Untitled

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2136, 25 October 1867, Page 2

The supporters of the Timaru and Gladstone Board Bill have met with their first cheek. 'Ere the bonfires are well extinguished, or the effigies that have been burnt, hung, drawn, quartered, and then drowned, are paid for, signs of very seriouß dissent have sprung up and taken form in the usual method by which the public are in the habit of expressing their opinions. A meeting has been held at Waimate, at which resolutions condemnatory of the Bill have been passed and carried almost unanimously, if we except the half-dozen delegates from Timaru, who attended the meeting for the purpose of shewing the Waimateites how fortunate they ought to consider themselves. To say that we fully expected this is to say nothing more than that we perceived what was obvious to any ordinary observer from the moment the Bill left the printers' hands. Even while the measure was passing through the House of Representatives there were -signs of disagreement between the representatives of the several districts included in the bill, which boded ill for its ultimate fate, Of course it was a paramount necessity on the part of those gentlemen to smooth over all difficulties in order to secure the passing of the measure. But it was equally certain that those difficulties would crop up elsewhere, and lead hereafter to the disagreements which have now commenced. It was obvious that the quarrels which occur in the Provincial Council over the apportionment of the public funds, and which are kept under only by the equal and large representation of every district, would break out with a force increased in proportion to the diminution of the districts represented and concerned in the partition of the spoil. Timaru is now a little centre seeking to rule its outlying districts after the ordinary approved fashion, and already feels the thorns in its bed of roses. We shall be told, as a matter of course, that we rejoice over these dissensions, and do our best to foment them. But nothing is farther from our thoughts or wishes. Timaru has i got its Bill, and must make the best of , it. "We never thought it a good bari gain for the district, and the more we i look at it the more we are confirmed in ; our first opinion. In spite of the [ reiterated abuse of ourselves with i, which our Southern contemporary is s pleased to fill its columns, we take . leave to repeat that it is no fault of > ours that Timaru has not long ago ! received more than it has now obi tained. Our opposition to the Bill arose from [no desire to deprive Timaru of its fair f share of the land revenue, but be- [ cause we recognised the great evil ■ involved in an invitation to the General i Government to step in and dispose of ' the Land Revenue at its pleasure. ■ We cannot conceal from ourselves that ■ the Government is perfectly capable of i following up this first step by satisfyj ing out of the special Revenue of Can--1 terbury the urgent wants of other parts i of the Colony, in spite of the law which i has recently made that revenue over to 1 the Province. This is the fatal risk - which the impatience and petty jealousy

of Timaru has brought upon the Province, and for which, as far as we can see, it will reap only the wind. Timaru comforts itself with the notion that another application to the Assembly will meet with as prompt attention as the first, but it may depend upon this, that for the future there will be hundreds of claimants from all quarters of the Colony sending up their prayers for a share of the common Provincial property. Then, if the whole policy is not absolutely reversed, those that have been once served will have a poor chance of getting more. But Timaru may well be content with what it has got. If it can learn wisdom by the experience of others, it will set to worl to satisfy its own outlying districts unless indeed it wishes to go througl a process of (subdivision in its owi person.