CANTERBURY AND THE FINANCIAL SCHEME.

Bruce Herald, Volume VI, Issue 353, 1 February 1871, Page 2

CANTERBURY AND THE FINANCIAL SCHEME.

We are glad to observe from our Canterbury files, that the true nature and intent of the Financial Scheme of the General Govern-, ment is fully iinderstood in that province,, and that there i 3 a certainty that the Canterbury members will be ready to join with,' those from Otago to have the A eta repealed; or modified. We copy the following extract from an article by the Press upon the subject of Mr Vogel's escapade in Dunedin : — Tha : law may direct the expenditure to be provincially charged ; but no one knows better than Mr Yogel that such a law never has : been, and never will be, enforced. Similarprovisions appear in the Loan Appropriation, Act of .1863, aud in the Loan Allocation Act of 1865 ; yet the Northern provinces have never refunded a shilling of the sums charged against them, even of those which the preamble of the latter Act expressly declares to have been spent for their permanent advantage. The money is borrowed in the nameand on the credit of the colony. Whatever arrangements the Legislature may make for portioning out the debt among the provinces, are only a matter of local convenience Th© creditor looks solely to the colony. He knows nothing of the provinces ; the colonyalone is responsible to him for the whole debt and for every part of it. So that the colonial liability is noc lessened, or affected in any way, by the provincial charges. If aiy pro-. vince so charged cannot pay, the colony must. How many provinces are there then, besides Canterbury and Otago, which are in a position t© meet any such demand on their revenues 1 Take Wellington, for example. Here wq have a province which is, and ha 3 for a long time been notoriously bankrupt, which is forced to apply to the General Government, for the means of defraying its ordinary everyday expenses. Yet Wellington ia not to be refused its share of the loan. The Govern--, ment inserted in the schedule of the o.iginal Public Works 3ill, as among the railways which they intended to construct, a line from ••' ellingtonto Wanganui, and from Wanganui to Taupo— the latter about the most costly and useless wosk, except for military purposes, that they could have devised. Surveys, are being made at the present moment for a Wellington railway, which Government expect to be empowed to construct during session. It is nonsense to talk' of charging this expenditure upon the Province. Wellington cannot pay its policemen, or wardens, or hospital nurses ; it cannot pay even for the tape and sealing-wax used in its Government buildings ; how then can it pay for rail ways ? And the case is not much better with the other North Island provinces. Hawke's. Bay and Taranakican barely keep themselves in existence ; and even Auckland, though, it has much improved of late, is still financially in anything but a flourishing condition. The system of charging the loan expenditure provincially is a delusion. It simply cornea to this, that Canterbury and Otago, after paying for their own, railways, will also . have to pay for those of any other province which cannot pay for them itself. The Southern provinces are leaning on a broken, reed if they trust to this arrangement as a security against having to bear their neighbors' burdens. Their wiser course, would be to abandon the idea of provincial liability, and to look rather to the productiveness of each particular work. Then they would be safe. If no public work were undertaken, unless with a reasonable prospect of its proVing remunerative, there could be no unfairness, no complaint of one part of the country, being colonised at the expense ef "^ another. There is another very strong reason. The Government depend largely on receipts fronv railways for the success of their scheme.! Mr Yogel calculates on receiving during ten years' operations a total amount of L855.000> over and above, working .expenses, and, on, the railways bringing in by the. tenth year a» t net revenue of L 250,000, J£ thia] estimate ia : not realised the deficit must be supplied, bytaxation. It is of consequence, therefore tj>, the whole cp_lony, but doubly- so to. the i !^fe Southern provinces, that, in. deciding for oi^ against any proposed railway, the probability " of early profit should be made a. first con-, sideration. How that is to be effected, is a. question that remains to be solved. Of this we are certain, that, unless steps, are. taken at the outset to confine the expenditure to.' reproductive objects, there will be a general scramble in which the whole loan will disappear with the very minimum of good results to show, for it. And it must be remembered that no matter where, or. how- or- by- whom, the money may ha ye r been wasted, Canter-C bury and Otago will have, to, beaj the^ttiajot^ part of the lobb^ „>' ;."" ." •*