OTAGO.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 350, 1 March 1861, Page 4

OTAGO.

(From the Colonial.)

MR. STAFFORD'S SPEECH,

We have received, printed in a separate form c the speech delivered by Mr. Stafford to his con stituents at Nelson, subsequent to his re-electioi to the General Assembly. As, from its circula tion m this shape, it may be looked upon as t " ministerial manifesto, and be fairly assumed t< 0 contain all that is to be said in favor of thi => present Government, we have given it in extens* 3 and thus for once redeemed ourselves from tin c sweeping charge brought by Mr. Stafford againsi t the provincial press, of indifference to the acti t and intentions of the General Governmeut, or 6 1 undiscriminating aud unjust censure, when thes< j happen to clash with the wishes of provincia g party. We may remark, by the way, thai j. Mr. Stafford's acknowledgement'that the tar g dinees of the means of iater-communication ratisl j frustrate any, attempt v>n the part of newspapers , at a distance to fully record thG acts of the Government, iCOupled with, his assertion of the in- *' dispe'nsible necessity for this heiog done furnishes 'an unanswerable argument against the seat oi >! government being located at one extremity oi - the colony. '' ' : We cannot.follpwrMr. Staftord through the > whole of hiV lengthy, but somewhat egotistical • and' superficial address, but there are tw.o ; or ) three'points1 to which we wish to direct the at- > t^ntioa'" of'6ur" readers. The hon. gentleman » very complacently takes credit for all that has i been done iby the General Assembly, although . much of this became indispensable upon the change from nominee to responsible government, , altogether independent of who might happen to form the particular Ministry of the day. Thus for instance, we have high-sounding platitudes as to the importance of placing the public expenditure under the control of the Assembly, inasmuch as under the o'd system, the revenue " could be taken without the consent, or even the until it was spent, of the Legislature ; which was thus left with but a weak and insignificant voice, and infinitesimally small 1 control with respect to the expenditure of the public money." "We," says Mr. Stafford, *' placed all the departments on the same footing, requiring the assent of the House of Representatives to the expenditure of every item in connection with them." It is not much in accordance with this boast, that £30,000 of unauthorised expenditure by the Stafford Government had to be provided, for during the late session, of which the Legislature ".knew nothing until it was spent," and .£IO,OOO of which was for the purpose of providing direct steam communication for Auckland, towards which Otago had to pay her Bhare, while she was left to defray the cost of the same advantage for herself out of provincial revenue. It is quite true that this unauthorised expenditure was afterwards submitted to the Legislature, coupled with the proposal that the Provinces shouW be crippled by defraying it in a lump out orthe, available surplus revenue ; but the farce of first expending the revenue, and then asking from the Legislature a sanction which it is useless to withhold—a practice alarmingly on the iucrease throughout New Zealand —is now pretty generally seen through; and any Government which, both in practice and by enactment, should put an end to it, would have a stronger claim upon the confidence of the people than any that can be put forward by the Stafford Ministry. Mr. Fox's "two-and-sixpenny scheme" for liquidating the £200,000 raised for paying off the New Zealand Company's debt is then compared by Mr. Stafford with the plan which was adopted, on the motion of the present Government, of laying a fixed annual charge upon the Middle Island provinces; and the hon. gentleman adroitly contrasts the working of the two plans as affecting Nelson—a little bit of Jesuitry to which some exception might have been taken by a different audience. We have no desire to enter into an argument as to the rival financial schemes propounded by Messrs. Sewell and Fox (indeed the latter was never fairly argued in the Assembly), but if we remember rightly, Mr. Fox's plan included the the retention by the provinces of the fees and fines received in the Resident Magistrates' Courts, with other favorable provisions. But Mr. Stafford has not fairly stated the case. By the Public Debt Apportionment Act, the £200,000 paid in liquidation of the; New Zealand Company's claim is charged upon the provinces of Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago, the two latter paying £77,500 each, and Nelson £45,000. The interest, with 2 per cent, as a sinking fund, is payable yearly, forming an annual charge of £4,650 each upon Canterbury and Otago, and £2,700 upon Nelson. But the latter has disposed of all her land at about ss. per acre ; and

it would no doubt have been a serious matter to be mulcted of one-half the proceeds, as proposed under Mr. Fox's plan. Mr. Stafford, however, forgot to remind his audience that Nelson, spendthrift like, has anticipated her -. Qm sources, and will have this annual charge testing upon her for the next thirty years, v'^ ..... f, any land revenue from which to it But, as we before stated, ';. j, no , o Vobject to compare the two scb; it be more advantage^ t0 have a fix J/ chai / e spread over a num^ r of tbaQ to mke amount of contr^ lon d d tbe extent of land sales; . therQ cau be little . doubfc that Nelson wouK offflr little objection to the adop . tion_oi l^; Fox > g p i an f or t h e future, and would r° n' QLaer the payment of half-a-crown per acre iar preferable to a contribution of £2,700 per annum.

With regard, however, to.the main point at issue between the present Government and the provinces of New Zealand, Mr. Stafford's manifesto must be pronounced to be an utter failure, The debates in the House of Representatives, the published addresses of candidates, and ttfe results of nearly all the elections that have as yet taken place, cannot have hit the hon. gentleman in ignorance of the fact, that the chief ground of opposition to bis Ministry is the evident determination on the part of the present General Government to bring the whole governing power within their own grasp, and to reduce the provinces into helpless dependencies. This opposition, we firmly believe, does not arise from a preference (or a wild and reckless ultra-Provincialism, but from an intelligent conviction that if New Zealand is to continue to progress to that position in the wor d which she appears designed to occupy—if her wildert esses are to be peopled, and her resources, developed — provincial action must be something more than a name. And yet this question, by which the Stafford Ministry will assuredly either stand or fall, is only incidentally touched upon, or dismissed in generalities, white the New Provinces Act, the very fnlcriU| upon which all the centralising leverage mts, ia not ew» named!

Such an omission, under the circumstauoes, is perhaps the most emphatic condemnation that could have been pronounced upon the Act. It has been again and again denounced as. not only uujust and absurd, but delusive, inasmuch as, while professing to extend the privileges of local self-government, it was really designed to subvert and destroy them altogether; and yet not a word in its defence was ventured upon' by its author, in an address purporting to be an exposition of the acts and intentions of the Government!

The absurdity of claiming for men whose contempt of petty governments has been openly expressed, and whose whole course of action has been to words au overriding Centralism, credit for a desire to promote local government by means of such an Act, was, we presume, deemed by Mr, 'Stafford too glaring for even an obsequious Nelson audience. And it is lamentable to think that such an omission was suffered by the meeting to pass without a question.

, Nelson has been shorn of its fair proportions, under circumstances the legality of which was at least doubtful, the names of many of the memorialists for separation not being foond ou the new electoral roll which was issued almost simultaneously with the forwarding of the .petition. , The Nelson Examiner entered a feeble protest at the time, but has ever siuce maintained a silence as discreet as if under French censorship ; and not an elector vya3 found the .meeting iii question with sufficient public spirit to demand. an explanation. Nelson, of course, expects to be rewarded for her complaisance; but Mr. Stafford may rest assured that in no other province would he have recived a vote of thanks for his explanation, which can only be likened to the tragedy of " Hamlet," with the character of Hamlet omitted,