A.—No. 11,

REPORT ON THE SYSTEM OF APPROPRIATING

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period. The Board should have the power to make Ordinances or Bye-laws for the following purposes: — Regulating its own proceedings, and providing for the carrying on of the County business while the Board is not sitting. Altering the number of members of the Board and the boundaries of electoral districts. Appropriating revenues. Regulating education. Regulating immigration. Regulating public hospitals and asylums. Regulating infirmaries and gaols. Regulating administration of public reserves. Regulating fencing, prevention of cattle trespass, and the prevention of disease in sheep and cattle. Regulating, constructing, maintaining, and diverting railroads, tramroads, roads, ferries, bridges, and other public works. Taking private land for public purposes. Preserving health, cleanliness, and order in towns and places not within Municipalities. Levying tolls, rates, and fees for the following purposes :— 1. Support of education. 2. Construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, and ferries. 3. Support of hospitals, infirmaries, asylums, and gaols. 4. Police. 5. Prevention of disease in sheep and cattle. 6. General expenses of the Government of the County. All legislation, except Ordinances appropriating money, levying rates or tolls, and, except bye-laws, for regulating the proceedings of the Board and other purposes of a purely administrative nature should be reserved for the Governor's assent, and if his dissent were not expressed within three months, should have the force of law. The Board should have the further power to appoint and remove officers, and to enter into contracts, and to delegate these powers either to the Chairman or Committees of the Board. The Chairman and Board should have the same powers with respect to the Waste Lands in the district as the Superintendent and Provincial Council respectively now have. The separation should take place at the end of the present financial year. When the County Board is constituted, the Timaru and Gladstone Board of Works should be dissolved, and its funds and property should be handed over to the County Board. The County Board should be compelled out of these moneys to carry out the intentions of the Timaru and Gladstone Board of Works Act, and to bridge the River Rangitata. In framing the above scheme for the district south of the Rangitata, your Committee have guarded themselves from recommending the transference of any power whatever to the Central Government. They fully recognize the dangers of Centralization, and these dangers are in their opinion best combated by allaying the discontent of the outlying districts, and removing the causes that now tempt them to throw themselves into the arms of the central power. With respect to the form of government for the northern part of the Province, your Committee consider that it should take the shape of a modification of the present form of government by the Superintendent and Provincial Council, as the form of government they have recommended for the southern part is an amplification of the powers of the present Board of Works. Tour Committee recommend that the part of the Province north of the Rangitata should constitute one Province or County, and that the revenue of that part of the Province should be appropriated by a Provincial Council or Board elected by the owners and occupiers on the ratepayers' rolls of the various districts, in the same manner as that recommended for the Board of the southern County. The Council should be elected for two years, and should itself fix the time for its meetings. Previous to the election of a Council under the proposed system, your Committee recommend that the existing Council should at its next meeting take into consideration the alteration of the boundaries of the electoral districts, the redistribution of seats, and the reduction of the number of members. The new Council should consist of such number of members representing such electoral divisions as may have been determined by the existing Council. Should the Council not make any alteration, the existing electoral divisions and number of representatives should be retained. The Council should have power to elect the Superintendent of the Province from its own body, or from the general body of electors for the Provincial Council. The Superintendent so elected should have a seat in the Council by virtue of his office, with the right to vote. The Superintendent should hold office during the existence of the Council which elected him, or until displaced by a resolution carried by an absolute majority of the whole number of members of the Council. The Superintendent and Provincial Council should hold office till their respective successors were elected. The Superintendent should have all the powers that are conferred on Superintendents by Acts of the General Assembly, or are usually delegated to Superintendents by the Governor. The Superintendent should have no veto on the Acts of the Council. The Council or Board should have the power to make Ordinances or bye-laws for the following purposes: —■ Regulating its own proceedings, and providing for the carrying on of the business while the Council is not sitting. Altering the number of members of the Council and the boundaries of electoral districts. Regulating primary education and high schools. Regulating immigration. Regulating public hospitals, asylums, infirmaries, and gaols.