THE SEPARATION MEETING AT INVERCARGILL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XIII, Issue 783, 12 May 1860, Page 2

THE SEPARATION MEETING AT INVERCARGILL.

[The following.correspondence forwarded from Otago to us for insertion explains itself. A reference to the subject, will be found elsewhere.]

To the Editor of the * Lyttelton Times.'

Sir,—-I sent a note to the editor of the,' Otago Witness' on the.morning of the 26th April requesting that although so late in the week he would insert the accompanying letter in the next issue of the paper on the 28th, stating that the reports of the separation meeting which had appeared were either very partial or imperfect, so that it would seem that no argument had been adduced in favour of the-movement, and-pointing out that-from, the distance of Murihiku, with only a fortnightly mail, statements regarding it could seldom be met while the subject was fresh. On the evening of the 26th I called at the office; the paper, was not set up, but the editor was most reluctant to receive the letter, urging many futile reasons against accepting it; finally he agreed to insert it—appointing, the next afternoon to look over the proof-slip; Next morning I was informed that the letter would not appear; but after some discussion the editor, agreed and pointedly promised to insert it in an extra sheet to be, published when the mail came. Within half an hour after he restrained this promise, and made a shuffling offer to publish it in the next ensuing paper—an offer implying a promise on which I now placed no reliance and declined. Later in the day it became known that Mr. Cutten had become a member of the Exeoutive, and this may perhaps

account for the reluctance of his understrapper to publish a document which contained statements and opinions unpalatable to the Provincial Government and unpopular in Dunedin; and this will serve to explain to you, sir, how the present monopoly of the Otago press by the Dunedin Government renders it necessary to seek in another province for that fair and impartial hearing which has been denied here, and to request that you will have the goodness to insert this letter and the enclosure in the columns of the'Lyttelton Times.' I am, sir, your obedient servant, James Menzies. Dunedin, May 2,1860.

(To the Editor of the ' Otago Witness ')

Sir, —In order that the public may have some opportunity of learning that the speech of His Honor the Superintendent at the separation meeting on the 28th ultimo, as published in the ' Colonist' of the 13th instant, neither was unanswerable nor crushed out opposition; and that something has been and can still be said on the other side of the question, I have to request that you will insert this letter in your next issue.

Before proceeding further, I wish to point out a serious, though I am willing to believe an unintentional mistake, in a part of the report of that meeting, which , has already appeared in your columns. It is stated there, that in reply I "admitted my inability at the moment to meet the case of a certain charge (£17,000) mentioned by the Superintendent, but that I did not challenge its accuracy." NoW, sir, this conveys the very erroneous impression that I surrendered the point. What I did say substantially in reference to the above was "that I did not challenge it then, but that when the new province came to balance accounts with the old, those accounts would be . scrutinized; and I then congratulated the constituency on having a representative whose abilities and antecedents qualified him well for , the delicate task of clearing up complicated accounts. I cannot give a report of my remarks at the meeting referred to, and therefore this letter must take the form of a comment on the published speech of the Superintendent.

.". I find that the land revenue in Murihiku since the office was opened there April 26th, 1858, to March 26th, 1860 (one year and eleven months) amounts in round numbers to £55,000. Land sales prior to that period; customs licenses and assessments, and other minor sources of revenue,J put down at £10,000, making a total of £65,000. This estimate is under rather than over'the truth, for several 2,000 acre blocks were applied and paid for in Dunedin without reference to the Land Office at Invercargill. A great portion of the customs revenue which should appear to the credit of Murihiku prior to the establishment of a bonded store at Invercargill, has been set down to the credit of Dunedin. Other items alluded to further on may have to be added to the sum of the revenue.

A deliberate exposition of the relative expenditure in the Province of Otago and the district of Murihiku did not form any part of my argument when moving the adoption of the petition for separation at the meeting on the 28th ultimo., and a reference made to the amount of the sums voted by the Provincial Council for, and expended in the province and the district respectively was only a passing allusion. In the statement made by the Superintendent, Murihiku is charged with £10,000 for public works since September, 1,857., Now, upon enquiring into this it would appear that about £6,700 have been expended iv the district upon public works—the phrase chargeable however may include projected works, for the construction of which contracts may have been entered into, arid in this way the sums' stated may still be correct. But if this surmise is true, and that Murihiku is charged with the cost of public works, whose construction will extend over a future period, then the district is also entitled to be credited with the amount of the revenues which should arise during the same period, and this has not been done.

Now, taking the Land Revenue of the district at the average of the last two years—namely about £28,000; three-eights of the Customs Revenue, at an average of £3 a-head, about £2,000 assessments, and other minor sources of revenue £700; we shall arrive at an average annual revenue of £30,700 the due proportion of which, corresponding to the period over which such contracts may extend, must in all fairness be added to the credit side of our account. Several minor charges follow which require no notice at present.

The next item of importance is the cost of surveys, and having seen that the amount is certified by the Chief-surveyor, I have no reason to doubt that it is quite correct. • The last charge amounts to £17,800, and though full details are not given, akw remarks upon one or two of those mentioned may perhaps throw a little light on the nature of this particular charge. The Superintendent premises that we are chargeable with one-third 'of the general expenditure.-r-a questionable position. Steam is first mentioned— a due proportion of the Provincial quota for the mail service of course we must bear.

The steam communication with Melbourne has been of very little direct service to Murihiku. The boat has never called at the Port of Invercargill as stipulated in the contract. She calls at the Bluff at uncertain times and usually for only a few hours, arid has been of little service to the district beyond bringing or taking a few passengers and light mails. Indeed it would appear that the Provincial Government, when drawing up the contract considered the call at the Bluff or New Eiver as a very unimportant and subordinate matter, otherwise it would have scarcely agreed to stipulate that the contractors should have the unconditional choice of agreeing or riot to take on board or discharge freight at the New River and Bluff. Something is done, no doubt, for the amount of service that that vessel did render —but; distinctly, Murihiku is not justly chargeable with one-third of the bonus as implied by the charge of the Superintendent. On the other hand the steam coaster has been of very great service to the South, and I believe that none there will deny that her due quota has been fairly earned.

The next item is immigration. • Large sums have been expended for tnis object since September, 1857, with a most beneficial effect to Otago, but this district has derived very little benefit from the outlay, other than it might have done though it had been a separate province. A few labourers have been sent down by the Provincial Government, and from two to three hundred other immigrants have found their way to this district, at the expense either of themselves or of their employers, and with somewhat less trouble than they would have found their way hither from a neighbouring province.

Both the contractors, Messrs. McAndrew & Co., and the Provincial Government obstinately opposed the sending of, an immigrant vessel to the Bluff—the latter doing bo on the most fallacious pleas. Immigrants could be employed most advantageously at the Bluff, where publics works of all kinds require to be constructed: roads, streets, barracks, wharves, &c., and if no special vote was taken in the Council for any such purpose, yet, if the Government choose to direct immigrants to and employ steam at Campbelltown, it could under the oircumstances have dealt with the case with the same decision that it displayed when in the winter of 1858 it expended large sums; altogether without authority, in order to give employment to a number of newly arrived immigrants and carry out improvements in Dunedin. But it would.appear that the Provincial Government has

deliberately discouraged the formation of a commercial centre at the Bluff, and I say, advise if that tbe town land at Campbelltown 'was with drawn from sale after being advertised, and withheld: front sale for nearly two years, without a tangible reason; and that the formation of a- "i connecting the Bluff with the country inland 1 been, deliberately procrastinated for nearly a aim \* period. But to return. It is obvious that if disclaim liability for immigration to the ext> W f charged we must to a similar extent surrender counter claims to the repayments made by i m °^ r grants; it does not, however, appear that intj!" statement of the Superintendent wo receive crel! for any of those repayments, although we charged with one-third of the expenditure on i m gration. Education is without doubt another it" 11" in the amount, the provincial expenditure for wl "^ since September, 1857, up to January lßfin amounts to about £5800. By the foregoing n jwe are chargeable with one-third of, this sum whereas I believe that in point of fact a sin 1 fragment, lately made, of something less than £2o is all that has been received from the ProviV i Government for educational purposes west of tlf Mataura. I will not at present further analv this charge, enough has been said to show that lar abatements must be made when the amounts com 6 to be scrutinised, and if my supposition is correct that the contract drawn by the Superintendent lip between, the revenue for two years and six montf 8 on the one hand, and the expenditure (wholly or f part) for three years on the other, then the arojl ment which he founds on such a basis must falft' the ground. But the subject must be regarded from another point of view, and it should tie duly considered in this aspect. Let it be for tta moment admitted that £35,000 is really chargeable against Murihiku in the way stated by the Super. intendent. Of this charge the proportion due by the district of the provincial quota for mail service and New Zealand > Company's debt must be paid away whether it is separated or not. Of the remainder, about one-half has been really spent in the district, while something like (£15,000) fifteen. " thousand pounds has been disbursed in Dunedin to defray those charges which become due by K\u\. hiki, according to the rule laid down by the Super.' intendent. So long as the district continues to form a part of the province, the same system of appropriation is also likely to continue, and the district will thus lose the benefit of that part of the expenditure; whereas if it were constituted into a province this outlay would be made within the new province, and the money would circulate in the district where it accrued, instead of being sent to Dunedin and spent there. In this way, although the reproductive expenditure might be nominafly more limited after, the formation of a separate goverement, yet the comfort of the settlers would in the aggregate, be materially increased by a corresponding larger local expenditure; and this, I apprehend, is a consideration of some importance. In truth, the Superintendent furnishes us with a strong argument against a continuance of the connection with Dunedin when informing us that £35,000 was charged against the district; for it must be clear enough to any intelligent resident that a local government would have been better informed as to the: objects for which the revenue should have been appropriated and would have applied it far more beneficially and'more in accordance with the way in which alone land revenues are legitimately applicable, namely,, in promoting immigration, and in the construction of essential or reproductive works. ... The Superintendent says that he would prefer that the land revenue should be appropriated by the Provincial Council of Otago rather than by the General Assembly, in which Otago has only four members out of forty-one. If■, he is consistent lie must sympathise with the: demand of Murihiku, wliich is precisely similar. It wants to have its own revenue appropriated by a provincial council of its own election, rather than by the Provincial Council of Otago in. which it has two members only out of twenty-two. And lam altogether at a loss to understand how any intelligent resident in Murihiku can believe that the interests of the district will be understood or attended to by a Provincial Council at Dunedin better than by a council composed of residents in the district, and having its interests directly at heart—interests which in ' many particulars are not merely unconnected with but absolutely antagonistic to those of Dunedin.

The success of Provincialism in New Zealand has resulted mainly from the six provinces being independent centres of colonization. With sufficient revenues, why should not a larger numberlet us suppose nine—be still more successful ? Certainly no settlement in New Zealand has started into independent existence as a province under such favourable circumstances as Murihiku would do at this time.

On referring to- the Chief Surveyor's report and to the Land Office, it appears that about one hundred and fifty thousand acres (150,000) of good arable land conveniently situated are still unsold in the district, while of the three millions of acres of which the new province would consist about one hundred and ten thousand acres only have been sold. It appears from the Gazette that the expenditure in the Province of Otago in 1854 —the first year of its existence—was about £2000 —of which a little more than one half was expended in the necessary expenses of government. In 1855 the latter amounted to about. £1600—the expenditure in the province being £5250—in these, survey expenses are not included, and they are very different now from what they were then. Is it altogether Utopian to expect that a Provincial Government might be conducted as economically in the south ?

But this letter has already extended to a great length though only some of the prominent points of the question have been touched upon. One point now I shall notice, and it is not an agreeable one. His Honor the Superintendent expressed a fear that the public mind in the south had been primed by statements and assertions which would not bear investigation. Afterwards he said that before leaving Dunedin he had entered into a contract for surveying the available portion of the 2000 acre blocks into 80 acre allotments. Now 1 am informed that the Provincial Solicitor in ms place in the Council denied the correctness of this statement; and I • learn from authentic sources ot information that the only contract entered into tor surveying any part of the. 2000 acre blocks has been taken by Mr. Mountfort, who is to survey districts 11 and 12 into 2000 acre blocks, an J about one half of the country to be thus surveyed has been already sold. Comment upon this woum be superfluous. I am, sir, James R. Menzies. Dunedin, April 26,1860. . . P;S.—Since the above was written I have seen a return to the Provincial Council of the revenue ana expenditure of Murihiku from which it appears that the revenue from Crown Lands there was, up to April 20th, 1858, when the branch ohilb was opened ... £4,983 J» -i From April 26,1858, to Dec. 31,1859 47,231 9JJ £52,215 0 0 Customs 3-8 1,12? 0 » Pilotage... ... ... 91_^jZ £53,431 0 0 The expenditure in district 1856-7 • '■ '624 8 j>. . ..■ ■ 57-8 1,049 1 y

59-60 3^596 0 0; £8,827 0 0 . ... 5,4/00 0 0 Survey expenses ____. ; £14,227 0 0; omnia —This does not include expenses of \ • "tion'stewn coastal service, or Executive. ; m?n°' U to the above statement of revenue the; T-P7 559 15s. 6d. of Land Revenue fori *m .February, and March, 1860, is added to; the Land Revenue will be seen to amount \ tlie/-f°B2l 4s- 6f*-as statec* m c Prece^hig letter, j t0 f'teinent in which of the expenditure also \ the \< corresponds with the figures in the return, j near) James R. Menzies. . !.