THE SUPERINTENDENT OF AUCKLAND ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Southland Times, Issue 1521, 9 January 1872, Page 3

THE SUPERINTENDENT OF AUCKLAND ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Mr Gillies met his constituents of Auckland City West on the 29th ult. In reviewing the late session of the Assembly, he stated that he had gone into opposition because he had no faith in the administrative ability or political honesty of the Ministry. The Opposition kept solely in view the financial safety of the Colony. They had no desire to turn out the Government, partly because they would be unable to form a new one among themselves, but chiefly because no man of common sense or common honesty could hope to take up the thread of the present financial scheme without making numerous enemies, and covering himself with discredit. He disapproved of the stamp tax and the tax on food — (loud applause.) He believed the Provincial Governments could not live much longer, the General Government having absorbed their revenue. The Government might then cost less, but would be much less efficient. It was a moral certainty that the existing deficiency in the Colonial finances must continue and increase. To meet this deficiency further taxation would be proposed, which ought not to be listened to ; nor ought further borrowing to be tolerated for this purpose by constantly shifting on to loans expenditure properly chargeable against revenue. The only other alternative was to resume possession of the waste lands of the colony. The original compact of 1856 gave the South revenues from these lands ; but did not make them Provincial estates. The arrangement was conditional, and the conditions had been broken, so that the North was now without land revenue, while the South received more than would have paid off all the Colonial loans together. He urged his constituents to be watchful, and showed by quotations from the speech which he made when he last addressed them, that much of what he then urged as to the effect of the General Government policy on Provincial finances had come to pass, and assured them that despite the rose-colored pictures daily held before them the transactions upon which the Government were entering were fraught with danger, which nothing but the most vigilant care could prevent from becoming a millstone round their own necks and those who for many a year would come after them.