PUBLIC OPINION.

Southland Times, Issue 571, 28 September 1866, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION.

THE STAMP DUTIES.

(From the New Zealand Advertiser, 17 Sept.)

We heartily congratulate the Colony and the Government upon the decision arrived at on Friday last on the question of the imposition of Stamp Duties. Considering that the debate lasted a week, and that every possible influence was brought to bear in order to procure an adverse decision, a majority of more than twenty in a House of seventy is a clear and unmistakable indication of the mind of the House of Representatives. "We are not unmindful of the fact that some few supported the ministerial proposition from the intimation that the Government would accept an adverse vote as a vote of want confidence ; noi do we forget that amongst the ranks of the minority were men who voted as they did in order that fresh taxes should not be raised by the General Legislature for appropriation by Provincial Conncils, believing, and justly believiug, that taxes imposed for the benefit tf a Province should be locally raised, so that all things considered we may regard the vote as a fair reiiex of the legislative mind It is a remark not more commonly than, justly made, that there are no well defined, no well, organised parties in the Honse. There are Unionists and Disunionists, the Colonial party and the Provincial party — the Ultra-provincialist and the tJltra-anti-provincialist — and, therefore, no reliance can be placed at any one time as to how the Totes will go. It is very generally acknowledged that the Treasury benches are filled by earnest able men; that another change of administration would at the present moment be extremely prejudical to the public interests, and that there does not appear any body of men outside the present Ministry, and willing to serve, who could command even a majority in the House ; and that it is under these circumstances that the Government of New Zealand is carried on at a most critical period in the history of the Colony. But it is a fact of marged significancy when a Superintendent of a Province — we mean Dr Featherstone,. of "Wellington, — absents himself from voting on a Government question, and another Superintendent, Mr Whitaker, of Auckland, declares that his support of Government is merely temporary, that so soon as he sees his way to carry a vote for dismembering the Coiony he will not be found waiting. It was with much regret that we heard the member for Christchurch (Mr Fitz Gerald) and the member for the Mataura (Mr Bell) censuring the Government for making the imposition of stamps a Ministerial question, and pointedly telling them that endurance has its limits; the one markedly alluding to his possibly siding with the separationists if an Imperial regiment were sent to Taupo, and the other pointing in the same direction if his pet scheme of disposing of the confiscated lands were not adopted. We almost expected to hear the opponents of ultrap :-it ncialism giving utterance to similar sentiments if the three-eighths of the Customs were given to the Provinces, and the provincialises adopting the samejmina tory tone if they were not. The fact is, and the sooner we realise it the better, that all Government is impossible while Provinces vote in block, and the Colonial and Provincial Governments are jostling each other to get their hands into the same purse. The central legislature must raise money by taxation for colonial purposes, and thejprovincial legislatures for provincial purposes ; till this is done it is utterly impossible to hope that anything but the most miserable squabbles will characterise our Parliamentary debates. Already it is intended to sade&rdr to

BU&teh thtj victore- tVom t'&e g&iap sf fchs oenM Q-ererftu&nti by appropriating three-eighths of tha St&um Bufciea to be expended by the 3*i? ovfticial ©overnmeote. We believe fch&t; this proposition will meet with a stern and decided opposition ; and that should there be ft surplus of revenue over expenditure when the Parliament next meets the G-overnment will take advantage of the occasaion, as they have intimated they will, to reduce the Customs taxation on those articles which are being smuggled into the Colony, or illicitly manufactured, and on those necessaries of life which fall more peculiarly heavy on the working classes ; and thus that there will be introduced a system of taxation which will place the burthens of the State on those who should be called upon to bear them in just and equitable proportions. To those who take note of our parliamentary proceedings, and lament the absence of many well-known statesmen who watched the infant days of constitutional Government, it is a subject of no small joy to see such men Stevens of Selwyn, Curtis of Nelson, and Oliver of Waimea, taking distinguished parts, and by their manly eloquence, high constitutional principles, sound judgments, and discriminating support to their party, giving a much desired tone to the debates ; and, also, to find Cox of Timaru, whose fine vigorous commonsense eloquence has not been heard for the first session in our Legislative Chambers, rising in his place, and heartily supporting the Government in their endeavor to uphold the dignity, honor, and unity of the colony — such support being the more appreciated because afforded in the presence of a political friend of long standing, who, temporarily alienated by some minor difference of opi:i; );;, had thrown the whole weight of his iuiluence against the Government. It is in times such as these that the true metal rings out, and its sound gives confidence and heart to men engaged in an administration to which they were called by the expression* of public opinion, and, as we hear, by the pleadings of personal friends who viewed with dismay the evident disruption of all Government had they not come to the front.

(From the "Daily T,imea," 21et September.)

The policy of the Government, then, is to destroy the Provinces, not by any intelligent scheme by which a substitute will be provided, but by reducing them to helpless dependence on the General Government. It is nothing to the point to say, that to make Otago, for instance, which has paid out of revenues collected within its own borders as much of the General Government expenditure as the whole of the North Island, still a debtor to that General Government, is a palpable absurdity. Figures, unscrupulously xised, can be turned to any purpose ; and the Government, by a financial jugglery, manage to establish this result, in the face of the fact that the rich Province has been impoverished by a needy Government, and that that Government has had no money to lend, and only by trickery, can be said to be a creditor. As Mr Stafford makes out the Imperial Government to owe New Zealand large sums, so he makes out the Provinces to - do the same. It seems as if it were his idea that counter claims are the best means of evading liabilities. We place the matter fairly before our readers. It is for the inhabitants of this and the neighboring Provinces .to decide how far they are bound to submit to the tyranny of an. unscrupulous Government with whom Centralisation means nothing more than the aggrandisement of personal power. Mr Stafford, or Mr Fitzherbert, or Major Eichardson, out of ofiice, would be the first to resist the monopoly of power by a selfish oligarchy ; but as long as they compose that oligarchy it is endowed with virtues they are otherwise unable to discover. The result of the session is the establishment of an abitrary despotism, the ratification of the principle that the Middle Island is unlimitedly liable for the expenses incurred in the Northern. Island, that the Provinces are to regard as a concession the loan by the General Government to them of a portion of their own revenues, they are gradually to be brought into debt, until they become powerless and helpless. Like the costermonger's horse, they are to be reduced to three straws a-day, and then to die out.