The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1875.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 278, 5 June 1875, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1875.

’ “ We shall sell to so warn -justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right: We shall defer to no man justieeor eight.”

Ax instructive lesson has recently been conveyed to the Colony through the action of-two of its moat prominent men. The Snperistendeets of Antiland and Otago respectively have opened their Provincial Councils with speeches which, Although singularly opposite in their character and tendency, embrace questions that cannot fail to be interesting to those who take an active part in public affairs. Mr. McAndbew—to whom may be asurifeud the teading position his province is able take up —is truly jl representative man, who, through many dark days of political adversity, has, with a clapishness peculiar to his race, stuck to his purpose with an admirable tenacity—admirable because successful. In that pithy sentence is -contained, a+ c—e. both* the world’s -censure and aaazobstion, for there is nothing so successful as success. Had Mr. McAtobew failed in the administratis.> of the affairs of Otago, as signally as the several Superintendents of Auckland and some other provinces, be would not have been able io meet therqpreseataiives of the pnorinee in ’Council, aud throw down the gauntlet of ultra provincialism so triumphantly—not to say defiantly—as he has recently done. There can be no doubt that as success in the management of one’s private affairs is one of the best passports to man’s good opinion ; so, also, is the rule held good wb?re the affairs of the State have been guided by a conspicuous prudenen If this be so in the case of Otago, and can be adduced as an argument in favor of the continuance <5 Provincial institutions, the converse also shstuld hold good; and that Auckland has so signally failed—ns she, with her many advantages, has been brought to a state of bo, ele ;s baskruptcy — existing, to a great extent, upon the the proud charity of the General Government —it must be accepted as an incontrovertible

proof of the necessity for her dissolution, and also of those provinces in a similar impecunious condition. We propose, shortly, to refer to thecireumstances forming the contrast to which we allude between the affairs of the two provinces, Otago and Auckland. Mr. McAndrew thus compares the present with the past:—

in 1854, the Public revenue of the Province amounted to little more than £6OOO, while during the past year the sum contributed to the Colonial and Provincial Chests amounted to close upon a million sterling. It is a remarkable fact that there are only four Colonies in the British Empire the a meant {of Those revenue, trade, and commerce, exceeds that of this Province ; and yet there are some among us who think that the Province is unfit to manage its own affairs.

And again, more relatively to the present and future, be says : —

The area of land taken up during the past, year under the Goldfields >ct as agricult oral leaseholds has been 17,405 acres, distributed among 186 individuals. The area of acquired land on deferred payments has been 37,276 acres, by 219 individuals. The area sold for cash amounts to 164,157 acres, to 534 purchasers. She area of rural land surveyed ready for settlement during the year has been 220,000 acres, divided into 1,255 allotments, and there are now in course of sectional survey 150,000 acres, also 140,000 of trigonometrical survey, which will be placed in the market when the surveys are completed. Of town and suburban allotments there hare been surveyed 860. Notwithstanding the large area of land which has been selected on deferred payments during the year, there is still an anxious desire to take up land under this system. Your concurrence will be requested to the proclamation of several uew Hundreds, and of further blocks un deferred payments.

Further on we find Otago’s Superintendent earnestly asking his Council

Why should the people of Otago submit to to their resources being still further swallowed up in the nuelstrom of Colonial finance? Why should they quietly take it for granted that they must needs be the victims of the inevitable, when, if they would only pull together and rise superior to local jealousies they have the destinies of the Province in their own hands ?

Unlike Sir George Grey, who who seems to be inclined to go in with the majority, Mr. McAndrew manfully sticks to his principles, mistaken though they be, thus: —

The wisest thing that could be done would be to fall back upon the Constitution and allow the respective Provinces to rely upon themselves ; limit the central Government to purely federal action ; let each Province have the uncontrolled disposal of its public revenue, from whatever source derived, contributing its share pro rata towards the maintenance of the central power, and towards the payment of the debt for which the Coiony as a whole is now liable. Were this policy adopted, the Provinces in each island would gradually and spontaneously merge into each other, and the apparently irreconcilable idea of a great and united Colony, and at the same time practical financial separation between the two islands, would be realized.

One of the first Acts of Sir George Grey, after his election as Superintendent was to “ wire into” the General Government to the following effect:— Under section 2 of Provincial and Public Works Advances Act, the advance of forty thousand pounds to this province is made payable by quarterly instalments of six thousand pounds; only two instalments of that amount received hitherto. On the 31st day of December and March last respectively, instalments became due, but instead of twelve thousand only five thousand remitted, leaving seven thousand due. The amount is now instantly required to pay provincial accounts.

After a little sparring Dr. Pollen thus replies by telegram :—

This Government desires earnestly to give your Honor every possible aid in discharging rtie duties of your office, if you will permit our co-operrtion ; and, in order to provide for the immediate need of your Provincial Treasury, will at once advance the whole of flie sums payable to the province during the current quarter, under ihe Provincial Public Works Advances Act, 1874, if you desire| to have that accommodation. Sir George Grey, subsequently, reminds the General Government that he only asks for what the province is “ entitled to as a right” and is again met with the most caustic politeness by the Colonial Secretary:— The Golonial Treasurer will, I am sure, take great earc by prompt payment to the Provincial Treasurer of all moneys accruing due to re luce as much as possible the inconvenience of the situation in which your Honor must find yourself. Which put Sir George Grey upon his dignity, and causes him to say that:— The Colonial Government is very good in offering me such large advances. I could not accept such an offer without a total sacrifice of my own independence nnd that of this province. I therefore, with all respect, stand on the rights of this province. If these are ignored 1 shall do my duty to the best of my ability in poverty, but with my independence preserved. Now after all this humiliating, poverty stricken, supplication, one is hardly prepared for what Sir George Grey subsequently tells the Provincial Council in his opening speech. He says: —"You will find that your Pro- “ vincial revenue, upon which von can “ wholly depend, but little exceeds “ £ 15,(W a year,” and that, whilst our “ land revenue might possibly amount “to £2,(KM) during the financial year, “ • * * one half of the land revenue “ must be deducted to pay advances “ already made to this province by the “ General Government.” Then from the gutter he ascends to the clouds once more: —

/ beg you to consider whether it is desirable to receive any further sums upon account of this advance from the General Government, os half the land revenue of the province is for the first two years to be taken by that Government in payment of the advance so made, and after that period of time the whole of the land revenue is to be taken in piyment of the advance until entire su n advanced has been repaid. «>tt can, therefore, on’y avail yourselves hem’- - >rth of this advance hv consenting to a enWiderable reduction cf ycur annual revenue in each year after the tormina ion of the present one.

You will observe that such advances m wle b« the General Government to this province ar apt io mislead the public We appear receive a boon, but merely increase our indebted. ess and dependance. There can be no

doubt that in its revenues this Province has been greatly wronged ; nnd I think it would be better, instead of begging for advances which are to be repaid, quietly but matfully to require that, justice should be done to the inhabitants of Auckland * * * ]f we now turn again to the state of the finances of the province, we shall find that from a people already so depressed by the deprivation of that land fund which had been provided for them a great revenue is raised, amounting in the whole to more than £309,086 a year, of which about £249,000 is actual ordinary revenue raised from Customs duties and from Stamps. The whole of this great revenue, with the exception of £15,033 Provincial revenue and £10,500 from the gold fields, is, in the first instance, taken from them and carried to a distant part of the country. There is then, as 1 have already shewn, returned to them from so vast an amount, a sum which does not nearly reach £lB,OOO in one year. It may be said that if I estimate the revenue taken from the province at £250,000 a year, that the cost of the courts of justice and establishments of the General Government is paid by the people of this province from fines and fees, and other similar sources of what I treat as extraordinary revenue, and that after they have paid for the support of these establishments and their own provincial expenses, the sum taken from them is about. £256,000a year. I ask you to consider what this means : It is this, that a sum exceeding £3 10s per head per annum is levied upon the entire population of this province—upon each man, woman and child, and is carried from it to be in great part spent elsewhere.

We perfectly agree with Sir George Grey in deprecating the system which gathers where it does not straw; but, unquestionably, that system is sounding the death knell of all the provinces which, like Auckland, and unlike Otago, cannot hold their own.