LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XVII, Issue 834, 8 April 1885, Page 3

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS.

■': '',". . , ■" -' ilf! ■■■'■- , ' '-■',• ;;'' ; In his Dimedin address on Monday evening,,. Sir Julius Vogel spoke at considerable length, on the proposals of the Governmentdn^egard •■' to an amended system of local, self -government: We reprint the most salient portions of the Hon:. Treasurer's; speech on this subject, whi(|h is one of special interest throughout the Colony > at the present time':' ]'*[' Sir J. Vogel said :—MFaridt'my?;Colleagues have been taunted with the fact that we hate not gone fully into this subject at the various,, public meetings which we have held. How- 5 ever, to - night, as I have gone through, in l ' other places, other subjects, I propose to a|k.i your attention to a somewhat extended reference to it. * * * * * Now,gem%; men, I may say this : That it is not practicable, even if it. were desirable, 5 to'jreviye, the| ojd Provincial institutions—(A Voice : ' God| for- ■■ bid ' ; and slight expressions of dissent)—and* 1 may say, in considering this subject, as I have i done very carefully and at great'lengthy there seems to be only two plans. One of these t.a gentleman in Christchurch brought under my!notice, he having considered it evidently yery, carefully, and that was to abolish the counties, jand fall back upon;.the, road as 'the units of local bodies and to combine the counties*, aim" boroughs—that is to say, boroughs 'arid; towns—into a sort of large ,and .more'powerfulf;,, .controlling body to deal with ...measures whi|h ' it was not desirable to leave to road districts. Gentlemen/'that is i: riot "n the plan that-this Government is prepared/ to:advocate } ;andjI need not go any further for a reason than to siy , this,/ that I ; am .quite certain .the, countijes; '"throughout the Colony would not be' prepared to see themselves abolished, and to be joined again with the towns in a sort of superior form i of government-betwe.6ri.tthe local;bodies.and the; Central: Government.; There'..is.,po,. chance.; of such a.plan,.even if it were desirable,,,finding acceptation throughout ' the ' Colony;:-' Well,: gentlemen, there is a second plan,'*ahd'Wis f the ■ orie .'.which- we advocate ; to,- make, .the,, road board districts the units of the counties—not to force- the' road board districts irito forfeiting their 'independence - and coming < sunder thee county ' system. We are reluctant to do that,-hut On the other hand, we would.offer them, such: inducement for coming in as would effectually, within a reasonable time, induce "-them to do so; so that we should have ; throughout the ( country but..two kinds of local distr-ie'M'.'f- : >- namely, town districts and county disificts. I am reminded 1 that'there is one question whidi is.to be dealt with j.cpiild ,:not, : dealt " with In the way I have said.; it stands apart in s fact as a subject which requires'separate treat-; nienti.r t ;l alludeJtO'theqnestiou of dealing with the hospital-and charitable aid institutions of the country. Merely'to'devolve the cost pf" these institutions upon the towns or the particular, counties in which they are situated would not be fair, because they drain, for purposes of relief, } a much larger extent of country than the niere,'tqwn or country within which thev are situated, I do not know that there |is any institution which stands in the same wajp, but at any rate we propose to make the system sufficiently elastic to, allow tlie comities and towns to combine for any particular purposes which they may desire: other'.than those to;, which I have alluded under, the' head of hospitals and charitable aid.' As regards tluse particular institutions we think it necessary "to take hu-ge districts: of /the H Cqlpny—prpbabjy : tlm. rpid Provincial Districts, or. perhaps a division of the Provincial Distriqts—ancl to give them the charge of the. charitable institutions under con-/ ■dkioris which will enable them to ; aid the local efforts by,wh : ich';each institution is managed by. special revenue set. apart, for the purpose, sup-? plemented by doiiations basedlipon an intelligible and well-defined'scaleifrom the. General Goverriiri ment. I think the foundation of any reform ; which! can be • : introduced ; .into.'the system : is to give,tq the local bodies an,assured and'definite'finance, 1 so 'that on' tlie one hand they, may knew what they have, and ,on the ; other that they may know' what they have not, and cease to come .up as mendicants to the General Government to obtain special assistance year after year. We propose-to, ..meet, that byi< the adoption of a plan, which has worked well within the Colony of Victoria, and I think I may say within the dominion of Canada, but of that I have less knowledge. That plan is the i granting of a;subsidy from year to year in proportion to the amount of rates raised upon- a -limited amount;of/assessment;,; \ Well, Xknovit P shall be met with the statement, "Yes, but ,• there, are some, bodies require a .great; deal more assistance than others, and the amount you'' 'worild give'to a local .bodyin:proportion |to, the rates would be in proportion to, the rates jof a smaller body pfno value." But'we propose to adopt a sliding scale'by ! which the amounts of the subsidies would be to some extent dependent upon the size arid scale of the local bodies. As far as boroughs are concerned; we do not think lieavy subsidies should be given, ! 1 but we 'think aV' ! -tbe- same, time'. some<, small subsidy should be given to cover the increased duties which we intend to devolve upon the;' boroughs •• -and iivth'e case of the 1 boroughs the.scale of,the.subsidies.should be made to depend, not only upon the rates raised, but also upon the scale of the rates, so that a larger proportion should be s .givenvto the.-smaller boroughs with smaller incomes than to larger ones. T<he same principle we' propose' to ; adopt with the counties.: i Gentlemen,; there: is another reform , we propose to produce, and which I think' will be found of great benefit, and that is |to give to local bodies greater faculties for borrqw'fjng than at present, . As it is now,,there.hasjto be a majority of all persons who are qualified' 1 to' vote, those persons being, strange : to says ; many times persons who are; dead,, and /many, times persons who are absent, consequently making it a great difficulty to 1 ascertain the real inirid'of the district upon the matter; , We)propose that there should be required a majority of.; three-fifths of the total number of votss* polled, J—in other words that the majorityishould be! at least 50 per, cent..; larger than, the (minority. That, surely, will give sufficient protection j to' i the district j : and : enable the question to 'be j con - .sidered more rationally than it is under, the, r present regulations. Another point which will 'be of essential benefit to local bodies cohstru'et-' .ing public works is to give .them: the power' of capitalising interest during the course.,of .construction. One of the greatest" difficulties; in -the waV of local'bodies in - constructing? ? new.>; works is the heavy burden they haye;tq.;b,ear For. interest before they derive benefit from th'e'corii.';' pletion of the works, gentlemen, we also pro- ' pose in case of loans, where it is found accept ; able to districts—leaving,it toitheir own option —to allqw.them, instead, of ; raising rates, if they find that they can more cqnyenieutly or witjj

4.more expediency obtain .the- required money by the use of a very old fashioned'system—which I think was essentially fair—the use of tolls. In other words, make those who use the roads pay for them. That will be left, as in fact it now is, to the, discretion of the local bodies. I only mention the subject because! cannot help thinking there may be cases in which, in lieu of ' special rates, some relief by way of tolls may ; be'found more desirable.. But we shall by no means enforce that upon ; the districts ; they will be left at their own option to adopt it to such an extent, or not at all, as they desire. I have to refer to district railways. As you : 'know, : hitherto there'has bean a very great scramble in Parliament for railways, and as lone as there was no responsibility cast upon the district asking for a railway, it was natural that Parliament should be asked for railways from one f mountain-top to the other. We think that we should define the trunk lines of the Colony and over and above;these, that any railways required should be district railways, and that the .districts- requiring a railway—thev may be one or more districts, one or more counties, or one of more counties combined a guarantee;of the necessity, for ; the r railway by undertaking the share of the responsibility of the annual cost to the extent 1 of one-half ; : the Colonial.Government, payings the . other -half,. .Gentlemen, hi Dunedin-which, after all,, .is essentially a city which has benefited greatly by the Goldfaelds— I think T need not apologise for referring to the goldfields countiesrand I should not quit my subject satisfactorily 'if I did not make reference to ; them.,r We propose that the aids which are now given for mining discoveries and Special subsidies should in future be expended through the local bodies; that those local ' bodies should have the goldfields revenue, I ;less the cost of collecting ; ,same, <,We propose jalso to abolish the present gold export duty. But . in order riot to leave the.local bodies to raise ;a Royalty upon the gold, the produce of thymines withintthe district other.than gold- obtained by; two or. three, miners, working under miners rights. That will enable an equal, or almost ari equal* revenuetorfbe obtained as at present, if it is the desire.of. the local, bodies, to do so ; whilst it would save from the hard effect of the ' : gold duty those who 7 wbrlt- really only for a few shillings a day under the; sanction given them by being the holders of miners rights. Having,stated; that; ;wepropose; to adopt this measure in reference to abolishing the gold tduty, it is necessary rthat -I shouldvgiye.. a,, word '•of warning to those clever persons who may think it would be a smart thing to hoard up' the gold,and not;,export4t;froin>the,countiry until the gold export duty is removed. I have to 'sa s y, therefore,' thatsucli''a measure 1 when prp■i posed' will s be only, applicable to vgbld • iobtarned omand after ;.the..day,.of.,the ~Act into force, and we shall take very effectual means of protectiorii by statutory declarations and so on, to be quite convinced that no gold obtained be- - fore' the' Act" conies 1 into * lOf ce-shall be* > relieved from the payment.of.the export,duty,.so that it will be of no use for .the banks or other persons .who might think itwiae to endeavor to hoard up "gold in the meantime. Now, gentlemen^there refer to. Under-our system we hay;,el4sgre,a;£c£aht of economy, and for this, reason: it is looked upon as a coirimendable ithing by all-local bodies to, obtain as 4hifch l '"exp i eriditure £i rortv-' the* General -Gpvernment as possible. Therefore we have constant. :/attemptsvjnade,to:= ; induce : the- Central -.Government .and.not.a. deposition to save them" expense, and there is nothing in "which that is mbreidesirablethahvin relating to,the ipolic.e,,forQe of-.the country. As long as the Colonial Government pays for that force"the j lbcal bodies 1 naturally say ""the more police we have the-better, because there is more expenditure ' within*the; i district < of ■■' Colonial ; funds."' Now wfcpropose that there 'should hea small contribution to; tbe'lpolice■? force,- at ja rateable amount per- head—not anything like whatthepolicewouldcostiibut stillasufficientljy substantial contribution,to make it the interest of the various country districts not to require ia' ' larger number of police than are necessary for "their"protection. We propose, moreover, that 'the 1 police force should be iniore' under control and more open to attend s the wants t o£| tile local bodies, so far as they can do., wifihkit abdicating their functions' especially in respect to sanitary We see no reason I why the police I force 1 shbutd'o'e looked uponasia ;Colonial;;force, and ;;be ;above; tendertrigy toiSmunicipal- arid- countrylbbSies suchlUssistarice as,, they might be properly asked to give—(Applause).; Lastly,-! wish; to,say. this 7 :a We propose to take a power- by which Ave will be able Jto ! delegate to; the, local •bodies. : fi]Qm- ; ? time to ~ time, with : auch, powers as. the. General Gov er n - merit possess in any districts where wc find those 'powers can be usefully exercised;'"arid "wKelfe'-tlie local bodies themselves' cle'sire to so exercise in concluding this" branch of the subject, to epitomise. briefly the objects, .which, we believe will be, effected by'the various proposals"which Iwhave set'ibefore you; iThese afa:-.?:(!;-) -To 'enable districts to act in unison if they desire, and asfar as.possible.take heed of sub-divisions ; (2.): to give them an assured finance ; (3.<)i'tbl enable, -the'd forgive the utmost attention to sanitary objects and local improvements ; (4.) to mak^e I itlthere interest to economy ; ,(5.) to give |o them to all the powers they cap healthily manage ;■-(6.) without impairing'-.the effielenqy of the police, force, ,to ; .,.extend its usefulness:; (7.) to enable district, rail ways .to be made if, really required, b'tft to- guard carefully against railways for which districts are not ready to ■ make, sacrifices;;(B,), to introduce,,real; self-. .government, and .reliance on. .local revenues to -the gold-raining (Counties ; (9.), to make all the "system of roads and bridges' in the country feeders of the railways:—in fact, to harmonise the/systems of-railways, tramways, roads, and bridges of, the whole country. Such are—as fully as I" could with ,'decency ask'you tolfeten to—the general proposals relating to local Government; which the .Government propose to bring down ; and;l -.•will ask -you to agree with me that whilst.they "are not of a revolutionary character, whilst" they are of a character mild in their operation/,yet jthey ar.e>of-Va7character that will;give ;to the local bodies many facilities which,,they.haye pined for,' and" thus' relieve them from many difficulties'which.they have labored under for a •"consider able period. ..,.'.. i '