The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 1877.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 5006, 6 March 1877, Page 2

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 1877.

Truly, Provincial Abolition is a Christmas Tree to New Zealand. We presume that other Provinces, whose representatives were so eager for expecting their sylvan idol, duly propped and stayed, are receiving all kinds of good things from its beneficent branches. We hope that they appreciate and duly worship the image which their king has set up. It is much more beautiful than nature. Nature does not provide an arboi'eal bazaar lit up by wax tapers. What does it matter that the stem is unprovided with roots, so long as it is mechanically firm, and scattered soil will make it look as if it were growing ? Should it ever be foolish enough to wither, a substitute can be provided at the shortest notice; there is any number and variety of such images at the home manufactory. But what we in this Province complain of is that none of these good things come to our share. The fruits which we are receiving are Dead-sea apples. This is not fair, for the members from Canterbury loyally supported Provincial Abolition. Another penal reward of this confiding faith has been brought to light in the proceedings of the last meeting of the Selwyn County Council. Canterbury has been robbed of £26,000, and this robbery is stated by the Government to be required by the terms of Provincial Abolition. Of course, as Mr Toots says, it’s of no consequence. Is not Provincial Abolition a consolation for every suffering ? Have we not the best Government which can be got ? This little hitch is but a crumpling in the rose leaf. What is the insignificant sum of, £26,000 compared with the proud consciousness, the moral elevation of the feeling, that we have destroyed the tyranny of local self-government, and placed ourselves, bound hand and foot, in the power of a merciful and enlightened central administration at Wellington ? We have plenty of wool, and we have provided the shears; it is only in the natural fitness of things that we should be shorn. But still, there are perverse persons who cannot be convinced. They admit that good and evil must exist in the best laid schemes, but they do not see why the Colony should get all the good, and Canterbury get all the evil. They are unable to subscribe to that peculiar ordering of events, which arranges that he who providently hath something should lose what he hath, in order to enrich him who improvidently hath nothing.

The circumstances of the case are these. There were—before Provincial Abolition came into force, certain Provincial Appropriations, as they are called, amounting to £26,000 for the Lyttelton and Addington Gaols and for the Lunatic Asylum at Christchurch. No contracts had been entered into for any part of that expenditure at the date of Provincial Abolition, and on that, date those buildings became Colonial buildings. Their construction or improvement would thenceforth become absolutely a Colonial work, and any Provincial money which would have been available, if the Provinces continued to exist, should by law be divisible among the Counties within the Province concerned. If there had been no money to appropriate for such buildings, or if no appropriation had been made, there could have been no possible pretence to charge the Provincial District with a penny expended after the date of Abolition on the buildings. But our Central Government, wise in their generation, think it only right to punish us for having money at all—apiece of presumption on our part indirectly reflecting on themselves. They treat a Provincial Appropriation, out of which no contract had been made, as a Provincial Liability, and coolly appropriate the money for. expenditure on the works indicated—works now altogether Colonial. They quote, as their justification “ The Financial Arrangements Act, 1876,” one of their own Abolitionary Acts, which in the 19th Section permissively enables the Governor to continue for the purpose sanctioned “ expenditure authorised by the Gover- “ nor under ‘ The JJJbolition of Provinces “ Act, 1875/ or ‘Toe Provincial Appropriations Extension Act, 1875/ or “ ‘ The Provincial Appropriations Ex- “ tension Act, 1876/ up to the “ Blst day of December, one thou- “ sand eight hundred and seventy-six.” It is vain for Mr Rolleston to point out the express understanding on his part, as conveyed in his letters and confirmed in his mind by oral statements of Ministers both in and out of the House —that, as the Provincial Appropriation was only up to the end of the year 1876, the appropriation of any expenditure then uncontracted for would lapse and relieve the Provincial district from further liability on thaf; account. The Government plead the requirement of one of the Abolition laws, passed after the understanding to which Mi' Rolleston refers. Mr John Hall, in the first debate on this subject in the Selwyn County Council, has accurately described this transaction. “ It was proposed,” he said, “ to take part of the balance of “ the rich Province of Canterbury, and “ spend it over a portion of the build- “ inga belonging to the Colonial Govern- “ ment. The result would be that all “ the districts of Canterbury would be “ deprived of their share of the £26,000. “ * * * * This action of the I “ Government was little less than

“ patting their hands into Canterbury’s “ parse, and taking what did not belong “to them.” We quite agree with Mr Hall. The reference in the section quoted to the expenditure authorised by Provincial Appropriation up to Dec. 31, we imagine, means, as Mr Rolleston has argued, the expenditure contracted for under Provincial Appropriation —actual expenditure for which actual liability had been incurred. If that is not the legal construction, the Government have framed the section so as to legalise robbery of this Provincial district, and others similarly situated, and have done so in violation of the meaning—expressly intimated to them at the time of the. Provincial Appropriation—attached to such Appropriation. This, then, is one of the early fruits, so far as we are concerned, of Provincial Abolition from the the hands—we thank Mr Stevens for the expression—of the best Government which we can get at present. The whole thing is a striking illustration of the evils which we bring upon ns when we first wander from constitutional ways. The Provincial Abolition Act of 1875 gagged Provincial Councils, and sanctioned Provincial Appropriations by the Governor in Council in the place of the local representatives of the people. Unconstitutional as that enactment was, we believe that gross illegalities in dealing with Provincial money have been committed under colour of its authority. Expenditure in salaries, in new offices, and for services which were never contemplated by the Provincial Legislature and which would never have been sanctioned by it, has been incurred by a private arrangement between the Superintendent of a Province and a Minister of the Grown. By the term “ private” we mean without the publicity involved in debates in a Provincial Council. We believe, further, that expenditure never authorised by a Provincial Legislature, and actually refused by the House of Representatives, has been, by private arrangement between a Superintendent and a Minister, concocted into a Provincial Appropriation, and thus forced upon the public as a liability without the authority of the Provincial Council, and in spite of the House of Representatives. Probably next session will show whether our belief in this respect is not founded in fact. To this kind of secret appropriation we attribute the abstraction of the £26,000 now in question from the country districts of Canterbury. Appropriation without representation has been the cause of the evil. If Provincial Councils had been allowed to continue their functions the appropriations would have been made in such a manner, and on such conditions, as would have precluded all mistake and misunderstanding. We are now only assuming the existence of Provincial Councils up to the date of the total Abolition of Provinces. But the moral may be carried further. Would it be possible that any great wrong of this kind could be inflicted on us if Superintendents and Provincial Councils were still in existence, and the question had arisen out of a transfer of certain departments to the General Government ? Most certainly not. We should then have a. moA tm- oficotiro TOioo. We have now none. Mr Rolleston is only a nominee of a Minister, and of course is of no account when they disagree.