NEW RIVER DISTRICT.

Southland Times, Issue 1146, 13 October 1869, Page 2

NEW RIVER DISTRICT.

The following is a summary of Mr. M'Clure's addresses to the electors of the New Biver district, at Forest Hill on the 27 th ult., and at Wallacetown on the Ist inst. : — " Dissatisfaction has been felt, relative to my not voting for Dr Hodgkinson's amendment in the session of January, 1868. Had the question been put at any of our meetings, the matter would at once have been explained. £17,000 were voted, for road*, the Government scale being 20 per cent, forthe North road, 45 per ce&t. for the East Road, and 10 per cent* for Rirerton to Otautau. The amendment scale was 25 per cent., 35 per cent., and 15 per cent, for these roads respectively. As a member of the Govern"

inentj I could riot possibly do otherwise than' vote against the amendment, and stippott the Government measure. Having & sum voted, arid havirig that euin expended upon a road, are two very different things. The vote does not necessarily ensure the expenditure. If the sum toted be not expended, or the liability be not incurred before the time expires for which the vote ia taken, the vote in whole or part lapses. The £17,000 were voted as follows :— North road, £3740, or 22 per cent., expended to 30th June, £3793 15s lOd, being £53 15s lOd in excess of vote. East road. £7650, or 45 per cent. ; expended, £6248; leaving £1402 not expended. Riverton to Otautau, £1700, or 10 per cent. ; expended, £1373 2s ; leaving £326 18s not expended. Wallacetown to Riverton, £510, or 3 per cent. ; expended, £1078 10s Bd, being £568 10b 8d expended in excess of vote. The I several sums not expended lapsed on the 30th June. This will show you the difference between votes and expenditure. The Government has the sole control of the expenditure, which is regulated according to data procured from the Chief Surveyor and Roads Engineer. In this instance, had more been voted for North road, it would not have been spent, the time being so limited during which road works could judiciously be carried on. During 1868, and up to the 30th June, 1869, the total amount expended on the North, including land payments, was £6,257 16s, and £79 14s, Eorest Hill to Wallacetown, out of the total expenditure on all roads of £25,000. It appears that fault has been found with me for acting in conjunction with Messrs Blacklock and Armstrong. The facts are these. When the Council met, after the last general election, the gentlemen who formed the Government during the recess, resigned without recommending any one to be sent for. Dt Hodgkinson, who nominated Mr Taylor, refused to form a government. The Superintendent declined to act in the matter. At the suggestion of the Council, however,' he sent for me. I succeeded in forming an Executive, and failing others, obtained the assistance of Messrs Blacklock, Armstrong, and Monckton. The deadlock was got over. In this I acted in strict accordance with the political canon, that every one who enters a legislative or administrative body, must be perfectly free to act with those with whom he has a common end in view ; this freedom to be used at his own discretion for the benefit of his constituents and the general public. He cannot act with those opposed to his views ; he cannot act efficiently with the lukewarm, and if he be debarred from obtaining the assistance of those who hold the same views, he cannot act at all. There would be an end of carrying on the functions of local government altogether. This is so well established, so well understood, never contravened, that no more need be said about it. The chief end in common between myself and colleagues, was to secure the completion of the Oreti railway, and this end has been secured, despite delays and difficulties. No offer was made to procure the plant and complete the line for the 60,000 acres granted for the purpose. Givingupthis grant, the Superintendent and Mr Blacklock obtained from the Colonial Government the concession of 15 months' interest of the Provincial debt, towards the cost of plant and works, looking to proceeds of land sales to meet any balance required. This negociation was, in my opinion, ably managed by them. The Government ordered the plant, and remitted £10,000 to England on account. Land was not sold as anticipated, and this, combined with the large expenditure upon roads, was the reason Mr Blacklock went to Victoria, by request of his colleagues, to induce sales if possible. During his absence, and unknown to him, the tenders were called for. Boldness in cases of emergency being the true prudence, and land still not being sold, the Superintendent, accompanied by his son, proceeded to Wellington with the entire approval of the Executive, (Messrs Lumsden, Armstrong, and M'Clure), who decided that his son's expenses should be paid. The Superintendent obtained a grant of 25,000 acres of land for railway works, which are being proceeded with now, and, no doubt, will be completed within contract time. Had the tenders not been called for at the time stated, in all probability the railway would have continued at a standstill; perhaps the plant handed over to some one to finish the line for a long lease, to which I could not at all agree. A great noise has been made about Mr Taylor going to Wellington, and the expenses incurred thereby, but if another 25,000 acres of land can be obtained for public works by similar means, and at the same cost, the sooner those means are adopted the better. In plain English, the Government of that day has been and still is blamed for doing the work it had undertaken to do. It is as well to correct some statements sent abroad as to the indebtedness of the province, and which erroneous statements have tended to prevent small capitalists from coming here. It has been said that Southland has a debt of upwards of £400,000— £60 per head ; the fact being that what was the debt of Southland now forms an integral part of the colonial debt. There is no debt of £60 per head. The debt per head in Southland is the same as the debt per head all over New Zealand, about £28, and, as a set-off, the people of this province have each 250 acres, and £30 in railways. There is an annual charge against the province of about £25,000. As to the retrenchment effected in the Bluft Harbor and Inyercargill Railway by the late Executive, this could not have been effected bj any possibility bad it not been that the preceding Government almost reconstructed the line, nearly all the culverts having been replaced, in many cases brick being substituted for timber, ballast unfit for the purpose replaced hy proper material, the bridge over the Pcni stream rebuilt with Tasznanian blue gum, embankments of sand protected with loose atone— this plan of Mr Conyers' being

: approved of by Mr Balfouf as preferable to maaonrV — -a mile and* a quarter of the line diverted inshore, above high water mark, iri consequence of the destruction of the sea embankment, &c, &c. Had those works not bpen finished, and the line thus put into thoroughly good working orJer, it could not have been leased, as°has been done, nor the retrenchment effected for which the late Executive takes so much credit, a credit to the whole of which it most decidedly is not justiy entitled. Retrenchment, I have always maintained, could be carried too far, especially by fresh and fiery converts, who are apt to be too enthusiastic. Take for example the Executive Council Amendment Ordinance, described by the Speaker as fining away with the last shred of responsibility in the Government. Under this very remarkable Ordinance, men were to enter the Government from purer motives than hitherto. The political puritans, its authors, conscious no doubt of being in a state of grace, made no allowance for those still in the bonds of iniquity, in which flatteriug category they included all the country members, practically excluding them from any share in the Executive Government of the Province, restricting the choice of members of Executive to those who resided in town, contrary to all true political principles. When the Superintendent recalled the appointments of the gentlemen who composed the late Executive Council, they signed a state paper, charging him with a most unconstitutional act in so doing. Why, they began their career of Government under an unconstitutional Ordinance, with a Treasurer who filled the office in direct violation of constitutional principles, and they complain of being unconstitutionally snuffed out! All this, however, does not excuse the Superintendent for his late unconstitutional rule. From what occurred during the last session, you are aware that I am altogether opposed to re-union with Otago, tersely and truly described as " suicide " and " utter ruin." That Otago will offer good terras there is but little doubt, the danger is that they will be too good, so good that Southland will be deluded into accepting them. You have no surety that the terms which may be agreed upon by the Commissioners will be embodied in any Act of the Colonial Parliament for effecting re-union. Unless they be embodied in the Act, they are not worth the paper on which they are aetforth. If they be embodied in the Act, there is no surety that the act will not be amended, and that right speedily, after any such ill-starred union as this would prove. "If the bond is violated, who is to sue upon the bond," a part of Otago against Otago ? (Southland would have ceased to be) a part against the whole, and with what chance of success ? Look how the act of union between England and Ireland has been lately violated as regards the Church. Trust not to Otago's promises ; they will prove fair and false! Trust not to an Act of Parliament, for it is not immutable ; its mutability would soon be proved, but not in your favor. Southland would simply come under the laws in force in Otago, of which the " Otago Waste Lands Act, Amendment," is a most precious specimen, clause 13 doing away with freehold tenure, and substituting a blessing in the shape of a sort of Star Chamber, made up of the Superintendent and Executive Council, whose edicts would be enforced by that very unobferusire personage, " his constable," who, by an ingenious and pleasant fiction figures in the clause as sole owner of all the about-to-be-trespassed-upon lands in the province. The most grave objection against re-union is the undue weight which it would give to Otago in the Colonial Parliament, by which Otago would be enabled to reimburse itself at the expense of the colony at large, for any mythical act of generosity towards Southland, a power which no province can possess with safety to the commonwealth. Can you, as reasonable men, be deluded into calling into existence a power so subversive of all those rights which you are bound to maintain ? I cannot reconcile it to myself that the Colonial Parliament will pass an Act which would be so destructive to its own independence. Being deprived of our local government is another grave objection against reunion. It was the ancient spirit of freedom fostered by the local institutions that upheld justice and preserved civil rights, often against both kings and parliaments, during the stormy days of England. Blunders there were many — faults there were not a few ; but " the result is, England as England is. De Tocqueville says : — " What matters the imperfection of an organ when the body is instinct with life." The Colonial Government being as much to blame as the Provincial Government for the indebtedness of Southland, in equity it should share the burden as well as blame ; in justice it should take over our railways, not for what they have cost, but at a fair ! valuation, and deduct the interest upon the amount of that valuation from the annual charge. Give credit to the Province for its due share of the consolidated revenue, as proposed by Mr Hall, then Southland would be in as good, if nota better position, than any Province in New Zealand. A negotiation such as this between the Colonial and Provincial Governments is not to be conducted in the huckstering spirit of petty dealers, chafferring about the petty matters of their trade, but- upon the broad grounds of a national and liberal policy, and for the national good. If carried out, and I do not see how it well could fail of being done, if properly understood and handled; then let the Waste Land laws be amended, and free selection be done away with, and there would be nothing more heard about re-union with Otago — that : Otago which lately tried to borrow fiSQ,OOO to enable justice to be done to its 'outlying districts, a fair acknowledgment that justice had not been done — a fair warning of what Southland might expect."