The New Zealand Herald. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1868.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1433, 20 June 1868, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1868.

SPKIvTEMUR AGENDO. Give every rnin thine cm; hut few thy voice : Take each man's censure, hut reserve thy judgment. This above all,—To thine own self be true And it must follow, .is the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

I The City Board borrowed from the Provincial Government a certain sum of money, and agreed to repay principle and interest at a certain fixed rate per annum. The Provincial Government had previously borrowed the money which it lent to the City Board, and lias to repay it. The General Government seizes so rnuch of Provincial revenue as will pay the interest ! and sinking fund on this loan. The City Board, when money was plentiful, got also a certain portion of the annual income of the Province. A large portion of the loan borrowed has also been spent in public works in and around Auckland, to the benefit of the City. The Post Office and the Custom House, and the new Supreme Court House alone represent £50,000. A considerable portion of the money paid on account of the Railway has been for work done near the city • the sum spent on the Lunatic Asylum also benefitted the City ; the £25,000 for the site of the old Supreme Court House, now occupied by dealers in fowls, dried fish, and vegetables, and bringing in a few pounds ayear as interest on that large sum —was paid for the benefit of the City. The entire Province has to pay the interest and sinking fund on all these sums, although large portions of itderivelittlebenentfromthem. Well the City Board owe the Provincial Government ,£3,740 9s. 9d., on account of interest and sinking fund on their debt. They plead poverty, and do not much like paying any further portion of this debt. The Superintendent sent down a message to the Council asking for an expression of opinion on the part of the Council as to whether it would be expedient to enforce the payment of those arrears in the manner provided by the third clause of the City Board Loan Act, 1865, and if the Council were of opinion that it was expedient to do so, the Superintendent would propose that prison labor be employed on public works in the city. Having thus stated the facts of the case so far, we might suppose that the Council, would unanimously agree to both the propo-'

[jsitions included in the above message. The practical carrying, of them out would be-,, that sufficient rates wquld r b£ collected until the arrears of debt due by the City Boar.d were paid,, and the streets would be kept in repair by prisoners. This in effect tells the creditor " there i-3 no desire to.be hard uponyou, bad times have come, you cannot very well make certain payments for work and pay your debts too. We, the Government, as your creditor, will do the work at no coat to you, which you have been accustomed to pay for, and take the money thus saved to you as payment of your debt." Well, one would think this would be considered a very liberal offer, and would be gladly agreed to by the Council. It was not so, however, for in a house of seventeen members, excluding the Speaker, eight voted for' it, and nine "fcgainst it. This majority of one, in a thin house, certainly cannot carry much weight with it. but we confess we should rather the voting had been in a different manner. However, we are glad, for the honor of the city and suburbs, that while four only of the city and suburban members in the Council voted against the Government proposal, there were six who voted for it. So far then as the representatives of the districts immediately affected are concerned, the Government had a majority, certain country members having voted with a minority of city members to form the majority of the division list. But two out of the four city members who voted against the Government were members of the City Board, and are directly interested, as creditors, in the question, and therefore ought not to have voted upon the subject, as in doing so they voted against a proposition to compel the payment of their own debts. Good taste would have led them to see that whatever part they might desire to take in the debate, they ougtjfc not to have voted, on the question. If the city votes are thus scrutinised they are denuded very much of their weight, and we are glad that a majority of the city members declined to sanction what looks exceedingly like an attempt to repudiate a just debt. It may be all very well to deny the soft impeachment, because repudiation sounds rather ugly, but what is the difference between not paying the debt in an ordinary manner, and voting that no compulsion shall be used to compel payment. In point of fact, payment is thus left to the honor of the creditor, and the creditor's sense of honor is not always keen enough to make him anxious to discharge his liabilitv.

Ii" we ask why some of the country members voted agaiust compulsion being used to enforce payment, perhaps it may be answered that the reference to the Tamaki Bridge debt for instance, had an effect upon | members. We do not assert that it had. We are prepared to argue that compulsion should be used for the payment of every one of these debts. Either the money was obtained with the honest intention of repaying it, or with the dishonest purpose of merely preteuding to do so at a future time. If the former then the borrowers will repay tlie sum they only obtained on condition of repaying it—if the latter, then they are now acting consistently in not paying their debts. In fact they may plead that they never intended to pay them. But we maintain that whichever view may be taken, the shock to good morals is about equally felt.

It may be tliat some members voted with the nine, not that they believed the debt should not be paid, but because they did not agree with employing prison labor to make and repair streets. Mr. O'Neill spoke pointedly against thin proposal. Mr. O'lSJeill is a member of the Penal Commission to examine into matters connected with the gaols of the Colony, toward the expenses of which Commission the very large sum of one thousand pounds was voted last session of the Assembly. Mr. O'Neill will doubtless have a fair share of thia thousand pounds, but if we are to judge from the remarks he made in the Council on "Wednesday about prison labor and prisoners, he is about as deplorably ignorant of everything about them, and of whiifc has recently been going on in the mother country in respect to these matters as any man well can be. He has yet to learn the very alphabet of the subject, and is therefore remarkably ill adapted to occupy the position of a teacher to our legislators upon it. His lessons will be crude, ill-digested, and mis-leading. His recommendations, if acted upon, can only do mischief. Thus the honourable member drew a gloomy picture of the flood of crime that would overflow this City and Province if prisoners were employed at hard labor in repairiug the streets, and saving the ratepayers' money. They might perhaps get- a plug of tobacco surreptitiously, or may be a newspaper. They would be seen and known as criminals and would not hereafter get work ; they -would have a corrupting influence on the youth of the city. All these arguments are of exceedingly little weight. If no one is ever to see prisoners, they should be tried and sentenced in court with closed doors. But, we may ask, did the usual confinement at Mount Eden soften the minds and manners of the ruffians who robbed and lialf-murdered Mr. Caley a few days after they had been liberated from that institution, and then proceeded to do the same thing for Warder Dunn. And will any sane man argue that to see a prisoner compelled to work hard on the public streets, carefully guarded, will be so charming a sight for young persons that they will be induced by it to commit crime in order that they maybe placed in the same enviable position. Another heresy of Mr. O'Neill's and we have done with him. He spoke in horror against any prisoners being allowed tobacco. He is evidently innocent of the fact that tcbaeco has been found to be the most powerful agent of a reformatory character, the most powerful incentive to good conduct, and to diligent and steady work, that has been discovered. This might be argued from presumption alone, as we have done long ago, but it is a proved fact. Tet our Eoyal Penal Commissioner seems as ignorant of this as a new-born babe. As the Provincial Solicitor said, any report founded upon such ignorance would be worse thau useless. However, we trust that the Provincial Government will carry out the law, .and obtain payment due to them with as little inconvenience as possible to the City and to the creditors. "We believe the plan they propose shows good feeling on their part, and that it Avill be advantageous to the City, the Government, and the prisoners. It is a plan we advocated some time ago, and we are glad the Government hare so far adopted our suggestion. '