THE HAWKE'S BAY HERALD. Napier, June 18,1859. MR. J. E. FITZGERALD UPON THE NEW PROVINCES ACT.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 2, Issue 91, 18 June 1859, Page 2

THE HAWKE'S BAY HERALD. Napier, June 18, 1859. MR. J. E. FITZGERALD UPON THE NEW PROVINCES ACT.

We this morning devote a considerable portion of our space to the re-publication of. a letter addressed by Mr. J. E. FitzGerald to Mr, John Hall, and which appears in the Lyiielton Times of the lstinst. The writer, as few of our readers are not aware, was formerly Superintendent of the Province of Canterbury and a distinguished member of the House of Representatives. He is now in England for the benefit of his health, where he is looked upon, it is said, as a high authority in New Zealand affairs. The object of the writer is twofold : first to shew the present position of the colony in the matter of its waste lands, consequent upon the disallowance of the Waste Lands Act, 1858; and, second, to give expression to his views upon the New Provinces Act. With the first we do not now deal, although we may remark, en passant, that Mr. Fitzgerald gives a clear and able exposition of the whole matter, and that it would be difficult to rise from a perusal of his letter with any other impression than that the Waste Lands Act 1854, now the law of the colony, is the one best adapted to meet the varied requirements of the different provinces. To the second portion of Mr. FitzGerald's letter, we must however, record a decided protest ; and the grounds upon which we do so shall be very briefly stated. He begins by designating the " New Provinces Act" a " most unconstitutional measure." This is a vague term, but we in New Zealand would regard it as meaning- something' diametrically opposed to the Constitution Act. Now the framers of the Constitution Act expressly provided for the creation of new provinces — the General Assembly having been so empowered under clause 69, with the proviso that a bill for this purpose should be reserved for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure thereon. And the Constitution Amendment Act, while repealing the 69th and two other clauses, does so, says the Secretary for the Colonies, lest, giving " certain limited powers of amendment," they should if continued, appear-to clash with the more general authority now given." The lesser powers gave place to the greater. Mr. FitzGerald proceeds to say that, in> the United States, " Congress has kept in its own hands the final act of declaring any new territory or state to be admitted into the Union." But we can trace no resemblance whatever between the admission of a new territory into the American federal union, and the creation of a new province within the British colony of New Zealand. The one is an independent state, in many

cases far larger than the whole of Great Britain, with its own distinct laws ; the other an integral portion of one colony, protected by the British .crown and subject to British rule — although in the enjoyment, by delegation, of such local powers as can best be exercised. by persons resident on the spot. Mr* Fitz Gerald, however, like his contemporary in power, Dr. Featherston, regards the six original Provinces as six colonies, and holds that they were intended to he Governments, not Road-boards or Vestries. But how can we reconcile this with the sixth paragraph of Sir John Pakington's despatch, accompanying the Constitution Act, y wherein he writes, — "It has been thought advisable that the Provincial Councils should consist of a single chamber, consisting wholly of elected members ; they have been led to this conclusion by ,the comparatively unimportant nature of these councils, which, will be limited to local objects, such as would be considered here to be of a municipal character, rather than partaking of the higher attributes of legislation." And, in the tenth paragraph, he writes of Superintendents, "' But they should at all events be included in the Commission of the Peace for their respective localities." Mr. Fitz Gerald's great cause of complaint, however, is in not having a separate Act of the General Assembly for every new Province. This sounds plausibly enough ; and such might be the state of the law were it not for the long and uncertain interval between each session of the General Assembly — precluding the possibility of applications being met with anything like promptitude, and placing the revenues of the district so applying at the mercy, meanwhile, of the Province from which it is desirous of being separated. That this is no imaginary danger is shewn by the late attempt of the Otago Government to dispose of some 600,000 acres at the Bluff— a district the settlers of which were then, as they are now, agitating for separation. And, in our own case, what would be the consequence of our being compelled to wait for separation till next meeting of the Assembly — why that, in addition to the large sum, (over £30,000) already abstracted from the revenues of the District, perhaps £50, 000 more would be swallowed up by the Wellington Government, never to be disgorged. We therefore think that the General Assembly, in having taken every precaution to prevent unnecessary or useless subdivisions, have acted with a due regard to the interests of the older Provinces ; and that, in leaving the practical part of the measure in the hands of the Governor in Council, they have taken a just and proper view of the exigencies of rapidly increasing out-lying districts. Mr. FitzGerald, like many others who appear to be ignorant of the true state of the case, asserts that the Ahuriri lands wers "pledged to the debts of the Wellington Province." This we emphatically deny : the Wellington Provincial Government had no power to pledge the waste lands — the loans contracted by them having been secured upon the general revenue of the Province. But to a fair adjustment of this question of debt between themselves and the Wellington Government, the settlers of Ahuriri are by no means averse ; all that they want is a settlement based upon a Dr. and Cr. account, arid they rely with confidence on the justice of the General Assembly — the only tribunal before which this cause can be tried. The writer proceeds to say, — "If the subdivision be extended beyond the real natural, separate colonies into which New Zealand- 3s divided, the constitution 'will have undergone a radical change. There were six colonies, all formed separately from England," &c. The inference is, looking especially to the words we have italicised, that six divisions of the colony are so indicated by natural boundaries that further subdivisions must be an encroachment, as it were, on the prerogative of nature. This position, however, is quite untenable — the original provinces being surrounded by no well-defined natural barriers such as to render them — what Mr. FitzGerald and others would gladly see them — the impregnable strong-holds of ul- . tr a- provincialism. Nay, we believe, had the Constitution Act not been passed, and the New Zealand Co's operations not been brought to a stand, that, without running . counter to nature, other and separate settlements would have been formed — one of which, probably, in the present province of Hawke's Bay — as, indeed, was- actually proposed to the New Zealand Co. by Capt. Thomas. And we have the well-known declaration of Sir George Grey that this

would have been one of the original provinces had it then been inhabited to a sufficient extent*. If a settlement formed, after the introduction of the Constitution Act is. as inde- ; pendent, geographically, of the original' settlement, as the six original settlements we're of each other, we cannot see a shadow of reason in that new settlement being condemned to the perpetual spoilage and neglect which are the inevitable fate of outlying districts — its lands sold, and the proceeds, as well as the revenue from other sources^ disposed of by the right of numbers at a distance, without reference to the wants or wishes of those by whose energy as colonists such revenue had been cheated. We will put a case, by way of illustration, more especially addressed to the settlers of Canterbury. We will suppose that their own Province — which is no more separated, by natural boundaries from the Province of Nelson than Ahurin'is from Wellington — had not been inhabited before the Constitution Act was passed, and that it was in consequence, incorporated in the Province of Nelson. We will further suppose that, shortly afterwards, Canterbury became peopled and prosperous — its fertile lands yielding thousands above thousands of pounds to be appropriated by the Province of Nelson, and spent, it may be, in the improvement of Nelson harbour. Would the settlers, whose indomitable perseverance alone had given this value to the hitherto waste lands, be satisfied, under such circumstances, with the reasoning of Mr. FitzGerald, and quietly look on, not merely while their money was being spent, but while thes were being made jointly responsible for heavy loans, in the expenditure of which their very existence was a circumstance almost unrecognised ? We rather think not. Nor do we imagine that a fear of breaking up the reil natural separate colonies first formed, would have prevented them from protesting against such monstrous injustice, or from seizing the first opportunity of securing to themselves a separate political existence. We would earnestly ask the people of Canterbury and our fellow-colonists generally who have read Mr. FitzGerald's letter, to ponder well these sayings, and. as respects, .this, province,, to judge fairly be-, tween Mr. J. E. FitzGerald and vs — or, rather, between the position to which he would wish to see the new province reduced and its fair and honest claim to manage its own affairs and dispose of its own local revenue for its own advantage. In so judging, we would ask them to bear in mind that we have now direct trade with Sydney, —that we shall be able to load a vessel at Napier this season with wool of our own growing to the value of over £65,000, — that our population is at present nearly 2000, and rapidly increasing, — and that there is no physical reason why we should be connected with Wellington any more than Ly ttelton should he with Nelson. We do not'doubt the result : the verdict of the enlightened and dispassionate colonist must be that we have acted quite right in seeking separation, as the General Government was wise in granting it ; and that on no principle of justice or equity can we be required again to stibmit to the rule, we might well say, the yoke, of Wellington.