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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5481, 21 October 1878, Page 2

We have received the following report, relative to the impounded Canterbury Land Fund, which was brought up on October 3rd and ordered to be printed : The Public Accounts Committee, having inquired into tho disputed accounts between the Government and the County Counclli and Eoad Boards of the provincial district of Canterbury, in reference to. the deductions made from the Land Fund of £IOO,OOO for Lyttelton Harbor debentures, and of £127,000 for arrears of surveys, have the honor to report that the committed have agreed to tho following rosolu- ** tho intention of the Legislature that the Lyttelton Harbor dues should bo relieved from the Lyttelton Harbor Loan by section 33, ilnancial Arrangements Act, 1876, is clear, and that the burden should become a portion of tho permanent debt of the provincial district of Canterbury, which debt, by tho legislation of 1877, became a colonial liability; and that tho sum of £IOO.OOO. before mentioned, is due to the local bodies interested, and should be paid to tho £127,000 of surplus Land Fund of Canterbury. retained to meet arrears of surreys estimated to be required in that provincial district, should also be paid to the local bodies interested. The committee append to this report the evidence they hare taken upon the subject. Oswald Curtis, October 3rd, 1873. Chairman. This report completely upsets the arrangement proposed to be adopted by the Colonial Treasurer, set forth in the Financial Statement. He there says t( The repayment of the advance on tho “ £IOO,OOO on the bonds of the Lyttelton 11 Harbor Board was made out of the Conec solidated Fund, no special provision il having been made by the Legislature. fC This sum. was neither in. its character u nor by law a colonial liability, and the (( Government —no other means of providt(ing for it having been made, and the course seeming to he equitable applied an eqivalent amount of the surplus laud tc revenue of Canterbury to meet the “ liability falling due at tho bank in London in tho month of January.” The italics are ours. The answer given in the above report to tho sanction of Parliament asked for by Mr. Ballance is conclusive, and tho answer to the second request made, or, strictly speaking, assumed to bo granted, is equally so, for the Colonial Treasurer refers to the retention of tho surplus Land Fund of Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay by the Government in the following terms : —“lt appeared to the “ Government that that fund was the “proper source from whence to defray “the charge.” Wo make one extract only from the published evidence. In tho examination of Mr. Ballance before the committee, Mr. Stevens said : (75.) I did not ask you that question. Please to state upon what clause of tho Act the Government rclv for the course they have adopted 7 Mr. Ballance replied : —I said that wo had an equitable right, supported by the Financial Arrangements Act. In other words, no right to exercise this power was claimed. But in defiance of tho law the Government on its own personal authority, without consulting Parliament, withheld a large part of the moneys duo to Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay, because they chose to assume that the law gave these districts more than a fair share’of the Land Fund of the colony. This .was done, too, in the face of a strong protest from Mr. Fitz Gerald, the Commissioner of Audit, who says in his evidence on tho 27th of August, in reference to the £IOO,OOO: — I remember that a voucher was scut up to us for removing the sum of £IOO,OOO to provincial liabilities, and which we declined to pass. I have got tho memorandum licro which we wrote, and which states tho views which tho Commissioners of Audit took on the subject of tho Canterbury Land Fund. (.Memorandum put in.] That was the memorandum we wroto on tho general subject of not making payments put of the Land Fund to tho Road Boards and Counties. Of course, tho Committee are awaro that wo have nothing to do with the question of tho money being loft In the account. Our only duty consisted in not paying it illegally. We had no power whatever as to requiring that the Government should pay it. # We append the memorandum m full, and also the concluding paragraph of a second memorandum, on tho same subject:— , This account cannot be audited. It Is, in my opinion an unnecessary account, not warranted by law. There was no authority for keeping this account at all after the Slat December, and tho transactions included in it ought, with tho balances, to have been earned into the Consolidated Fund on the Ist January. That was tho clear intention of the Act of 1877. This account is not made up on figures which have been passed by tho Audit Chico in requisitions, and therefore can only bo audited by comparing it with the original vouchers. It shows a balance of £335,000 in a Land Fund account on the 31st March, in direct violation of tho law, which required all balances U have been paid over before that period to tho bodies to which it belonged. James Edward Fitz Gerald, Commissioner of Audit. Ist May, 1878. But the Land Fund being now a part of the Consolidated Fund, tho Commissioners must consider all the moneys in it as equally available for Consolidated Fund services. At tho same time they feel that they would bo neglecting their duty were they not to point out that the present ability of the Consolidatedi Fund to meet Us engagements Is only acquired by diverting large sums of public money from the uses to which they were expressly appropriated by Parliament. and that not by ordinary appropriation, but by positive enactment; that tho moneys in question should bo paid over in tho manner directed before a specified day. (See section 10, Financial Arrangements Act, 1877.) James Edward Fitz Gerald, Commissioner of Audit. 3rd May, 1878. Tho memorandum B being of au earlier date than memorandum A, it should more properly precede it. Those who heard the outcry from Canterbury about robbery and spoliation did not expect to havo tho charge substantiated by au impartial tribunal and restitution enforced.