I now come to the Provincial and General Government question. We are told that there is very general discontent with the present relations between the Provincial and the General Governments, and, in fact, with Provincial Institutions altogether—that there is a "great cry" of discontent throughout New Zealand. But, I ask you, how is it possible that there should be satisfaction with our institutions, when those who have it in charge to conserve and preserve them, are doing all that they can to sow-dissatisfaction? When the General Government, by its members or its agents, is going up and down New Zealand, month after month, sowing discontent with existing institutions, how is it possible that the people can be content? It is easy even for members of the Provincial Council, by persistency, to create discontent: how much more easy is it for those who, with the large powers of the General Government, go about preaching that Provincial Institutions are so bad, they must be swept away! If we had here in New Zealand a really perfect Constitution, those who have charge of its working could always create dissatisfaction as to it, by a course of conduct such as that of which I am complaining. And what is one result of such conduct? This: The moment a Provincial Government or Council exercises its powers for right—the moment a stand is made upon any point against any suppliant—the retort is, "We will appeal to the General Government!"—(Hear, hear.) There is a constant bidding going on by the General Government, or its agents—"If the Province will not give you this, come to us, and see what we will give you."—(Laughter.) When the Provincial Government, after a most minute examination into the subject, said, "We cannot consent to throw an enormous number of thousands of pounds into the sea, for what is called an Oamaru breakwater," the reply from Oamaru was, "Then, we will ask to have the district formed into a County!" Waikouaiti asks for
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L6000, for a breakwater, or a jetty there, and the Council does not see its way to grant it. "Waikouaiti will go over to the General Government," we are told. Is it not clear that this system is making the General Government a rallying point for discontented Provincial minorities?—a thing which, long ago it was said would be, and which is now becoming a fact. And how is it possible that Provincial Institutions can work well, when people are constantly invited, if they are dissatisfied with a decision against them, no matter Low just it may be, to appeal elsewhere? The cry against the Provinces is in some measure a personal cry. There are men in the Colony who think that New Zealand was made only for them to govern; and who, if they fail to get power through the Provincial Government, feel bound to get it through the General Government.—(Hear, hear.) Whilst they are connected with the General Government, they do all they can against the Provinces; but if they find themselves in "the cold shade of Opposition," they are not indisposed again to throw themselves upon the Provinces from which they came. This cry about the necessity for increasing the power of the Central Government, comes simply from the Government in power: turn them out, and you "will hear little more of such a cry. Those men are more likely, when out, to proclaim, as they have done before, that it is most desirable to limit the power of the General Government!—(Hear, hear.) They thus turn great questions into a mere game of personal ambition. We must see that this conduct is at the bottom of a great deal of the discontent in the Colony. "Abolish the Provinces," it is cried; "they have worked out that for which they were designed." In the next breath, almost, we are told, that the Provinces must be abolished, because so many of them are in difficulties. I put it to you, if we abandon Provincial Institutions, when so much of the work for which they were designed remains to be done, that some of the Provinces have still nearly all their Colonising work before them, will it not be a confession that the system has been a failure (Hear, hear.) I ask you to agree with me in this—Provincial Institutions have stood between the Colony and the frittering away of an enormous amount of resources. Whatever amount, out of the Three Million Loan, has been thrown away during the last your years, something has been saved: and how saved, but by Provincial means? When there was an enormous overdraft at the Bank, and the General Government was at its wit's ends for means to supply that leech, Native Purposes, do you think that anything stood in the way of applying the money to purposes wholly foreign to Colonisation, except that the Provinces had still some power left to obtain a portion of the money?—("Hear, hear," and applause.) I am told that Provincial Institutions are doomed—1. Because of their difficulties.—2. Because a Local Government system must supersede them. In respect to their difficulties: I think the means are rather mistaken for an end. Why are the Provinces in difficulties! Simply because they have been doomed to fight with the General Government, instead of acting harmoniously with it. If there had been a General Government disposed to aid and to foster: the Provinces, these difficulties would not, I think, have existed.—(Hear, hear.) And what is this Local Government system which is to supersede Provincial Institutions? I say, that a Local Government system owing its inspiration to the Provinces would be a most excellent system; and I have shown unmistakably my opinion that it is most desirable that a system of Local Government should be to the utmost extended, under proper and careful restrictions. Otago has given an earnest on that point, by its system of L2 for every L1 raised by local rates. But it is said that the outlying districts, from one end of the Colony to the other, are sending up a cry that the Provinces should be done away with. I do not believe it, except to this extent—That a premium has been offered for discontent; and that dissatisfaction is very wide spread, from the fact that every one feels, no matter how prosperous his district may be, that a large proportion of the money raised by taxation, instead of being spent on industrial and reproductive purposes, is thrown away on purposes in which the Colonists have very little interest. As a rule, the Outlying districts, I think, have very little reason to complain. I will take Otago. I do not say that money has not been wasted here, for there is a certain amount of mis Government everywhere: but if we have not done all that possibly could have been done, have we not done a great deal? Have we not extended roads to points that, not so very long since, were deemed almost inaccessible? Is not the road to Queenstown a really immense work? Is there not a metalled road to, and beyond, Tokomai-
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riro, and is there not to be a railway to the Clutha? Is not the north of the Province opened up? To me, it seems that the fact that all parts are complaining is the best proof that all parts have been fairly dealt with. If only one part complained, I might think that it had been badly dealt with: but with all complaining, the complaint means—Regret that there is not a larger amount of money to give them: and every one must share that regret.—(Applause.) I think that a Local Government system administered by the Province may become a really useful one, because I can understand that it may be carried out. A uniform system attempted by the General Government, over the whole Colony, would, firstly, produce a disruption of Provincial Institutions; and would, secondly, itself prove a failure, simply because there are no means at the command of the Colony by which Local Government, on an extensive scale, can be introduced. Otago can do it, because Otago has attained to a certain position; but, I repeat, the means are not in existence for a Uniform system throughout the Colony. A Local Government system will not give a larger revenue than there is now: it implies, and will amount to, only a different form of Government—a form which would be much more expensive than the Provincial form, because there would be a large army of officials to be maintained. Take the case of two Provinces, one able to give to the districts L2 to LI on rates locally raised, and the other able to give only 5s in the pound. Give a uniform system to those two Provinces, and which would be most benefited by it? Probably, we could not afford a 5s in the pound subsidy throughout New Zealand, because the Colony as a whole is not ripe for a system of Local Government. Recollect this : we here have to some extent an inheritance in this Province, and the inhabitants of the other Provinces have, in each case, a similar inheritance, In Otago, there has been an enormous amount of money paid for land; and the persons who have bought that land have a right to consider that there is some title left to them—some consolidated title in respect to the Province. They have no right to be asked to go into partnership with another Province, where land has been given away, or comparatively so.—(Hear, hear.) Supposing we had, in the early days, decided to give away land : could those who received it complain, if they were heavily taxed after-wards?—(Hear, hear.) If we look into the matter, throughout the Colony—if we ascertain how much land has, in each : Province, been alienated, and how much : Land Revenue has been obtained in exchange—the figures will stand thus :—
|
Acres. |
£ |
| Auckland |
567,000 |
86,000 |
| Taranaki |
6,700 |
1,062 |
| Hawke's Bay |
660,000 |
254,000 |
| Wellington |
701,000 |
251,242 |
| Nelson |
694,000 |
263,000 |
| Marlborough |
468,000 |
156.000 |
| Canterbury |
597.000 |
1,200,000 |
| Otago |
720.000 |
761,000 |
| Southland |
336,000 |
350,000 |
Consider these differences. Are we, who have raised such a revenue from our lands, and spent the money on industrial and reproductive purposes, to pay taxes in future, so as to save those who have obtained their lands for nothing. Those who have obtained 567,000 acres for 186,000, or those who have obtained lands at other prices shown by the figures I have stated, ought to be able to tax themselves more largely than we can do here, where over L1 has been raised for every acre of land that has been parted with or than the people of Canterbury, where over L2 an acre has been received. I do not not want to complain of, or to inter fere with, the systems adopted in other Provinces; but I say that it is impossible to amalgamate systems that have had such different origins. It is impossible to place all the Provinces upon a common foundation now, without doing gross in justice.—(Applause.) We are told that, under the new system, we are to pre serve our Land Revenue. But see what a fallacy that is. If we are to have the Provincial system superseded by a system of; Local Boards and County Boards, will it not be a fact, that when all functions have been taken from Provinces, Provincial distinctions will soon be forgotten, to some extent at least? Will the members of a County Board, hungering for money, have much care for the traditions of a Provincial system? No, they will have the present requirements of their County to think of, and they will not care for what relates to a Province. A County i Board in Taranaki, which, equally with one in Otago, has been called into existence by the Assembly, will demand equal attention; and if you are to give a stated sum to the Board in Otago, the Board in Taranaki will ask for and expect a corresponding sum. And it is only fair that it should be so, after all. You may hesitate to call such tilings into existence;
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but if the Assembly does choose to have an enormous number of bantlings, the Assembly will feel called upon to do justice to all of them. It is a question, whether the Assembly shall be allowed to have those bantlings—or rather, to rob the Provinces of the children borne to them.—(Laughter.) As long as we preserve the Provincial distinctions, we are safe; but hand the Local Government scheme to the Assembly, and then, as between County and County, we should not be entitled to refer back to old considerations, nor to claim for one County more consideration and assistance than we were prepared to allow to others. A Local Government system so inaugurated would assuredly prove a failure; but before it came to an end, every means of the Provinces would be exhausted, including the Land Revenue. Another thing you must remember is, that, in relinquishing Provincial Institutions we should, virtually, be relinquishing Representative Government. We should live under a system of dictatorship—under an arbitrary system carried out by travelling members of the General Government. You have a sample of it, in the case of Westland. The Postmaster General presided over that County. He is very amiable and good-natured; and he allowed the members of the Board, as almost the first thing they did, to vote themselves a salary of L150 each.—(Laughter.) But then they began to talk about expenditure, and the difference was at once seen. "Oh!" he said, "this money is the General Government's, I am happy, of course, to receive your advice; but please to recollect that I am not bound to follow it." In fact, that system only means—Revenue raised by the General Government, to be expended without appropriation. It is a system which, to some, may seem attractive while it is new. I do not think it is even attractive while new; but imagine two or three years of this absolute expenditure at the will of a member of the General Government, and then how will the system be liked? How would we like to have the control of expenditure here handed over to possibly a competent, or possibly, an incompetent, member of the General Government? It is a contingency which we shall certainly risk, if we consent to sacrifice our existing institutions. A tendency to give increased power to the General Government, has been shown by recent Acts of the Legislature; but this system of Local Government without Provincial Councils, which would really place an enormous amount of revenue in the power of that Government, would be the most arbitrary system imaginable, and would give to the Government very large sums, to be spent without appropriation by anybody. It would be something like the mode in which the Three Million Loan was dealt with—and that was a thing, I believe, without example in any other British Colony, or in any other country owning Britain's sway. Three millions sterling have been spent, really without anything to be called appropriation. It is true, there were formal appropriations in lump sums for certain purposes; but the money has been spent in detail as the Government pleased. Is that the kind of system we want to see introduced? Do we want to have the country very heavily taxed, and to see the moneys expended without the control of those who have borne the taxation? Remember, too, that there is a great deal of purely dry business now transacted in Provincial Councils, and that if you abolish those Councils, that business will have to go to the Assembly. Is the Assembly fitted to cope with it; My experience of the Assembly is, that it is most unfitted to deal with more business than it has. In fact, it cannot cope with what it has to do. Its legislation is spasmodic and hurried; Bills are passed, without anything like a study of their provisions; immense additions are made to the taxation of the Colony, without anything like deliberation; business, as a rule, is "rushed through." The Colonial Treasurer has every year to bring down a statement of accounts, the details of which are not laid before the House until twelve months after the statement has been made. It is, as it seems to me, just as much the business of the Colonial Treasurer to keep members in the dark as to the Colonial finance, as it is to inform them of its condition. Provincial Councils have a use which must not be alto-together overlooked. They are more homely and less pretentious than the General Assembly; but they purify the atmosphere of the Colonial Assembly. They keep out of the Assembly much that it is well should be kept out. If we had not Provincial Councils, I think it very likely that the Assembly would degenerate into a body like those in neighboring Colonics. We have, at present, the gratification of knowing that, however much hurried the business may be, as a rule, the Assembly, in most respects, is very much superior to similar bodies in neighboring Colonies. There are in the Assembly none of those sins against
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good manners and propriety that have become a scandal all over the world, and of which we read so often as occurring in the Legislative Bodies of neighboring Colonies.
.jpg)
L6000, for a breakwater, or a jetty there, and the Council does not see its way to grant it. "Waikouaiti will go over to the General Government," we are told. Is it not clear that this system is making the General Government a rallying point for discontented Provincial minorities?—a thing which, long ago it was said would be, and which is now becoming a fact. And how is it possible that Provincial Institutions can work well, when people are constantly invited, if they are dissatisfied with a decision against them, no matter Low just it may be, to appeal elsewhere? The cry against the Provinces is in some measure a personal cry. There are men in the Colony who think that New Zealand was made only for them to govern; and who, if they fail to get power through the Provincial Government, feel bound to get it through the General Government.—(Hear, hear.) Whilst they are connected with the General Government, they do all they can against the Provinces; but if they find themselves in "the cold shade of Opposition," they are not indisposed again to throw themselves upon the Provinces from which they came. This cry about the necessity for increasing the power of the Central Government, comes simply from the Government in power: turn them out, and you "will hear little more of such a cry. Those men are more likely, when out, to proclaim, as they have done before, that it is most desirable to limit the power of the General Government!—(Hear, hear.) They thus turn great questions into a mere game of personal ambition. We must see that this conduct is at the bottom of a great deal of the discontent in the Colony. "Abolish the Provinces," it is cried; "they have worked out that for which they were designed." In the next breath, almost, we are told, that the Provinces must be abolished, because so many of them are in difficulties. I put it to you, if we abandon Provincial Institutions, when so much of the work for which they were designed remains to be done, that some of the Provinces have still nearly all their Colonising work before them, will it not be a confession that the system has been a failure (Hear, hear.) I ask you to agree with me in this—Provincial Institutions have stood between the Colony and the frittering away of an enormous amount of resources. Whatever amount, out of the Three Million Loan, has been thrown away during the last your years, something has been saved: and how saved, but by Provincial means? When there was an enormous overdraft at the Bank, and the General Government was at its wit's ends for means to supply that leech, Native Purposes, do you think that anything stood in the way of applying the money to purposes wholly foreign to Colonisation, except that the Provinces had still some power left to obtain a portion of the money?—("Hear, hear," and applause.) I am told that Provincial Institutions are doomed—1. Because of their difficulties.—2. Because a Local Government system must supersede them. In respect to their difficulties: I think the means are rather mistaken for an end. Why are the Provinces in difficulties! Simply because they have been doomed to fight with the General Government, instead of acting harmoniously with it. If there had been a General Government disposed to aid and to foster: the Provinces, these difficulties would not, I think, have existed.—(Hear, hear.) And what is this Local Government system which is to supersede Provincial Institutions? I say, that a Local Government system owing its inspiration to the Provinces would be a most excellent system; and I have shown unmistakably my opinion that it is most desirable that a system of Local Government should be to the utmost extended, under proper and careful restrictions. Otago has given an earnest on that point, by its system of L2 for every L1 raised by local rates. But it is said that the outlying districts, from one end of the Colony to the other, are sending up a cry that the Provinces should be done away with. I do not believe it, except to this extent—That a premium has been offered for discontent; and that dissatisfaction is very wide spread, from the fact that every one feels, no matter how prosperous his district may be, that a large proportion of the money raised by taxation, instead of being spent on industrial and reproductive purposes, is thrown away on purposes in which the Colonists have very little interest. As a rule, the Outlying districts, I think, have very little reason to complain. I will take Otago. I do not say that money has not been wasted here, for there is a certain amount of mis Government everywhere: but if we have not done all that possibly could have been done, have we not done a great deal? Have we not extended roads to points that, not so very long since, were deemed almost inaccessible? Is not the road to Queenstown a really immense work? Is there not a metalled road to, and beyond, Tokomai-
page break
riro, and is there not to be a railway to the Clutha? Is not the north of the Province opened up? To me, it seems that the fact that all parts are complaining is the best proof that all parts have been fairly dealt with. If only one part complained, I might think that it had been badly dealt with: but with all complaining, the complaint means—Regret that there is not a larger amount of money to give them: and every one must share that regret.—(Applause.) I think that a Local Government system administered by the Province may become a really useful one, because I can understand that it may be carried out. A uniform system attempted by the General Government, over the whole Colony, would, firstly, produce a disruption of Provincial Institutions; and would, secondly, itself prove a failure, simply because there are no means at the command of the Colony by which Local Government, on an extensive scale, can be introduced. Otago can do it, because Otago has attained to a certain position; but, I repeat, the means are not in existence for a Uniform system throughout the Colony. A Local Government system will not give a larger revenue than there is now: it implies, and will amount to, only a different form of Government—a form which would be much more expensive than the Provincial form, because there would be a large army of officials to be maintained. Take the case of two Provinces, one able to give to the districts L2 to LI on rates locally raised, and the other able to give only 5s in the pound. Give a uniform system to those two Provinces, and which would be most benefited by it? Probably, we could not afford a 5s in the pound subsidy throughout New Zealand, because the Colony as a whole is not ripe for a system of Local Government. Recollect this : we here have to some extent an inheritance in this Province, and the inhabitants of the other Provinces have, in each case, a similar inheritance, In Otago, there has been an enormous amount of money paid for land; and the persons who have bought that land have a right to consider that there is some title left to them—some consolidated title in respect to the Province. They have no right to be asked to go into partnership with another Province, where land has been given away, or comparatively so.—(Hear, hear.) Supposing we had, in the early days, decided to give away land : could those who received it complain, if they were heavily taxed after-wards?—(Hear, hear.) If we look into the matter, throughout the Colony—if we ascertain how much land has, in each : Province, been alienated, and how much : Land Revenue has been obtained in exchange—the figures will stand thus :—
but if the Assembly does choose to have an enormous number of bantlings, the Assembly will feel called upon to do justice to all of them. It is a question, whether the Assembly shall be allowed to have those bantlings—or rather, to rob the Provinces of the children borne to them.—(Laughter.) As long as we preserve the Provincial distinctions, we are safe; but hand the Local Government scheme to the Assembly, and then, as between County and County, we should not be entitled to refer back to old considerations, nor to claim for one County more consideration and assistance than we were prepared to allow to others. A Local Government system so inaugurated would assuredly prove a failure; but before it came to an end, every means of the Provinces would be exhausted, including the Land Revenue. Another thing you must remember is, that, in relinquishing Provincial Institutions we should, virtually, be relinquishing Representative Government. We should live under a system of dictatorship—under an arbitrary system carried out by travelling members of the General Government. You have a sample of it, in the case of Westland. The Postmaster General presided over that County. He is very amiable and good-natured; and he allowed the members of the Board, as almost the first thing they did, to vote themselves a salary of L150 each.—(Laughter.) But then they began to talk about expenditure, and the difference was at once seen. "Oh!" he said, "this money is the General Government's, I am happy, of course, to receive your advice; but please to recollect that I am not bound to follow it." In fact, that system only means—Revenue raised by the General Government, to be expended without appropriation. It is a system which, to some, may seem attractive while it is new. I do not think it is even attractive while new; but imagine two or three years of this absolute expenditure at the will of a member of the General Government, and then how will the system be liked? How would we like to have the control of expenditure here handed over to possibly a competent, or possibly, an incompetent, member of the General Government? It is a contingency which we shall certainly risk, if we consent to sacrifice our existing institutions. A tendency to give increased power to the General Government, has been shown by recent Acts of the Legislature; but this system of Local Government without Provincial Councils, which would really place an enormous amount of revenue in the power of that Government, would be the most arbitrary system imaginable, and would give to the Government very large sums, to be spent without appropriation by anybody. It would be something like the mode in which the Three Million Loan was dealt with—and that was a thing, I believe, without example in any other British Colony, or in any other country owning Britain's sway. Three millions sterling have been spent, really without anything to be called appropriation. It is true, there were formal appropriations in lump sums for certain purposes; but the money has been spent in detail as the Government pleased. Is that the kind of system we want to see introduced? Do we want to have the country very heavily taxed, and to see the moneys expended without the control of those who have borne the taxation? Remember, too, that there is a great deal of purely dry business now transacted in Provincial Councils, and that if you abolish those Councils, that business will have to go to the Assembly. Is the Assembly fitted to cope with it; My experience of the Assembly is, that it is most unfitted to deal with more business than it has. In fact, it cannot cope with what it has to do. Its legislation is spasmodic and hurried; Bills are passed, without anything like a study of their provisions; immense additions are made to the taxation of the Colony, without anything like deliberation; business, as a rule, is "rushed through." The Colonial Treasurer has every year to bring down a statement of accounts, the details of which are not laid before the House until twelve months after the statement has been made. It is, as it seems to me, just as much the business of the Colonial Treasurer to keep members in the dark as to the Colonial finance, as it is to inform them of its condition. Provincial Councils have a use which must not be alto-together overlooked. They are more homely and less pretentious than the General Assembly; but they purify the atmosphere of the Colonial Assembly. They keep out of the Assembly much that it is well should be kept out. If we had not Provincial Councils, I think it very likely that the Assembly would degenerate into a body like those in neighboring Colonics. We have, at present, the gratification of knowing that, however much hurried the business may be, as a rule, the Assembly, in most respects, is very much superior to similar bodies in neighboring Colonies. There are in the Assembly none of those sins against
page 11
good manners and propriety that have become a scandal all over the world, and of which we read so often as occurring in the Legislative Bodies of neighboring Colonies.