The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO. AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1868.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1401, 14 May 1868, Page 2

The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO.

AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1868.

*' Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each, man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. This above all,—To thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be falsetto any man."

Theee is a somewhat remarkable observation in Mr. Stafford's speech to his constituents at Nelson, to which we shall refer. In pointing out the difference between the American States and the New Zealand provinces, Mr. Stafford is reported to have said: —" The individual States of America are in. "matters of finance totally distinct sove- " reign powers, with separate legislatures and " governments, and with distinct debts and " revenues. In direct contradiction to the " position of America, the revenue of 2Tew " Zealand, as a Colony, and of the Provinces, "is one and the same. The residuum of the " revenue of the Colony, after defraying the " charges imposed by the General Assembly, " forms the revenue of the Provinces. So " much is this the case that there is nothing " whatever to prevent the Assembly from " appropriating, — and no one can say that it " may not soon appropriate, — tke xoh-oleqfthe " ordinary revenue of ike Colony to colonial "purposes." There is a significance in this threat, if vre may so call it, of centralism to swamp tha Provinces altogether by conferring upon tha General Government the power of retaining the customs duties and other general taxes, such as stamps, &c, and in return undertaking the control and expense of the several departments connected with the raising of those revenues. The right to do this is assumed upon the principle that the power which levies a tax is that which should control its expenditure. This has not hitherto been the case in New Zealand. By the 66th clause of the Constitution Act it is provided that any surplus of the ordinary revenue of the Colony, which shall be left after the General Government requirements have been satisfied, shall be divided in certain proportions amongst the provinces for purposes of Provincial or Local Government. In order to raise the revenues required by both General and Provincial Governments at the one cost of collection, and so as least to press upon the taxpayers, the custom has prevailed of framing the estimates so that the revenue should largely exceed the cost of the General Government. At one time the House fixed this overcharge of colonial taxation so that the surplus coming to the Provinces should amount to £ of the whole sum raised. Mr., now Judge, Bichnionds attempt to encroach upon this ■§• was, as will be remembered, hotly and successfully contested by the House ; and, more recently, one of the present colonial treasurer's bids for office and popularity was the announcement that the Government was prepared to advance not 1 but i the revenue to the Proj vinces. Now, it would seem the Government contemplates absorbing the whole of the ordinary, that is customs, revenue for the purposes of the General Government. The question is, will the Colonial Govern; ment,'when it refuses any longer to count the one-half the gross amount of 'J 6 colonial revenue as surplus due to the Provinces, reduce the taxation of the colony by one half, leaving the P ro / vinces to meet by special taxation of their own, interest on debts, and the maintenance of police, gaols, harbours, hospitals, &C- u they will do this we see no great harm b uC rather good in the proposed change. J- a tariff, which presses fearfully hard upon & classes, might be reduced by three-low^ 5 ' or 75 per cent., and would then, we belief yield fully one-half as much as it now does. The Provinces could then, having the control of the expenditure of their own police, g»°'' &c, bear the imposition of special rates i the maintenance of these department*The very fact of suck direct taxation beißo levied would cause a reduction in the e of the management of some of them to very considerable amount. It may be cessary, in Auckland for instance, to ev

increase the police force, but the gaol ought to be very nearly self-supporting. Intelligent authorities "aud »» intelligent gaoler ejjilil make it so. Let a local rate be «truck for its maintenance and the raterivers would quickly see to this matter. The General Government has no intention however of making any such division of control and expenditure. They will seek to increase rather than to reduce taxation ; and instead of reducing taxation one-half, and leaving the departments we have named to the care of the Provinces, they will seek to maintain the revenue at its present enormous figure, and grasp at the control of the saoK police, harbours, hospitals, lunatic asvlums, &c, of the several Provinces throughout the Colony. But in this, not ou ]y would a blow be struck at Provincialism, but we should let loose G-cncral Government extravagances, where, as administered by the Provinces, there is some check imposed by the fear of public'opinion in the indulgence of reckless expenditure. Some hundreds of appointments would thus he secured to the control of an almost, in such natters, irresponsible Government—holding ; ':s sittings of Assembly at "Wellington, which place is never reached but by the faintest echo of the public opinion of the Colony. True the Representatives will have a voice in the passing of the salaries of the several officers employed — those of the Auckland Province, for instance, say of the omcers in that Province—but their voice irill bo but as fourteen to seventy. What will the majority of members in the Assembly either know or care of the particular officers required, or of the fai .mount of salary which should be paid them in this Province. Auckland members may protest in the Assembly, but the strength of the Ministry operating on indifferent voters will swamp all such protests. So it will be with every Province in turn.

But there is another obstacle to any such attempt as that likely to be made by the the Government. The animal cost of gaols and police, we learn from a Southern cotemporarv. is, in .Auckland, £7000 ; in Wellington, £8000; in Canterbury,£ll,ooo; in kelson, £15,000; in "WestlaDd, nearly £17,000: and in Otago, £35,000. "Will Otago, we ask, contribute bo much more to the general revenue than Auckland that she should he allowed for gaol and police expenses to dip into the general funds of the Colony for £35,000, while Auckland requires only £7000? Tet if the gaol and police expenses are to be paid from a common fund, the remainder of the Provinces must suffer for either the criminality or extravagance of the Otagan community. Will Nelson with scarcely any debt submit to be mulcted to an equal tune Triih Provinces that owe thousands per annum as interest on their debts ? This would inevitably be the case if, as proposed under the new arrangement, the Colony is to undertake the liability of the Provincial debts along with the entire revenue. It is true that in taking the Provincial debts and making them, together with the colonial loans, a national debt, the sinking funds might be saved, and the sinking funds of the Provincial loans amount to about £32,000 perannum,but this is the only advantage, and that a very questionable one, which we have seen urged in favour of .the proposed change. I Ibe truth is there are many difficulties in the way of carrying out such an alteration as that contemplated, we believe, by Mr. Stafford, and not the least of them is the impossibility of tinkering up the present Constitution so as to serve the purposes of efficient and economical government in New Zealand. "We require a new Constitution, altogether, something differing from the Anglo-American bastard which has been forced upon us, and which possesses few of the virtues, and nearly all the Tices, of both parents.