MR VOGEL IN DUNEDIN.

Southland Times, Issue 1351, 23 December 1870, Page 2

MR YOGEL IN DUNEDIN.

, - : ♦ ■ ".: • . •: The following is a further extract from the Colonial Treasurer's speech : — IMMIGRATION" AND PUBLIC WOEK3 MEASTJBES. . I will now proceed to explain the | Immigration— and -^Public "Works mea["sures, just premising that any of you will be able to refer to the Acts themselves in proof of the correctness of what I say. I have no words to express my feelings on finding that these measures have been made the subject of constant misrepresentation in Otago ; that all sorts of ridiculous meanings have been given to them, and that you have not had published herein the newspapers any- | thing like a complete account of the Acts. When the financial sfatement itself was published, it was in order that you might be able to judge for yourselves. The first feature in the Immigration and | Public "Works Act to which I will refer is, that dB4OOjOOO is to be set apart, and to be , colonially charged for the construction of roads in the North Island. That is one of the special amounts appropriated to the North Island ; but against it there is an equivalent amount, which it is provided "shall be .applied in aid of railway charges in the Middle Island. Thus taking the population basis for the : present year there will be £183,000 to icome out of the Colonial charge of ; .£400,000, which will be applicable to Otago for railway purposes;— (A voice: , " It's no use your talking- about railways 'here, for the Port Chalmers line is a ; sample' of them."—rlnterruption.) I can \ well believe that there are. a few amongst I you who would give their right hands ali most rather than I "shbiild be' allowed to I explain the truth as -to our measures of I last session-rrthat some of you- have, done so much towards . misdescribing and misrepresenting those measures that you are, i naturally perhaps, averse to the -truth I being made known. Understand that I 'have: no wish whatever to reflect upon jany large number of persons in Otag6 • !but yoti must agree that a very few I persons who are heartyiu the work may ido a great deal of misrepresentation.

When I read the debates that hare taken place in your Provincial Council aa to the colonising measures of the- Government, and when I know-rH)r believe at\ least — that tome of the members of that Council- those ; who at the :■ recent meetifig create 1 the greatest noise; I have no doubt that there are those present who are anxious that thje 'misrepre* SQntation of which they haye been, "guilty < should" not .be exposed. I wilLnov. come to the 1 pro visions for* the construction of railways. The Governor may from time to time ask the opinion of any Superintendent as to the different -railways and the different lines to be- constructed in the province ; but only those railways are to be constructed which shall be authorised by the Assembly. When we introduced our measures, there was a provision to the effect that railways might be constructed by the Government with the consent of the Superintendent ; » but the Assembly absolutely declined to J pass the measures in so provincial a form. ! We therefore had to modify them so as to provide that the Assembly should prescribe what should be done ; that the Goverment might consult " the Spperintendenfc as to what was advisable, and he might make recommendations which should be laid before the Assembly. Theri^the Act provides that those expensive , things, Private Bills, which have hitherto, been ne- . cessary before any railway could lie constructed, shall be dispensed with in future. The Governor may contract "to pay for any railways constructed , in money, by grants of land, by leases of land, by guarantee of profits, 5 or by subsidies. Th* Superintendents and Provincial Councils may recommend land.' to be set apart for the construction of railways. Next comes the clause that some of you will be very sorry to hear me read. You have been told over and -over again that you in effect were being asked to construct railways at your own cbst for the North Island. That is one of the appeals that have Been madeto your feelings to induce you not to approve of immediate effect being given to our measures. But whai} is the fact ? : The Act makes -it? absolutely' necessary that the expenditure- on railways'. should be Provincially chargedh-excepting of course so much as may be hereafter paid but of the Middle Island Railway fund. -Let me read the clause to you. It is the 19th clause of the Act, and reads thus:— " All moneys which shall from time to time be expended under the authority of this part of this Act on>ail ways (except such as shall be expended, put of * tine Middle Island Railway Fund Account) shall immediately: upon such; expenditure being made be charged against the Province in which the works upon which such moneys shall have been expended are situate in the manner provided by the - forty-fourth section .of * The Public Revenues Act 1867 ' and the tenth section of 'The payments to Provinces Act 18707 Provided that as to so ' much ,of such moneys as shall be . expended but of any loan such- charge shall. from time to time accruing due in respect of such moaevscomtnencing from the date of the borrowing thereof and a proportionate part of the costs of raising such, moneys." ■•■: ; : ■:-■ - That is, I think you : will admit, an absolute declaration "that all moneys" expended on railways, with the exception stated, shall be provincially charged.— (Applause; ' \ A /Voice : Has Wellington got any money to pay with ?) Should lands be accepted by the Government in lieu ol; moneys charged against the Provinces, such lands are to be disposed: of by the : Assembly. Another proof that it is really meant that money spent upon railways .shall be provinciallycharged, is .afforded' by the fact that half the duties on stamps collected in any Province; are; subsequent \to the piseisent year, to be set .apart in aid, of Railway expenditure. What would' be the good, I ask, of making any such provisions as these unless the expenditure' was ■to be provincially eh trged 3— (A Voice : "Oh j but some of the Providces can't pay at all.) Then they won't get' railways, my' near Bir.-r(Loud laughter and applause.)! /The total payments ; for Railways throughout the Colony are- not- to exceed sever* millions five hundred thousand pounds and two millions and a half acres of land. Remember that we had to provide for the construction x>f railways,' not only in this province, but, throughout, the Colony. We had to provide for such works being; constructed frbm'time'to time as might be^ necessary to enable .the Colony to bereally settled. The seven million ,five hundred thousand pounds might lnclude^construction through direct cash payments j guarantees ; contracts, to .purchfceiidearatf the expiration of given periodei; Subsidies ; and also the'value of any land in excess of two and a-half million acres. ' : It will also include the amount-of the Middle Island Railway Fund; ; and : all .moneys paid for land, .taken , for;/- Railway purposes ; it being absolutely! provided that the totajL money payments to be m^de on account of the construction of railways shall not exceed £2,000,000. But, rememberTailways-may-ibe-TSons--structed upon jguar^ntees; as ..^rell as by other means. The adviceswhich we haverecently received from London, tell us that in England our proposals have been so well received that there is very little doubt indeed, that we jean have railways constructed as the Assembly may please, either by guarantees or but of borrowed ! money. Now aa~to~the provisions for to give i»ter-supiply/io'itheYQ ! old| s fields of the colony. The Governor may ;at thei request 5 of the SupeKntendent | contract for .works to aupply^w^tei?* [ Tho I Governor' iniity cause surveys' and reports to be made, the total, amount to be spent oh such, works being, three ! hundred thousand mhi*' work^ jean only beconstructedrvritli the cbn- | currence - of the \ r Superintendent. — (A i Voice : And '^ovwcraieoiincil:?) Yes, it iis so— with fte concurreaceof the^S^iper^ I intendent' an|, VPrp vincja^ "Ifie ! Governor may cohferact j£or works for the i supply of water. to the- Goldfields.;i All i payments made for such) works mutt»bem

m

Provincial charge. You have heen told here that Otago will have to pay for the construction of such worts on the Thames Goldfielda, but that is simply a mis-state-ment—(A Voice : A lie.) Well, yes, that is the English way of putting it. There is a power in the Act to acquire land in the North Island, and that has been made a great feature of l>y our opponents here ; it having been said that the purchase of those lands is to be charged to the Colony, and that you in this Island will therefore have to pay for that land. But I tell you that everything that ingenuity and determination could effect to make it absolute and indispensable that the money for the purchase of those lands shall be charged to the Provinces within which they are purchased, has been done in our measures, and I venture to give a total and absolute contradiction to the statement that it is possible that this Island should have been made to pay for the j purchase of such lands in the j North. Clause 34 provides that the Go- 1 vernor may acquire lands in the North Island if he is previously requested so to do by the Superintendent, but he must previously make arrangements as to the terms " for charging against the province the moneys to be expended" in the purchase of such lands. I ask you to take hereafter the trouble to read clause 34 of the Immigration and Public Works Act. I will not detain you now by reading it. To make it still more certain that the cost of these lands shall be Provincially charged, it is provided that in fixing the price to be paid the Governor shall be guided by "ah estimate based on the laws in force in the province in which such land is, regulating the price at which the Waste Lands of the Crown maybe sold." In other words, the Governor is only to buy lands at such a -price as will leave a profit upon their resale afterwards. By clause 38 it has been specially provided that " a separate account shall be kept by the Colonial Treasurer against each Province in the North Island of all moneys expended under the provisions contained lin this part of the Act, and also is to be charged a rate of interest not exceeding 6 per cent." We said in the Assembly that land in the North Island was selling for a few shillings, and in some cases even for a few pence almost per acre, and that if there was to be a policy of settlement we ought to acquire land in that island, which by its resale at a great advantage will tend to enable the North Island to contribute towards the liabilities of the whole colony. Now as to immigration. Immigrants may be introduced at the request of a Superintendent, and at his request only ; when half the expenditure is to be charged to the Province at a rate not exceeding 30s per bead for every immigrant introduced ; the Colony, that will derive benefit from the labors and expenditure of the immigrants, paying the other half of the expense. That I say is obviously a very fair arrangement. I wish to dispossess your minds of any idea that we HftaJTe to gpt p* n l^ ft ™*" * hft Oniony, and to set them down upon our shores regardless whether or not they are able to find employment. Let me read you a short extract from the Financial Statement : — " The Colony requires immigration of several descriptions ; and it will be the care of the Government, if power by legislation is given to them, to enter into agreements in relation to different parts of the colony, in accordance, as far as possible, with the views of the local authorities and with local requirements. In placing immigration on this footing, I am not dealing with it in vague terms ; /because it is, part of the principle I desire to establish, that the only limit to profitable immigration is that set by a want of local preparedness to receive the immigrants. From whatever point of view you regard it, whether from the highest social or the narrowest pecuniary view, immigration is a profit to the State, if the immigrants can settle down and support themselves; If many thousands of immigrants, introduced at once, could earn a livelihood in the Colony, I would not hesitate to ask you to vote the money to pay for their passages. Long -before the money would have to be paid, supposing it to be borrowed, the immigrants ' would recoup the amount by contribu- . tions to the revenue. But it would be cruel to bring out immigrants, if you do not ccc the way to their finding the means of self-support. As every immigrant who becomes a settler will be a profit, so every immigrant who leaves the colony, or is unable to procure a livelihood in it, will be a loss. We therefore say that we will introduce immigrants . only to those parts of the colony which are prepared to receive them. What the nature of the preparation may be, it would be impossible now to define. It might be land for settlement ; it might be employment of an ordinary nature, or on public works ; it might be that facili- . ties for establishing manufactories, or aiding special or co-operative settlements, were offered." —-(Loud applause.) The other parts of the Act are of a technical nature. The principal of them, as I have already explained, enables us to dispense with private Bills for the construction of railways and works for the supply of water •to the Goldfields to be constructed.-r---(Mt Grant here attempted to make himself heard, but was speedily silenced.) I come now to a measure which it is very much for your interest that I should explain to you. It was the first of the measures meant to give practical effect ' to the provisions of the Immigration and Public Works Act. I refer to the Bailways Act, 1870. I wish you to attend very carefully to what I say with regard to this Act. First, it provides for the 1 construction of a railway bridge across the Waitaki, between the Provinces of Otago and Canterbury. Then it provides for the construction of the Otago Southern Trunk Bailway from Dunedin to the Clutha, The other railways provided for are from Blenheim to Picton in Marlborougb, from Nelson to Cobden in Nelson, and from Auckland to the •kato in Auckland— the last named'

being the only line authorised to be commenced in the North Island. The Act further provides for the construction of three portions of railway within the province of Canterbury at a cost of £200,000. For the bridge over the Waitaki the expenditure authorised is £35,000. As to the Otago Southern Trunk Kailway, we are authorised to do either of two things — to borrow money and to construct the line at an expense not exceeding £5,000 a mile, or to give a guarantee upon such an amount. The line between Blenheim and Picton may be constructed by guarantee only, upon an expenditure not exceeding £3,500 a mile, and the only authorised line in the North Island, that from Auckland to Taukau in the Waikato district, a distance of about -forty miles, may be constructed by guarantee only, upon an expenditure not exceeding £4,000 a mile. ._ The Act also authorises certain surveys to be made during the recess. Those being from Invercargill to the Mat3ura, from Moeraki to the Waitaki, and in the North Island from Wellington to the Seventy-mile Bush, thence diverging to Napier and New Plymouth. The line with respect to which the greatest fight took place in the House was this one from Wel--lington.to Napier and thrpugh-.^Tanganui to New Plymouth:'-' -We had the greatest difficulty conceivable with regard to this line,: because we said we would not consent to authorise its construction. We resisted to the last demands which were made to get the line included in the first Schedule as one that might be immediately constructed, although there was a powerful party in the House that demanded it should be so included. We said that we would not consent to anything -more than a survey until we knew how the line should be constructed, in what absolute direction, and upon what terms. And we also said that when it was constructed it must be paid for out of the proceeds of the land. We contended in fact that this North Island line should be constructed in the same way as the one between Nelson and Cobden, by grants of land. Some of the most magnificent of all the lands in the Colony are available for the construction of the line, and we have no doubt that we can make arrangements for its being so constructed. We knew that this line would be the means of permanently settling a large and most valuable portion of the North Island, but Btill we declared to the House that we were not prepared, until we had real information npon the subject, to ask from the House authority to construct the line ; but we said we were perfectly ready to take authority to make the necessary surveys, and that next year we would bring down proposals for the construction of the line, with the understanding that the works must be paid for mainly, if not altogether, out of the land available for that purpose.