THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Vèritè sans peur.” WANGANUI, NOVEMBER 19, 1863.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 370, 19 November 1863, Page 3

THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Vèritè sans peur.” WANGANUI, NOVEMBER 19, 1863.

The foot of our own steamer Wanganui being now on her way out, gives special interest to the proceedings at the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company’s half-yearly meeting, held in Wellington on the 20th October. The report presented on that occasion cannot fail to have been read with satisfaction by the shareholders in this district. In moving the increase of the Company’s capital from <£‘so,ooo to £250,000 Mr. Bannatyne stated some particulars relative to the subsidies contributed by the General Government, which deserve notice. Not less than <£70,000 is thus contributed to various Companies in the shape of bonus, and as the amount voted by provincial legislatures cannot be less than £15,000 or £20,000 in addition, we have something like £90,000 a year of revenue eliminated into smoke. This is certainly a most extraordinary amount for a colony whose revenue is so small as ours ; but a moment’s consideration of the geographical position of these islands must convince the veriest grumbler that steam is an absolute necessity to our progress, and the fact that steam has wholly developed itself since the Constitution Act has been in force, is, proof that the public are alive to their own interests. The colonial subsidies are : - Contributions to Peninsular and Oriental Co. towards trunk line from Southampton to Australia, £IO,OOO ; Melbourne to Otago, £13,000 ; Sydney to Auckland and Sydney to Cook’s Strait, £19,000 ; Wellington and intermediate ports to Manukau, £2,400 ; Wellington to Napier and Auckland £IBOO ; Nelson to Dunedin and intermediate ports, £I6OO ; Wellington to Canterbury and Dunedin, £1500; Wellington to Wanganui, Taranaki, Raglan, and Manukau, £4BOO ; Auckland to Dunedin via Bast Coast, £7OOO ; Manukau to intermediate ports and Bluff, £9OOO. Total, £70,100. Out of this sum certainly not less than £45,000 may be strictly put down to the conveyance of the English mails, and the best proof that the remainder does not provide sufficient interprovincial communication, is to be found in the extra sum of £15,000 or £20,000 already stated to be paid by the provinces. It is impossible for us to say how many of these items are extravagant, because we cannot possibly know the i-easons which influence particular subsidies. The service between Wellington and Manukau for £4BOO (£2OO a trip twice a month) would probably, in southei’n eyes, seem enormous ; but looking to it as one of essential importance for the welfare of this coast, as supplying a constant means of communication between every centre of population, its paramount necessity for reasons of state becomes obvious. As the colony progresses particular subsidies will be lowered, but at present most of them arc requisite to keep the vessels employed afloat. Thu/; the

New Zealand Steam Navigation Company, although in the annual receipt of £12,000 from General and Provincial Governments,'only made a-profit last half year of £3040. Of course it may be said that there was an unusual expenditure for repairs, and that all the subsidies have not been available during the whole period, still 1 our argument remains untouched. The subsidies received by the Company are':—Wellington to Picton, Nelson, Taranaki, and Manukau, £2,400; Wellington to, Wanganui and Castle Point, £IOOO ; Wellington to Napier, £6OO ; Wellington to Wanganui, Taranaki, Raglan, and Manukau, £4,800; Wellington to Canterbury and Otago, £ISOO. Total, £12,100. It is sometimes said that as the subsidies are granted for the conveyance of the mails, the postal revenue ought to be the source from whence they are derived. While this is specious and “ taking ” with a class, and while economy is of course essential in postal as in every other kind of expenditure, yet it is often terribly false economy for governments to look for direct returns from money expended. As increased postal facilities are afforded the postal revenue is increased, but oftentimes far from proportionately. Both political and social advantages are of an importance too frequently overlooked by mere financiers, but which governments are obliged to take mainly into consideration. Thus in 1853 the number of letters and newspapers received and despatched in all the provinces was, in round numbers, 300,000 ; while in 1861 it was 2,500,000, or an increase on the respective population of those dates of 15 per head —that is to say, every man, woman, and child yi 1853 received an average of 10 letters, &c, while in 1861 they received an average of 25. The postal revenue had also increased from £1568 in 1853 to £14,131 in 1861. Now, if we only put the postal revenue of the cur rent year, say £20.000, against £70,000 expended on steam, the mere money loss under that one head is clearly £50,000 '; but no one supposes for a moment that the colony would be richer without steam than with it. The gain to individuals and the colony by rapid and regular communication is seen in numberless shapes, socially, politically, and commercially, and is felt in numberless more. Last May, for instance, the. Governor applied for troops, and during this month a thousand of them will doubtless be in the Waikato. A few yeai’s ago it would have taken double the time to have procured them, the summer would have been ended, and the cost which the want of them would have imposed,'throws the steam subsidies into the shade as insignificant in the extreme. A few months ago our readers will recollect how uncertain and full of suspense we were as to the doings in the North, and how this journal had to hammer at the Government for additional communication on our coast. The Government at last wisely subsidised' a steamer to run fortnightly, and although, as we have above stated, this was effected at an expense which in a merely postal view could not be justified, yet on the grounds of state necessit}’- it would have been wisely entered into at almost any amount. We need not illustrate further. The Government must, of course, get money’s worth for their bonuses, but they must not be niggardly of them ; they must look to other sources for a return than the mere revenue of the Post Office. Prom as careful an examination as we have been able to make, we think there is great reason to hope that our own company will be of as much advantage to this port as the New Zealand lias been to Wellington. The Wellington steamers have done almost as much during the last few years to keep the Wellington port up to the mark as most other things put together, and although we have had numerous visits from strangers, and competition is more lively than when the Wanganui was ordered, still, if we but pull as heartily together as the Wellington folk have done, we shall find that the Wan (janui will prove herself a profitable venture.

The meeting of the town ratepayers, fixed for this evening, to consider the proffered resignation of the Town Board, seems to impose on us the duty of noticing some of the various charges which have been alleged against the present Wardens, with a view to showing how far such charges are founded on facts or based on misconception. That some mistakes, or what we at any rate have regarded as such, have been made by the Board is quite true ; and as we have pointed out these when they occurred, we can with the clearer conscience express our belief that, for a new body, engaged in working several vague, difficult, and mutually contradictory Acts, and with their experience to gain, such mistakes have been at least as few and slight as could reasonably have been expected. No Board could please every one, and as even those most opposed to them have never doubted their conscientious desire to do their duty, it seems admitted that the present Wardens have discharged that duty to the best of their ability. A t the time of their election it was seen, from the reading aloud of the Acts, what the powei's of the Board wei'e, and the meeting was cautioned by several persons present, to elect men who-would keep within them. That the present wardens have done so, ar.d that the charges of having strained or exceeded their powei’s hav’e arisen from ignorance of the Board’s proceedings may be fairly inferred from the fact, that several of the persons who spoke most strongly against them at the meeting of October Bth, and who, as members of the committee then appointed to bring the Wardens to book, had obtained a. further insight into the Board's proceedings, were found to take their

part at the meeting of the Avenue ratepayers on the 26th ult. The great cost in this colony of works such as are entrusted to the Board, and the comparatively small number and limited means of those who have to provide the money for those works, necessitate a constant endeavour to devise cheaper means of effecting desired ends than are usually adopted, or would be employed if the funds at the Board’s disposal were larger. Thus some failures of greater or less degree will inevitably arise ; and this ought to be kept steadily in mind in judging how far a Board is censurable for such failures when they occur. The only instance, however, of even partial failure, which can as yet be cited against the Town Board, is the short length of pumice drain in St. Hill-street ; and even this is far more effective than is generally imagined. True, it does not absorb and carry off the heavy rains as rapidly as the Wardens who planned and adopted it had hoped, yet by keeping up a constant current of under drainage, it so far dries the grouud that the water disappears from the surface far sooner than it used to, and when the gutters, which the Board from the first intcuded and is now engaged in forming in this street, are completed, all complaint on this subject will doubtless cease. , Itris not a little remarkable that one of the Board’s principal opponents should have proposed a precisely similar scheme of drainage for Victoria-avenue, merely substituting tiles, which cannot be obtained here, for the stones and brushwood which could, and which were used for drainage iu England before tiles were invented.

In every other instance where an outcry has been raised against the Board’s works it could, we believe, be clearly shown that it had arisen from the natural effect of rain upon earthwork executed during so dry a season as last summer, or from causes —such as the sinking of the contractor’s punt, the failure of the Government road to St. John’s bush gravel pits, and the scarcity of labour—for which the Board was not to blame, or from the parts of works complained of being still incomplete ; and in each case the evil has been remedied by .simple and inexpensive means, or has disappeared as the work progressed. In some cases, as the Liverpool-street roadway, which was planned and executed by the Turiuliaere Board, and with which the Town Board’s only connexion was having to provide means to pay for it, the Wardens have been really very unjustly censured, while in others the outcry has been simply ridiculous. One wiseacre, for instance, ran about the town denouncing the bricks for the Wicksteed-place sewer for being “ only half as thick on one side as on the other.” It had never entered his head that they had been purposely made taper so as to produce sounder work. All sorts of evils, too, were prognosticated as .to that sewer, the [principal one being that it would choke with the sand from the Stockade hill ; and when it was found that provision was made to prevent such an occurrence, the determined dissatisfaetionists were equally loud because their predictions were not likely to be verified. Now that the work in this street is completed, no unprejudiced person we think can deny the improvement that has been effected, and even those most prejudiced are forced to admit that the sewer “ acts far better than they had expected.” In the case of the Avenue sewer, if the Board has not hit on the best mode of effecting an end which appears to be generally misunderstood, the proceedings of the late meeting indicate pretty conclusively that the ratepayers are not agreed as to any better means. Surface drains at the sides of our streets, even if effectual, are open to grave objections as a means of carrying off sewage, and the fact that, duringlast year, at leasftwoVliiklrenjhave been nearly drowned throughffalliug into drains in the town, and the circumstance mentioned at the ratepayers’ meeting as having occurred in Melbourne, show them

to be dangerous in other respects. A clause, too, of the Act which forbids cellars to be dug below the level of the drains, makes it necessary to make the latter deeper than any reasonable cellar. '1 hat it would be desirable to construct the A venue sewers of far larger size, and in cement instead of lime mortar, is quite true, but the greatly extra expense which these alterations would involve renders them out of the question, while the necessity for the sewers is daily increasing, and will ere long become absolute. While, however, every defect in their works has been blazed abroad, the Wardens have shared the usual fate of public servants in having their services in general overlooked. If their faults were to be so carefully recorded, surely their good works in the shape of digging new drains, enlarging others, and clearing out many more, in forming and repairing roadways, and small improvements generally, ought equally to have been placed to their credit. Many persons have objected to the payment of the Board’s chairman ; but as the act specified that he was to be paid, we do not see how the public could reasonably object to his salary being fixed at such a sum as to make it worth his while to give constant attention, and his beiug deputed to act as Clerk of Works, a duty which, if it had been discharged |by the surveyor, would have necessitated an increase of that officer’s salary. In connection with this comes the further objection, that when the Board was elected it was hoped the proceeds of the Town Belt would pay the working expenses. The Board is not to blame for the non-fulfilment of oversanguine expectations of individual ratepayers, expressed prior to the Board’s election, and lias not been, negligent in doing its best with the Town Belt estate. .For some months after their election the Board and its officers had full employment in the valuation and survey of the

Town, and in the assessment of the general rate, and during that time all that could be made in the shape of profit from the Belt arose from a small fee on the grazing of stock thereon. As soon, however, as time could be spared for the purpose, steps were taken to subdivide and let the belt as far as practicable. Even where, from the Bacecourse reserve not having been 'defined, the Board could-not subdivide a portion of the belt, the pastui’age on it was let. From having so large an amount of preliminary work to get through the Board could not reckon on effecting so much during their first as during subsequent years. A lower general rate was therefore struck, and hence the salaries appear to absorb a large proportion of the whole income. Even as it was, the Government equivalent on the portion of the general rate collected to the end of the year far more than covered those salaries, not one sixpence of which could therefore he said to have come directly out of the ratepayers’ pockets ; and this equivalent, as well as that on the various special rates levied, was so much provincial money expended iu this town, which, but for the Board’s existence, would have probably gone to benefit some other portion of the province. If anything were* wanting to prove that the Board had not been desirous of straining its powers, it might be found in the fact that, in spite of the obstructions thrown iu the way of collecting the rates by the assertions of illegality and informality so commonly circulated, only six summonses have as yet had to be issued iu levying, and even one of these was to try the liability of a certain class of occupiers. Iu several cases projected works have been dropped on its being found that the expense would be greater than the persons contributing to it would be willing to incur. In Wicksteed place, even after the works had been undertaken on the written request of nearly every person in the street, and tenders had been obtained for the work,, the Board did not let the contract till one of their number, who had been deputed to state the probable expense to the ratepayers, had reported that they were willing to incur it. In the case of the A venue~sewcr, again, the ratepayers’ sanction was obtained before the contract was let, and although we expressed an opinion that the Wardens would have done wisely to abandon the work for a time, when it became evident that the ratepayers had either deceived the Board or altered their minds, we think that no one can now fairly blame the Wardens, particularly when, while objecting to cancel the contract themselves, they offer to vacate office and allow others to do so. The famous “ Lake Rutland ’ was for some time cited as an instance of negligence on the part of the Board, but very unjustly. It was not overlooked — indeed, was too conspicuous to be readily so-—but the Board felt it wiser to expend the first proceeds of the general rate in works, like the clearing of drains, which could not be done during winter. The only other objections of this sort which have been made Lave been of very trivial character, and easily answered by citing the impossibility, particularly in the present state of the labour market, of doing everything at once, and the absurdity of supposing.that for every man’s rate the Board must do some work at his very door. *

In the above remarks we have endeavoured to give the ratepayers a better idea of the Board’s proceedings and position than has generally been entertained ; and we do not attempt to speculate on the result of this evening’s meeting, at which, however, it appears to us that the ratepayers will have to choose between approving the acts of the present Board, including the Avenue sewer, or guaranteeing the election of a new Board. By declining to do either they would leave matters as they stand, give rise in all probability to further contention and litigation, and subject themselves to an imputation of sharing, or sanctioning, an agitation of an obstructive character.