THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 119, 30 May 1868, Page 3

THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT.

Our contemporary will doubtless “ rejoice" to see the following extract from the Picton Press : “On Dit—That payment has been stopped by the Provincial Government of Marlborough, in consequence of the General Government’s intention to impound all the revenue to meet the Nelson debt of .*7,500, which debt has all along been supposed to fall due in 1870, but which, fortunately for the province in its present state, turns out to be due on the Ist July, 1868. If the above report be true, and we have no reason to doubt it, Marlborough is assuredly gasping its last ” Well, “fortunate” it is, and we could prove very easily that Marlborough never was in a better position, nor stood a better chance qf getting justice. “ Gasping” she is not. She has been plundered of her just apportionment of the Customs duties from the first, and that in spite of the law provided for cases like hers. Had we had in earlier times a government with the nerve to insist upon the ‘'just apportionment” by bringing the case into the courts, or if the journals who mw-represented her had spoken out in her interest, we should not now have our revenue impounded. We say fortunate” for Marlborough. That the Provincial system is likely to come to an end is, we think, hardly likely; nor could a greater injustice be perpetrated upon the smaller provinces than to break all up, and burden the whole community with the enormous debts of the larger ones. One of two things is certain, either the Customs must be divided among the provinces upon the just basis of population, as we have repeatedly argued beforetimes, or, we must have an Income and Property Tax, collected in and by the provinces for their own purposes. Of the two, we should prefer the latter scheme, for the sooner the larger Provinces take their fingers out of the Customs, the better it will be for the smaller ones, and the Colony at large. , ‘ _