New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1875.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4401, 28 April 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1875.

We sit at the feet of Gamaliel, and learn political wisdom from the New Zealand. Herald. In his issue of the 9th instant there is a leading article specially devoted to the correction of ‘ ‘ errors” appearing in a leader of the New Zealand Times of a previous date. Yet n the course of a somewhat lengthened experience, we never before read a piece of serious political writing so full of errors, as that which our contemporary devotes to our special edification. No doubt, the correction was well intended. It was done for our good, and we accept it in that spirit; but as ‘ ‘ the blessing in dis- “ guise” doctrine has been long -since rejected by all sensible mortals, we are privileged to irifquire >vherein we have erred that we should be thus unreasonably reproved. The Herald says ; Another error pervading the article of the Times lies in treating the Constitutional question as a mere matter of finance instead of one of higher politics. Finance, however important, is a fleeting and comparatively superficial subject. It may try us for a time, but with sound, good government, financial difficulty would pass away. Constitutional changes, however, will affect for all time the position of classes, the distribution of wealth, the possession of power, the social condition and the political independence of the people. A national financial difficulty is, in its nature, temporary. The creation of governing castes and classes, the widening of the gulf between different orders of the people, the concentration of wealth and power, the diffusion of ignorance and poverty, the reduction of the mass of the population to misery and dependence, or their full, free, and perfect self-government,—these are the questions that will be settled for generations by constitutional changes in one way or the other. “Finance, however important, is a “ fleeting and comparatively superficial “ subject.” This, certainly, is news to us. AVe are to-study “ higher politics,” and not ephemeral finance. We are to ascend to the seventh heaven of provincial rhapsodists, and listen to unutterable nonsense about civil government and social institutions being conducted upon principles which ignore finance. It is all mere word rubbish: a string of well rounded sentences, wanting sense and political discrimination. As one of Auckland’s own prophets remarked of this very subject : “It is a question of “ £ s. d,; ifc is money which is at the “ root of the matter.” Mr. Swanson is a much better authority on this subject than our contemporary, and we accept his definition of the Constitutional question as strictly and literally correct- It is all a question of £ s. d. ; money is at the root of the matter. Moreover, money is at the root of all civil government. Finance is not a fleeting and comparatively superficial subject, as the Herald imagines ; it is the foundation of all political institutions, without which “ higher; politics,” as outlined by our contemporary, would melt into thin air, And like the baseless fabric of a vision Leave not a wrack behind. Again the Auckland Herald writes ; In its financial aspects alone the case, os put by the Centralists, is also grossly exaggerated. If great savings are to be effected, it is incumbent upon the Times to show in what direction those savings are to be made. Taking, for example, our own province, we challenge it plainly to show that there would, in any conceivable circumstances, be a saving equivalent to such an unconsidered trifle as a Judge or two thrown on the pension list without any public reason to warrant the act. We will, however, go further and express a confident belief that instead of saving there would be great additional expense. We base this belief upon the scale of the Ministerial and departmental salaries, expenditure and pensions, of the General as contrasted with the Provincial Governments throughout the colony. We admit the lamentable fact that Provincial Governments have been reduced to live upon their land funds as the Times observes, and that they arc in great straits where no land fund exists. But it is by no fault, no extravagance, no improvidence of their own that this has come to pass. The fault lies with the General Government, whose policy, folly, and waste, have robbed the provinces of the revenue given them by the Constitution. If this be not the case, if the General Government has the necessary surplus revenue at command to manage the provinces without further taxation, it has been criminally wrong in not handing over that surplus to the Provincial Councils in the meanwhile, as the Constitution originally directed. Can it be said the funds, ,so handed over, would be less carefully administered under the watchful and jealous eye always cast on local bodies, than they are in a pleasant, quiet, out-of-the-way nook like Wellington. W© repeat, then, that the constitutional issue is not to be confounded with finance. It is a question of selfgovernment and of Legislatures working under the vigilant eye and direct control of the people. These once secured, good and economical government would follow as a matter of course. Attempts to place the question before the public in any light can only be designed to drag a red herring across the scent. We shall deal pointedly with the foregoing extract. It is entirely misleading, inasmuch as it does not state facts accurately, and treats assumptions as truisms. First as to the comparison sought to be instituted between “the scale of the “ Ministerial and departmental salaries “ and pensions, of the General as con- ‘ ‘ trasted with the Provincial Govern- “ ments throughout the colony.” No such comparison can be made. The General Government pensioned no one. The colony, by its Parliament, created pensions, and those who are legally entitled to them take advantage of the law. Now, right or wrong, this was not the fault of the General Government. It was the act of the Colonial Legislature ; and as the Herald reminds us, in the article from which we quote, in many cases the same men have seats in the Assembly and Provincial Councils, so that the pension clauses of the Civil Service Act may be said to have had the approval of the Provincial Legislatures. At all events, the Superintendents of provinces were usually the warm' supporters of pensions. On the other hand, the Provincial Legislatures, having more restricted municipal functions to discharge, did not create pensions ; but they did what was tantamount to it, they saddled the colony, through the Civil Service, with a whole battalion of inoapables, who in time will drop in for pensions. This is a statement which any one who has a knowledge of the exercise of provincial patronage for a series of years will admit as being strictly true. Wo are challenged to show in what direction savings are to be made. In reply, wo shall put the leader of the Superinteudental party into the witness box, and abide by his voluntary evidence. Mr. Macandeew, in 1871, when moving the abolition of the Middle Island provinces and the creation of a Central Government, or Political Clearing House, at Wellington, said:— What I now propose is, that tho time has arrived when, Instead of five Provincial Legislatures in tho Middle Island, we can manage very well with one. In other words, I think the lorty-fivo members who represent tho Middle Island constituencies in this House, together with one Executive officer, can perform tho whole duties which now appertain to tho Superintendent of Otago, tho Superintendent and Council of Canterbury, tho Superintendent and Council of Nelson, tho Superintendent and Council of Marlborough, and tho Chairman and Council o( tho County Council of Westland. X maintain that tho duties which are now performed by five administrative, and 133 legislative functionaries in tho Middle Island, can ho as well, if not bettor, performed by one administrative and 45 legislative functionaries, while tho pecuniary saving effected will bo very considerable .... Quoting from tho Registrar-General's returns, lie continued Those figures [£22,374] represent merely the cost of tho legislative and executive

bodies of the Middle Island, which I propose to coh:solidate and merge into one single,Legislature, j - .' . I feel sure that by the proposals! which If am now about to submit for adoption -the legislative and executive functions of the Provincial. Legislature of the .Middle Island cam be performed fpr from £3OOO to £4OOO a year. I have not the least doubt, that if fairly and honestly managed, that sum will meet all the necessary expenses of the Provincial Legislature of the Middle Island. I take It that that sum would be amply covered by the savings which will accrue in the different departments of the Government, from their being brought under one head, instead of being, as at present, under live different Legislatures. In the waste lands and other departments; considerable savings might be effected, savings quite equal to the cost incurred in maintaining the Executive and Provincial Council upon the scale which these resolutions indicate. Assuming this to be the case, we shall have a clear saving, with respect to the political machinery - of the Government alone in the Middle Island, of upwards of £22,000 a year, which of course, hon. members will at once see is equal to a capital sum of half-a-million sterling, being absolutely £440,000 at 5 per cent. This is a more startling point of view as regards this question than it is usually looked at from. ... I would say further, that whatever difference of opinion there may exist in the minds of hon. members of the Middle Island os to the expediency of sinking their provincial nationality, I think there can be no difference of opinion as to the direct advantages contained in the proposals/ unless upon merely sentimental grounds. It is a fact that we are to save £22,000 a year by these proposals, and that, to my mind, weighs down a vast amount of sentiment. Referring to the Registrar-General’s returns, we find that the legislative and executive expenditure in tho North Island, in 1873, was £10,378 ;—-not a large sum certainly, but one which the country cannot spare. Adding this to the £22,374, which Mr. Macandrew declared could be saved with advantage to the country by abolishing the Middle Island provinces, we have a total of £32,752 per annum, which, on the authority of the Superintendent of Otago, we declare is spent to perpetuate blunders and extravagant misrule'in New Zealand. Since that time Superintendentalism, like Jeshurun, has “ waxed fat and kicked.” According to Sir F. D. Bell, the Southern prpvinces have brought forward “projects “ that are quite monstrous ” to get rid of the. land revenue, while the lackland provinces of the North have taken to the road, and stuck up the Ministerial coach, with the demand of “ your money or your “ life.” The state and dignity of Superintendents far exceed that of Colonial Ministers, and so high has their pretension been carried, that the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies was called upon to settlfe the question of precedence in the event of the Governor visiting a province accompanied by a Minister of the Crown. Their salaries and patronage have likewise increased ; and in the Middle Island at all events, they are driving four-in-hand to the very brink of the precipice of provincial ruin. The Herald “admits the lamentable “ fact that Provincial Governments have “ been reduced to live upon their land “ funds;” but this is no fault of their own, it is added, it is all the fault of the General Government, which, at the summons of the Provincial party, stripped itself of the land fund in 1856, and diverted it from the purposes for which it was originally set apart by the Constitution Act. Having secured the Crown lands without incumbrance, and having wasted the land fund without promoting settlement and constructing works of public utility, the Superintendental party now clamors for the surplus of Consolidated Revenue to which the provinces were entitled under the original Constitution. But there is no surplus of Consolidated Revenue available, and if there were, the law is changed, and the provinces have no more right to any surplus that might accrue in any given year than the rural municipalities have. The Herald , like his leader Sir George Grey, appears * to be altogether ignorant of the Imperial and Colonial statutes which have changed the Constitution and the disposition of the revenue under several leading heads. But the Herald, true to the traditions of its new-found party, suggests how a surplus revenue might be created. It might be got by increased taxation. - Most true. Increased taxation would yield the requisite sum; but we say to the Herald, and the Superintendent of Auckland : “Tax the people “through the Provincial Councils. If “ they are so enamoured of Provincial “ Government as you say they are ; —if “ Provincialism be such a political boon “as you have painted it; if it is to train “ every clever lad to aapend the social “ scale, from the wistful contemplation of “toy cannons, which he cannot buy ‘ ‘ without the help of the proverbially “ benevolent old gentleman in buff “ waistcoat and blue necktie, to the “ position of a Privy Councillor and Seo- “ retary of State, ‘dressed in the finest “ ‘ uniform thaj; can be got,’ the people “ will gladly pay for it. But if this is “ all arrant humbug and nonsense ; —if “provincialism be a costly, lumbering, “ and inefficient system of local adminis- “ tration, then they won’t pay for it.” Now, as the people of Auckland have enjoyed the boon of Provincial Government since 1853, we invite Sir George Grey, backed by his organ the Herald, to put the question to the test, and if he succeeds we shall kiss the rod, and bow our head for correction. The trial can be easily made. A short Bill can be introduced to the Provincial Council, setting out its purpose in the preamble ; and the enacting clauses should impose a direct tax upon persons and property, or upon either, as the case may be, sufficient to maintain the machinery of Provincial Government. The result will moat clearly demonstrate whether it is a question of finance or of “ higher politics,” of which we hear so much from the provincialiats and see so little. We protest, however, against the General Assembly imposing one shilling in the way of taxation, to sustain Provincial Government. The days of provincial supremacy are at an end. The people are taxed up to their power of bearing fiscal burdens, and any change which may be made must be in the direction of reducing taxation. ,