ILLEGAL EXPENDITURE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 7, 15 August 1861, Page 3

ILLEGAL EXPENDITURE.

The necessity of putting some check upon the expenditure of public money without the sanction of law by the Government in this Colony, has long been admitted. With the view of ascertaining to what extent this practice had been carried, a return has been obtained and laid before the House of Representatives, showing the amount of “the unauthorized expenditure incurred by the General Government during the period commencing on the Ist July, 1856, and ended the 30th September, 1860,” and showing also “the amount of the unauthorised expenditure of the several Provincial Governments for the same period or up to the latest date.” It appears that during the period specified, the illegal expenditure of the General Government reached the sum of <£42,723 2s. 5d., of which somewhat more than one-half was guaranteed by resolutions of the House; and it appears also that,in addition,<£2s,o43 145.2 d. had also been expended in connexion with tuc insurrection.

All the Provincial Governments from which Teturns have been received (Nelson and Canterbury not having forwarded any) are found to be sinners, to a greater or less extent.

In order in the future to provide against a recurrence of abuses, and to redress the balance of power in matters of finance between the executive and the legislative bodies two schemes are now before the Houses of Representatives; the one, that of the late Ministry, embodied in the Public Expenditure Control Bill, and the Provincial Audit Bill; the other, the scheme of the present Ministers, developed in their Provincial Audit Bill, and in the Bill to amend the Audit Act of 1858. These schemes may properly be dis-

tinguished as Centralist and Provincial. The disposition to meddle ceaselessly in Provincial matters, and to irritate and annoy the administrators of the Local Governments, which has so uniformly characterized the action of the late Ministry, as to make it appear to be the fixed policy of the General Government, — marks the Centralist plan of the Stafford Ministry; the desire to,preserve the integrity of the Province, to secure the independence in matters peculiarly of local concern, and an anxiety to give the Provincial Councils a more complete control of the purse than they at present possess, distinguish the proposition of the men now'in office.

The Centralist Audit Act provides that the Provincial Auditor shall he appointed by the Governor, and shall ' hold office during the Governor’s pleasure. The Provincial Audit Act provides that the Auditor shall be elected by the Provincial Council, and be removable upon an Address to the Superintendent, in which two-thirds, at least, of the Members of such Council must concur. Under the first mentioned law, the Officer of the General Government would be the active representative of that policy which seeks to cripple and dismember the Provinces, and to reduce local Governments to the rank of parish vestries, whilst under the latter, the Provincial Council will obtain that which it is right and politic that it should have, a real control by means of its own officer over the expenditure of the money which it is its function to appropriate, and its duty to guard. This is the fundamental difference between the two plans. Want of space prevents us from going into an examination of the details of the respective measures; we shall, however, take an early opportunity of publishing both bills.

The Public Expenditure Control Bill might if passed, be described succinctly as the Algerine Act 1861. With an Auditor appointed by a central government animated by such a spirit towards Provincial institutions as that which distinguished the Stafford Ministry, it would be found that the office of Superintendent would speedily go a begging; men of character would, we think, be chary of placing themselves in a post of so much danger. This, there is no doubt, would be a condition of things very agreeable to the men who framed the measure.

By the Provincial Audit Bill, introduced by Mr. Fox, that which the Control Bill proposed to effect will be accomplished—so far as the Local Governments are concerned —more certainly and less offensively, whilst the check on irregular expenditure by the General Government is proposed to be established by an amendment of the Audit Act of 1861. It is, perhaps, fortunate that in these their latest acts the Stafford Ministry have shown that their strange animosity'to existing Provincial institutions remained unmitigated to the close. Those who think that as agents in the work of colonization and settlement, the Provinces may still be useful, will hesitate to expose them to a repetition of the difficulties and obstructions against which they have struggled during the last five years, the results of which, although they begin to be manifest in Wellington, Nelson, and Otago are far from being fully de-veloped.—New-Zealander, July 27.