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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 1, Issue 32, 1 May 1858, Page 3

The last time that we gave intelligence from Wellington we regretted the want of a missing link in the chain of events — his Honor's message to the Council on the occasion of declining to assent to the Executive Act.

We take the first opportunity of supplying the desideratum : — Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Provincial Cottncii,

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of an Address from the Council, and a Copy of an Act passed by the Council, authorizing me to form my Executive Council without, appointing a Solicitor to the Province, to which I am requested to assent on behalf of his Excellency the Governor.

I regret thatl should consider it my duty torefuse to give my assent to this Bill.

The honorable Member for the City, Mr. Wakefield, in his late communication with me has avowed the intention of a majority of the Council to pass an Act to combine in one person the offices of Treasurer and Secretary. The result of such intended Act, coupled with that now xmder consideration, would be to concentrate in that one person (as far as the requirements of the law would go) the whole of the Responsible officers of the Executive Government — while practically the Superintendent would, in financial and legal matters, be acting on the information and advice of persons not even Members of the Council, and in no way responsible to it or to the Constituencies of the Province.

The system cf Responsible Government inangurat dby me four years ago, with the full consent, and under legislation, of the Provincial Council obliged the Superintendent to act by and with the advice of a Secretary, Treasurer, and Solicitor;

and by a distinct pledge — by which I th?n bound myself (analogous to \h.z long established custom which binds the Imperial Government in reference to the same matter), — I made it a necessary condition of appointment to any of those offices, that the person appointed should on acceptance of the office, go back to his constituents for re-election. I still consider these conditions essential to the exist ?nce o? Responsible Government; and the Act to which my assent is requested, coupled with fie intention referred to, of combining the Secret •ryship with the Treasury, is substantially destructive of that form of Government.

I eann )t help perceiving also, that a Secretary supported by a majority of the Council, and uncontrolled by the check of any othsr heads of Departments having a legal and ex-cfilcio position in the Executive, wculd in practice be the Executive Government, reducing the Superintendent to a mere Registrar of bis edicts — a [ osition which I must d -cline to fill.

I fully recognise the importance of the difference of opinion -wli'ch exists between the majority of the Council and myself on this occasion, and the responsibility which rests on me in this matmer. Although this Act, which proposes a fundamental alteration in the form of Government hitherto adopted in the Province, has bs^n passed in haste, having been carried through all its stages in a single evening, under suspension of the Standing Ord.-rs, I can scarcely expect that the majority of the Council will reconsider the subject or retreat from the position it has taken. On the other hand, my own decision rests on a principle, and that one which has formed the basis of the policy on which I have hitherto been elected by tto suffrages of thi constituencies of the Province. I fs-i:l that I have no right any longer to call upon my present Executive to continue to fill the oiiic.-.s they hold, and to act as my advisers, unsupported as they are by a majority of the Council, anl three of them not even possessing seats in that body. Neither will I act in contravention of lavv and of all my former professions, by exercising the functions of the elected head of the Executive Government without the aid of those official advisers by and with whose advice the existing law requires me to act. I have therefore determined to resign the office of Superintendent, and will by the first opportunity forward my resignation to Ids Excellency the Governor.

It only remains for me to point out to the Council the expediency of making an immediate appropriation for the public service during tire interval wiiich must necessarily elapse before my successor can be elected. I. E. Featiterston, Superintendent.

The following are the remarks of the Spectator upon the financial debate. We give them as affording much insight into the views of the Radical party : —

The presmt supplement, as its name implies, has been published mainly for the information of the Ahuriri settlers, and will be convey, d to them by the strainer which leaves to-day for Napier. It contains a report of the most important debate that has occurred in the Provincial Council during tli3 present session; a debate on the financial state of the Province, in which Mr. FitzGerald took the most prominent part. The speeches are faithfully reported ; but his in particidar merits attention on account of its striking ability, and of the completeness with which it brings to light the financial errors of the Government. No doubt it will hi carefully studied. Words may be easily mistaken or peiverted ; not figures. Figures speak fo • themselves. They can have but one meaning, r.ot several. Two and two make neither more nor less than four in spite of sophistication. In Mr. FitzGerald's speech, there is no declamation, no appeal to the passions, no attempt at ridicule or evtn persuas.o 1 ; still less arc there any low-lived

personalities. He deals only with figures, with admitted sums, with plain balances, in short with mere facts which "every one who runs may read ;" and from which the inferences are so manifest that it is scarcely possible for any honest mind to mistake about them.

The first inference to be drawn from this financial exposure, is that the Province is in no small danger of becoming bankrupt. The regular expenditure exceeds the regular income. Nothing can be plainer than that. But is there not an extraordinary income to cover the excess of expenditure over regular income ? Yes, in name there is, but in fact the extraordinary income consists solely of two items winch are not income at all but most strictly capital : that is money borrowed and proceeds of Waste Lands.

Take the borrowed money first. A spenfhrift lives on what he borrows, calls it his income, and it certain of ruin. The most prudent may borrow capital to use in the making of an income ; and if the income made be large enough, he pays off the loan as soon as possible, and then spends or lives upon the whole income if he does not care to save. This prudent man, in the keeping of his accounts, never thinks of reckoning the proceeds ofaloanas income or revenue ; he scrupulously treats it as borrowed capital. Our Provincial Government, on the contrary, has deemed the proceeds of loans part of its income, and has squandered them accordingly ; and now finding that the regular expenditure exceeds the regular income, it makes up the deficiency by reckoning the proceeds of loans as part of income. It takes the surest way to insolvency. Separate the extraordinary proceeds of loans from the regular income, and the Province is already insolvent.

Well, a reckless Government would say, go on borrowing to supply deficiences of income, and let posterity take care of itself. The reply is twofold ; a tlmftless Government, known to be a borrower for regular expenditure, as ours now is by th.c publication of the facts, Mould not find lenders ; and, what is still more to the point, the Imperial Government, obviously alarmed at the amount of Provincial loans, has positively forbidden further borrowing by any of th.c Provinces. We are happily precluded from continuing to hide deficiencies of income by means of loans for expenditure.

In the next place, the Government tre.it s as revenue or income — what think you, settlers of Ahuriri ? — why, the Waste Land Fund, the cap:tal, and (since further loans are forbidden) the only possible capital of tliu settlers for colonizing their waste country. It is believed that Mr. Fitzgerald was the first to draw that pregnant distinction between capital and revenue, which claims the Wa-te Land Fund, not for expenditure but for profitable use as the chief means by which the waste country is to be improved and peopled — as capital, the investment of which in colonizing may be the producer of income — as money which should be mo.-t carefully set apart for its only p-.oper purpose and guarded from the reckless handling of any who would spend it as ordinary revenue. From this distinction springs another principle of almost equal moment. As the settlements of Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, Otago, and Canterbury, were fo.mdecl by the outlay of their own Waste Land Funds, so the Waste Land Fund produced by every- important District of a Province should be its own colonizing capital. Ahuriri, made by nature to be a distinct settlement, is especially entitled to its own Waste Land for the purpose of its own colonization. Oar Provincial Government thought otherwise ; and therefore, more than for any other reason, Ahuriri went for Separation. In the accounts here published, the colonizing land of Ahuriri is treated as Provincial income. The Government, driven to its wits' end by its own thoughtless extravagance, seems determined that the wish of the Ahuriri settlers for Separation should be accomplished. But what then ? What if justice and good policy he observed towards Ahuriri without separation? The only answer is, that without a prompt reform, without an early change to retrenchment and economy in the expenditure of the Province so as to make the regular outlay square with the regular income, fresh taxation will be unavoidable. It is not yet "too late," but soon will be. The necessity of financial reform presses the most as to time. Settlers of Ahuriri, study the accounts !