The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1862.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1034, 8 October 1862, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1862.

The QUARTERLY SUMMARY of the 'Lyttelton Times,' for transmission to England, will be published on Saturday next, the 11th instant.

The enlarged Provincial Council meets for the first time in days of prosperity. Every thing looks bright with a large balance in the Treasury and an unfailing land revenue, which supplies the sinews of war without luxation. The Estimates of last year, lavish as they were, were passed in expectation of a much smaller revenue than the amount actually collected; and there is no reason for expecting any serious falling off in the revenue of the ensuing year. But this very prosperity, and the source from which its springs, suggests matter for care and reflection in the disposal of the funds of the province. When there is not much money in the chest the difficulties of the Government begin, but the task of the Council is easy. It is in the days of large cash balances in the bank that the care and labour of the Council ought to be most apparent. Yet it is well known that the severest critics and most virtuous economists in days of difficulty are often the most lavish when there is no immediate fear of poverty.

There is an old proverb to the effect that money easily come by is too often lightly spent; and we may be quite sure that if our revenue were all raised by taxation, —if we paid the money ourselves which our representatives vote each year in the Provincial Council—there would be much more anxiety to spend it in a permanently remunerative manner. Out of the funds which the Provincial Council have at their disposal the fraction raieed by taxation in the shape of Customs duties is comparatively very small. In round numbers the Provincial revenue from different sources during 1 the past financial year amounted to near £240,000. Of this sum £210,000 accrued from land sales and pasturage rents: that is from the landed estate of the province; while the three eighths of the gross duties, which is the Provincial share of the Customs revenue, did not. amount to £20,000. Thus, while the available Provincial revenue raised by taxation was at the rate of not more than £1 per head of population, the amount raised by the sale and letting of the public property was at the rate of about £12 per head.

There is ft great temptation to deal with this latter money as if it was ordinary revenue in the same sense as the Customs duties. And yet it is evident that the amount derived from land sales is capital and not income. We cannot agree with the croakers who watch the sales of land with fear, and who tremble at the prospect of the future when that source of income is cut off. This fear is consequent upon the habit of looking; on land revenue as ordinary Provincial income. But the moment we honestly determine to look on this revenue as capital, such fear ought to vanish. It is now that the money is wanted to open up the country; and the the sooner the waste lands pass into private hands, the sooner will they be profitably occupied. As soon as the country is cultivated and peopled, the revenuo for ordinary purposes will take care of itself. But in the meantime our care should be, that the money derived from land sales should go to the opening up the country and to the introduo-

duction of population. If it is frittered away on a variety of temporary objects, instead of being expended in permanent investments, then indeed we may look with fear on the progress of the land sales. Let us, however, place before us the fact that such a fear is merely an acknowledgment that we are not fit to be entrusted with our own property; that we should be treated as children and tied up and fettered in the disposal of our waste lands.

The railroad between Lyttelton and Christchurch, and the heavy works undertaken to connect every part of the province are earnests of an enlightened policy ; the yearly scramble in the Provincial Council, in which each member tries to get what he can for his own district is a cause of fear, and a sign that the nature of the land fund has f|ot been fully realised. The Municipal Councils Ordinance initiated a system which will in time check this abuse, and we hope that the Roads Bill promised this session will be a step in the same direction.

We by no means advocate the immediate desertion of municipalities and districts by the Provincial Government and Council. It would be both injustice and bad policy to leave them at once to their own resources. But while the province should help such bodies in first opening- up their towns and districts, it is time to require them to take the responsibility of expending the funds allotted to . them, to economise their means, and to meet provincial advances by local rates. Such a system as this will be a guarantee to the province that money is not wasted on private roads or drains to benefit private property, without some adequate contribution on the part of persons benefitted.

If the towns and districts want to be fed and made prosperous, the great public works of the country must be pushed on without interruption, and a large and unfailing stream of population must be poured into the province. The harbor must be made as safe and commodious as possible for large ships, and every part of the province must be connected with the Port. We have only begun a labor which will absorb all the revenue that will ever be raised from the public lands, and we may be thankful that ; before this settlement was founded, the principle had been acknowledged that the Waste Lands of the Crown should provide the means for opening up and populating the country.

It is probable that eventually all our main thoroughfares will be iron tramways, and that the costly means now adopted for keeping up the high roads will be given up in favor of laying down comparatively permanent ways. But however that may be, whether the high roads are made of stone or iron, there can be no reason why they should not in either case be maintained by those who use them. The first care of the Legislature should be to make the roads thoroughly into every part of the country that is sufficiently occupied, to bridge the rivers and drain such swamps as are in the way. When this is once flone well, the roads should maintain themselves by a moderate charge on the traffic. The land revenue gives us a fair start, but it will not last for ever.