THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1326, 29 October 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY , OCTOBER 20, 1872.

" Hush Money" was the unhappy and unjustifiable phrase which the melancholy member for Avon, Mr Rolleston, selected to characterise the proposal to spend £100,000 in public works on the West Coast. Speaking upon the' lmmigration and Public Works Bill, he averred that the Bill, in asking for this particular £100,000 to be appropriated, asked for nothing more nor leas than so much " hush montiy" for the County of Wtstland. ' 'He did not mean to say that Westland did not require the money — in fact Westland had been neglected in a way that was disgraceful to the Colony — but he did object to the appropriation of 'hush money' in the absence of a v;ell defined principle or upon a plan upon which money would not have been given in previous years." Fortunately the member for Hokitika was in his place and in the humor both to support the Bill and to dispute an allegation which, if uncontradicted at the time, might have remained in the memories of thoso who are ignorant of the circumstances, with an injurious influence upon any future votes. As briefly reported in a Wellington contemporary, Mr White, in replying to Mr Rolleston, said that that hon. member did not attempt to provo in what way it could bo considered v hush money ;" but if it were, tho money Bpent in other portions of the colony must be " hush money" also. He could tell the hon. member that thankful as the people of Westland were to get the it would not operate effectually in silencing their complaints at all, because there was one mattrr which he intended to bring before the House until the object he had in view was accomplished, and that was the readjustment of the debt of the County to the Province of Canterbury. It was all very well for thoße gentlemen representing a Province which had railways ad libitum, and a

balance of £140,000 at the bank, which they did not know what to do with, <o talk in that manner, while at the same time Westland was paying interest and sinking fund on moneys tho benefit of which that Provinco was reaping. He pointed out these matters when the Railways Bill was before the House last session, and showed that while all tin Provinces were getting their railways made, not one single penny was being spent in Westland out of its share of the Middle Island railway fund. He als< pointed out that if roads, bridges, an> water-races were constructed in Westlano they wonld bo ns profitable as any railways in the country. He was supported by tho member for Grey Valley in these views, and on that occasion the member for Avon, in the course of his remarks said that ho agreed with all that had been said by the two speakers who preceded him, and thought the course pursued by the Government was financial madness, yet directly the Government proposed to give Westland the benefit of some expenditure they were told that the money was being spent as "hush money." It is due to Mr Rolleston to state^ that, having been at once brought to task in this manner bj Mr White, he explained that what he meant was that the money was being spent as "hush money" in order to silence the just complaints of Westland in past times, but he did not see in the appropriation of this money any settlement of the permanent grievances of which the district complained. Ho would endeavor to promote the interests of Westland to the utmost, and he would always vote for any measure that would effect that object. Mr White, however, was not even satisfied with this explanation. He did not like ! the way in which the hon. member had I stigmatised the proposal. It was posiI tively unjustifiable ; in fact, he would call upon the hon. member to withdraw the objectionable term. Whereupon, Mr Rolleston said he would withdraw it if the h«n. member wished him to do so ; and thus, by the timely intervention of Mr White, the little debate terminated by Mr Rolleston being " hushed " — not Westland. I The reading of recent numbers of j " Hansard " informs us, however, that this was not tho only occasion when Ministerial consideration of the claims of tho County of Westland caused Mr Rolleston some mental trouble, and induced him to make some lugubrious complaints as to the danger of Ministers being too good to the Coast. While confessing that it would be short-sighted policy to leave the West Coast undeveloped, lie feared that the intention to expend upon it £100,000 of tho Railway Fund would ] " give a kind of an idea " that the fund was of inexhaiistible dimensions. He directed attention also to another matter concerning the County of Westland, which he believed would be "surprising to anyone not well acquainted with the accounts of the Colony," in which category he ventured to include most of the members of tho House. Tho matter in questiou was one to which the Controller had called attention in the following memorandum : — " The Crown agents appear to have paid a draft for £7500 drawn on them from the Colony by tho Treasury, the proceeds of which were, as the Controller was informed, used to discharge a debt incurred by tho County of Westland to there Sfej* '~&S3 r -Mms-n&B>ffiY for this issue, the payment was illegal. But a graver irregularity occurred in tho fact that the proceeds of the order or draft on England were not, as required by law, paid into the public account. Had such been done, the money could only have been obtained by requisition on the Controller, which it would not have been in his power to comply with. The Controller had no cognizance of the transaction until it appeared in the Crown Agents' accounts several months' later. He therefore conceived it his duty to lay the caso before Parliament." This, to Mr Rolleston's mind, was another instance of a very loose state of things. If such could be done by tho Government to tho extent of .£7OOO, why sl'oulcl they not do the same with £10,000 or £20,000. It raised in his mind a very uneasy feeling— et cetera. The "little difficulty" which was thus "fished out," as Mr Vogcl described it, it was the latter gentleman's duty to explain, and he did so, first, by reading the following small extract from the correspondence with the Crown Agents for the Colonies : — " Treasurj', Wellington, 26th June, 1871.— Gentlemen,— I have the honor to inform you that I have requested the Agents for the Loans of this Colony to pay over to you the sum of £7500, which I now request yon to pay to the Bank of New Zealand in London, as an advance by this Government to the County of Westland. — I have, &c, Henry Sewell." In further explanation Mr Yogel said—" Mr Scwell happened to be perfectly in accord with his colleagues, and the circumstances of the case were these: The County of Westland was placed in a position of very great difficulty, owing to its not being able to obtain a portion of the sinking fund deposited in i the hands of tho Trustees of the Sinking Funds of Canterbury. lam not going to say that any blame attaches to the honorable member ; but I may say that anything more unsatisfactory could scarcely be conceived than that, after all this time, and after the authority of the House had been given, we should not be able to obtain the sinking fund from the hands of ( ,he Commissioners of the Canterbury Sinking Funds. lam not going into the question of why it wa3 so : I simply say it was a very unsatisfactory thing. Westland wanted the amount which was supposed to be duo to it. The Legislature had passed au Act which seemed to give a perfect indemnity to the Commissioners in handing over tho amounts in their hands, and it was prosumed that that amount would have beeu at once paid. The Government, therefore, agreed to advance to the County of Westland, on account of the amount which would have been forthcoming to it ; but up to the time I left office, we had not been able to obtain the amount from the Sinking Fund Commissioners. The Controller has laid the matter before Parliament, and the honorable member for Avon has taken it up, and I am very glad to havo the opportunity of making this explanation. These Binking funds are held by the Trustees originally appointed, and who have since been relieved by Parliament, b*ut the fundß have not been obtained from them. The Government did stretch their power, Boeing that the County wanted the money, and thinking it would bo only a tern: por iry advauce. That, I think, is a suffi-

cient explanation. I do not feel much sympathy with the honorable member. Ho is very hard upon his former associate. The fact is, Ido not collider the Colony i 3 liable : the County of Westland is liable to Canterbury for some portion of tho amount, and tho County has not been of late in a very wealthy condition ; but I think it is rather ungenerous for the representative of the wealthy and prosperous Province of Canterbury to speak in such bitterly complaining tones of its unhappy former companion."