasion on which I shall have the pleasure of meeting you here to discuss what is done in Parliament. If returned, I trust to meet you here more than once as your representative, to give an account of what is done In Parliament. (Hear, hoar.) Three cheers were then given for the Hon. Mr, Bowen, and the proceedings terminated.