THE Grey River Argus PUBLISHED DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 1874.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1700, 15 January 1874, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus PUBLISHED DAILY. THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 1874.

During the recent elections speculations have not unnaturally been indulged in as to:the financial resources of the new Province, and various estimates have been made nf the amount of revenue that will be available for expenditure after the expenses of the ordinary departments of Government have been provided for. It is impossible to form an accurate opinion on this subject until the Superintendent shall have placed a full account of the financial position before the Council ; but it may be considered certain that without extraneous aid of some kind, the Council will will be able to do little more than to discharge its first and most necessary functions. No new public works of any importance can be undertaken out ot the ordinary revenue, nor will there be any margin for grants for educational purposes. But public works must go on if the Province is to prosper, aad to enable the. local Government to open up the country, it will be necessary to borrow money upon the security of the waste lands. Of course the Council cannot legally borrow of itself, but it is possible that a carefully considered scheme of public works, approved by the Council, would materially strengthen the hands of the representatives of the Province in the General Assembly in any application made to that body.* l We are of opinon that there would not be much difficulty in J Westland obtaining authority to borrow quite as much as it is likely to need for some years to come for the construction of new public works calculated to promote settlement, and. r .open up the country. Bnt it will be Absolutely necessary that the works proposed to be constructed out of borrowed money should be of a main or arterial character. Main roads, bridges, water- races, and dams, harbor works, and I so on, would all be within the category of subjects to which the expenditure of borrowed money can propwly be devoted. For the maintenance of existing roads, ■ and the construction and repair of branch roads, this Province, like some others — Wellington, for instance— must depend upon local taxation. And it will be necessary for the Council to carefully consider the question of placing the Road Boards upon a more useful footing, and compelling them to carry out their functions. We are sorry to have to say that, with hardly a single exception, the Road Boards of Westland have been great failures, and chiefly because they have never recognised ..the duty : of local taxation upon all descriptions, of property affected by road or other. improvements. As an instance, : until it was an essential condition to the receipt of the capitation money that rates • 'should' be levied, some Road Boards levied no ratas gt all, and depended

entirely upon casual grants from the ' County Council. Again, whilst in many instances tho Road Boards were composed mainly of miners the rates were levied exclusively upon the agricultural occupiers and householders. This anomalous state of things should be abolished. The Road Boards should be placed in a position of greater usefulness, and that can only be done by enforcing upon them the necessity of local taxation, and giving the power of expenditure to the ratepayers only. At the same time we think that a certain proportion of the land revenue accruing within a disrrict should be placed at the disposal of the local Board, provided that the inhabitants taxed themselves. We are satisfied that under a properly arranged scheme the whole of the work of maintaining and constructing branch roads could be effectively done by the district Boards. As for Education, if we are to have any local measure at all it must of sheer necessity depend almost entirely upon rates supplemented perhaps to some small extent by endowments of land. It is hopeless to expect to go in for any ambitious system, and the state of the finances of the Province will of itself make it necessary to make some use of the .existing schools and the denominational organisations. The Nelson system is by far the best suited to the circumstances of the Province and the character of its population than any other that we are aware of, and it would, we have no doubt, meet with general acceptauce. Some of the candidates, during the recent elections, laid great stress upon the necessity of upsetting, if possible, the award given by the umpire in the apportionment of the Canterbury debt, and probably a petition from the Provincial Council to the General Assembly might assist in obtaining some relief. Attempts were made by the Westland members two or three years ago to obtain a re-opening of the award, on the ground that the distribution of the Colonial Revenue, upon which one of the reasons of the award was ba3ed, had been entirely altered by the financial measures of 1870. But the appeal was met with the difficulty that by the Apportionment Act it is provided that the award should be "final and conclusive." Westland has, however, so many claims upon the favorable consideration of the Colony, that we have some hopes that if backed up by the unanimous voice of the Council, the members for the Province in Parliament could succeed in obtaining substantial compensation.