SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1870.

Marlborough Express, Volume V, Issue 261, 19 November 1870, Page 3

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1870.

Some persons appear to think that the recent skirmish between ourselves and the Picton Press is only a personal quarrel between two Editors, which concerns the public little, if at all. We therefore seek to disabuse their minds of this impression by assuring them that while it is not a personal question in any respect, the battle is one of the utmost interest to every man who is the owner or occupier of property, and his concern increases in proportion to his stake. Let us explain this.

Daring the last session of the Provincial Gouncil, a scheme of Road Boards was introduced and as it was carried we shall not now consider its defects, but look only to the sequence. We were favorable to the Provincial form of Government until some means of superceding it by a better system of Local Government had been provided in its stead ; that being done, or in other words, as the Provincial Government has transferred its chief duties to the Road Boards, together with the privilege of taxing the people to raise the means of making and repairing Roads, we are now prepared to give it up as a thing no longer necessary for this Province. But the privilege ceded is not enough, we want something besides the power of taxing ourselves, we want the money which the Government have for the same object. Yet, as we have repeatedly urged for more than a month past, the Government does not appear to contemplate such a thing as transferring any to its successors—the Road Boards—although its revenue is increased at the rate of about £5,000 a year, besides a grant of the Assembly for the expi’ess purpose of subsidising Road Boards, amounting to £940 for the present year. All that the Government seem disposed toprovidefor is Departmental Expenditure—another name for Salaries—and it is because we reiterate our enquiry as to what it means to do with the money, that the Picton Press, being duly inspired, seeks to distract the attention of the public therefrom, and hence the seeming quarrel, in which our opponent says anything and everything he can think of without regard to its accuracy. It is our intention to recur to the subject again, and none the less readily that the Press has “ promised ” to “ retire from the contest,” and as he says, leaving us “ undisputed master of the field.” We shall next proceed to shew what the relative Income and Expenditure of the Province amounts ‘ to, and the benefits derived by the People jtherefrom; and then, we have every confi|dence that in due course, the several ICounty Boards will make a united effort to Iget what they are entitled to.

y _ I The Elections for the County Boards may be 'considered as completed, except at the Pelorus j and Kaikoura, where we notice that Mr. J. 8., 1 Williams is a candidate for the town. Those i elected are as follows : I Awatere. —Messrs. Beaumont, Blick, Hodson, Eovegrove, M’Rae, and Templeton, j Wairau. —Messrs. T. Carter, C. Davies, Macaulay, Paul, T. Redwood, and J. Ward, i Picton. —Messrs. Allport, Baillie, S. Bowler, Johnson, one vacant, and \ There is however a defect in the Act which iwill have to be got over by some irregular mode, /since it provides no machinery for calling the Boards together—for cohesion of the several unities in fact. We have taken the opportunity this week of personally seeing how the Ballot works in practice, and although we did not discover any use or necessity for the numbering part of the business, we only repeat what many voters said in our hearing, that it is when honestly carried out, a great boon, and that the Fox Ministry are entitled to great credit for passing it in its present

shape. We trust however to see it amended next session by the abolition of the provision referred to of placing numbers on the ballot papers. Then we may in truth speak of free and independent Elector!?.