The Westport Times. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1870.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 715, 24 September 1870, Page 2

The Westport Times. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1870.

The evidence produced for the prosecution in the case against the late Hub-Treasurer of the Province revealed the fact that a disreputable system of mystifying the accounts had been habitually practised in connection with the expenditure on the goldfields. The instructions furnished to Mr Harris not to send forward a statement of accounts until after the passing of the' Appropriation Act, is capable of no other construction than a deliberate intention on the part of the Nelson Government to mislead West Coast members as to the probable requirements of the goldfields for the current financial year. Unfortunately the ruse has proved but too successful. The votes, under several heads, have been almost exhausted in meeting liabilities for past expenditure, and for the remaining portion of the financial year public works, however urgently required, may be postponed on the ground that the money voted has been already disbursed, and that the works, though admittedly of urgent necessity, cannot be undertaken in the present state of the West Coast finances. Our members are certainly not to blame in the matter. After repeated enquiries for a full and particular account of the receipts and expenditure, at such time as the appropriations were under consideration, nothing could be elicited from the Government of a definite character, although the latter must have been fully cognizant of the fact that the sums proposed were certain to prove miserably insufficient for the proper carrying out of the public works of the Province. A Government that would have recourse to such subterfuges must be contemned as also condemned. The uipprt-ssion of the true state of aiiaira, aud the more than suggestion of what was knowingly false—that the votes would amply meet probable requirement—cannot but be regarded as in the last degree despicable. To plunder the revenue of the goldfields under a legal guise, making their representatives the instrument of the injustice, was a stroke of policy quite in keeping with the past history of the rule of this Province. If on no other ground than that the repetition of a similar subterfuge would be rendered impossible, the public should cordially acquiesce in the appointment of Mr Shepherd as Treasurer. Of course there is no guarantee that the latter, in his official capacity may not be guilty of a negligence similar to that his predecessor in office, but to assume that he could be capable, either through inattention or sheer incapacity for the proper fulfilment of the duties, to allow matters to drift into a like slovenliness, would require too lively a stretch of the imagination. It is, however, not alone with regard to the negligence of the late Treasurer that serious grounds of complaint arise. It is bad enough in all conscience that the goldfields revenues, in place of being used to facilitate their beneficial occupation by the construction of roads, rendering communication more easy and relieving the miner from the excessive disadvantages under which he now prosecutes his calling, should he applied to a portion of the Province in which the expenditure is neither urgently required nor likely to be attended with such advantage as would accompany the disbursement of a similar amount of money on the Coast. The present matter of complaint is that the sums voted for specific purposes, and for the m>n fulfilment of which no reasonable pretext can be urged, should not have been applied to that purpose. Six months of the financial year have nearly expired, yet nota penny of the very inadequate sum voted for the construction of a track to the Lyell reefs has been expended. And the Orawaiti bridge, for the purchase of which the money has been voted preparatory to its being thrown open to the public, is still subject to a toll. This is one notable instance among several which seem to indicate a most contemptuous indifference on the part of the Kelson Government, not alone as to the wishes of the goldfields, but even as to the performance of any contract with the people for the fulfilment of which they are directly pledged. Beyond the fact that the Council decided that the bridge should be purchased, and vague report that some preliminaries have been attempted with regara to its being taken over, nothing is known with respect to the matter; no notification in the wav of explanation or otherwise is offered as to the cause of the delay on the part of the Government, nor is any date fixed when the purchase is to be accomplished. A feeling of indifference and abuse of all business-like energy would appear to pervade the Government in its dealings with the goldfields. The people themselves have been left to settle the country and to render it habitable, the Government conceiving it to be its .sole duty to provide for the

duo collection of the revenue. No wonder if, under such serious disadvantages, the producing powers of the country should decline, and the population betake themselves to other portions of the Colony where the material interests of the people receive, at, least, a moderate measure of consideration.