WELLINGTON.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1623, 28 April 1875, Page 3

WELLINGTON.

(Per Press Telegram Agency.) Tuesday,

Meeting of Parliament. It is understood that Parliament will positively meet in July. All the new bills to be introduced are in a very forward state, so that no delay whatever is likely to be occasioned through Vogel's ak ence. 1 his day.

Engagement of Immigrants. All the single girls per Edwin Fox readily found employment, and nearly all the married couples. The remainder will be at once sent up to'Manawatu

D eatli by Poisdii. Yesterday while Mrs Galbraith was visiting two imbecile children of hers at the asylum, one of them unobserved, seized a bottle of syrup of chlorial and drank nearly the whole of it and died soon after, though a doctor was called in.

The Constitutional Question. The Times combats the Herald's leader of the 9fch, correcting " errois" in the previous article of the Times on the constitutional question. The Times says it never before read a piece of serious political writing so full of errors as the article devoted to its edification. As for being asked to study higher political and not ephemeral finance, the Times says : "We are to ascend to the seventh heaven of provincial rhapsodists and listen to unutterable nonsense about civil government and social institutions being conducted upon principles which ignore finance. It is all mere word rubbish ; a string of well-rounded sentences wanting sense and political discrimination. As one of Auckland's own prophets remarked of this very subject, 'it is a question of £ s. d. ; it is money which is at the root of the matter.' Mr Swanson is a much better authority on the subject than our contemporary, and we accept his definition of the constitutional question as strictly and literally correct—money is at the root of all civil government. Finance is not such a fleeting and comparatively superficial subject as the Herald imagines ; it is the foundation of all political institutions without which "higher politics," as outlined by our contemporary, would melt into thin air. It defends the General Government from the charges of financial extravagance in the way of Ministerial salaries and pensions ; and points out that it was the act of the Colonial Legislature, and as that body is largely composed of men holding seats in the Provincial Councils and as Superintendents of the provinces they were usually warm supporters of pensions, they are to blame. But if they did not directly create pensions, they did what was tantamount to it —they saddled the colony through the Civil Service with a whole battalion of incapables." It ridicules the idea of the provinces clamoring for a surplus of consolidated revenue after having wasted its land fund without promoting settlement or constructing work 3of public utility. As to increaaed taxation if necessary it says : " Try the experiment of taxing people through the Provincial Council." As the people of Auckland have enjoyed the boon of Provincial Government since 1853, we invite Sir George Grey, backed by his organ the Herald, to put the question to the test, and if he succeeds we shall kiss the rod, and bow our heads for correction. The trial can be easily made. A Short Bill can be introduced to the Provincial Council next, setting out its purpose in the preamble, and enacting clauses that should impose a direct tax on persons and property, or upon either, as the case may be, sufficient to maintain the machinery of Provincial Government. The result will most clearly demonstrate whether it is a question of finance or of "higher politics" of which we hear so much from Provincialists, and see so little. We protest however against the General Assembly imposing one shilling in the way of taxation to sustain Provincial Governments, the days of Provincial Supremacy are at an end. People are taxed up to their power of bearing fiscal burdens and any charge made must be in direction of reducing taxation.