The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3407, 17 June 1868, Page 2

The Daily Southern Cross.

LDOKO, NON TOO. If I har« b«tn nttntuiihid, y«t than rlit A. ihotuand biaooni from tht »p»rk I bor».

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17.

The Speech from the Throne, whether it be that of a Queen or of a Superintendent, is proverbially an unsatisfactory thing. The art displayed in its composition is usually of that kind which is most perfect when it succeeds in saying nothing while it seems to say much. Viewed in the light of this experience, the speech' delivered by the Superintendent fco the Council on Monday afternoon, was a very fair speech. It is true there was nothing in it which was not well known before to nearly everybody. It is also true that it was very long-winded, and took many times as long as it need have taken to say so little. But this was excusable. Had tne speech confined itself to the limits of what it really had to say, it would have been so short that people would have noticed there was nothing in it. It is hardly possible to say next to nothing in next to no words without people suspecting the truth. After all, however, the Executive need not have been so anxious. In the position in which they were placed, there was really no great need to say much. The finances of the province were too low to bear much talking about. The prospects for the future were too open to a variety of opinions to be fit subjects for much dogmatism. The Executive had not much to tell the Council but what every member was either well aware of already, or considered himself quite as good a judge of as the Provincial Secretary could be. We have already, in anticipation, spoken of what the speech would be likely to contain. So far as it is different from our expectations, it differs in that it says less— not fewer words, but words with less meaning. There are no less than eleven paragraphs in the speech. The first explains why the members are called together now, which was owing to the fact that last session the Government thought things would be brighter in six months' time than they were then. The second, so far as we can make out its somewhat doubtful English, states that things are no better than they were with the Government. The Superintendent, says he, regrets that 'he cannot congratulate the Council on having accomplished all that he desired, chiefly in consequence of the decrease of the revenue. We don't know whether this is a charge against the Council or a compliment to its sagacity j for it may be read either way. If it was the Council that should have accomplished the mysterious "all" to which his Honor refers, we only hope that body will do better this time., If it was the Superintendent that failed, then this may be taken as a graceful acknowledgment that the members formed more just views last session than the Executive about the finances of the province. But although things are no better with the provincial chest, they are going to be better soon, owing to the goldfields. In the third paragraph, which is ve.ry short, the Council is told that it will have estimates placed before it, framed on a scale iof most rigid economy. In the fourth, which is very lone, that there must be a poor's rate imposed, if the poor are to be kept alive at all. In the fifth, that as yet the Executive knows nothing .of how the accounts stand between the province and the colony, but hopes to know before the Council is prorogued. The sixth paragraph tells how the Eailway Bill of last session had been disallowed, and tow the Superintendent has sold part of the plaint. In the seventh, the Council is congratulate^, on the Thames goldfields and their prqspeqts. In the eighth, that congratulation is toned down by telling them how little he has been able to do for the district j he .might hive added, how strong the dislike to the connect tion with the Government" had grown there. In the ninth appears the Superintendent's inevitable Maori, who is made a powerful witness to the folly of taking the seat of Government away, from Auckland. , The tenth paragraph .cbniftins ; a feeble prot|as against changes in the Constitution, and expresses a hope that nothing will be done before;* general election takes The

pleyenih begins witli the Grammar School Endowment, and ends by returning to the painful question of the agitation for a new V , Such is the speech with which the IwentyV^fliird session: of the Council has been opened. ! i&a^we had expected, it is vague : as we did 1 ftot expect, it is very long. Three thingSj f^tyfce gleaned from it, however, that are, not unimportant to the community. The' first— that the estimates of last session have 'Tfceen /disjointed by results, or in other \msß. that, the Government have not got! nearly . so mueh< money, in as they expected. I The 1 second is thasthey are going to propose, ' local taxation. And the third, j thai; they are very much afraid they have « jioirinuch longer to live. .For eaoh of these - .three- things we were prepared, at least to ■ome extent. Yer^few people thought the; '«ttimates of last session trustworthy ; ifcarcely 'anybody thought the Government could .go on 1 this year without some new ••taxation; we certainly did not doubt that >the>Agitation for new institutions would /gre^ffiy embarrass the Government. The 'p'ojfrt will now be, what is to be done ? The' XJouncil , was/ last session wiser than the Executive in money matters, it appears : are they going to prove so again ? — or has ill their wisdom been transferred in bodily, ! shape to the ' Treasury benches ? "Will the, Council trust the Executive with any new .powers of taxation, even for so good air ■object as the relief of the destitute? Will 'the well-grounded fears of the Superintend ( deiit,for the stability of provincial institutions be removed or increased ? We are no advocates for extreme measures. "With little faith in the wisdom of the Executive in: finance, we do not see that they can now do much harm. They may anticipate payments which they will never get ; but, if 1 expenditure is cut down to the lowest, we &now of no lower depth to which even poverty can reduce it. And this the Council Basin its own hands. Some one must carry on the government of the province, while there is a province ; just as some one must oajry, on that of a county, if that is what we are to come to, Let necessary servants, and these only, be retained, and the Council can do no more; nor, so f»r as we can see, the Executive either. As for the destitute, it is necessary to provide for them in some way, we presume. It is true, they may be handed over to the City Board, but we question whether that would much alter the fact that the food must be paid for by the public. Finally, we see this advantage, in the evident j fear of new institutions which affects the Provincial Executive,— they will do their very best to give satisfaction for the future. That best may, or may not, be much ; but, at least, it is something. It will not, of course, prevent the changes that are necessary, from coming by-and-by; but it may prevent the success of a too hasty cry not bo much for new institutions as for a release from the old. If it does this, it will have done well. And it will be a satisfaction to the last Executive, no doubt, to know that its efforts prepared the way for somebhing better.