The New Zealand Herald. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1868. THREE THOUSAND POUNDS A YEAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1444, 4 July 1868, Page 3

The New Zealand Herald.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1868. THREE THOUSAND POUNDS A YEAR.

SPECTEMtJR AGENDO. Give erery man thine ear, but lew thy voico; Take each man's ccnsurc. but reserve thy Judgmont. This above nil, —To thine own sell be true And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then bo false lo any man."

A bio bubble is bursting, to wit, the inflated talk about Provincialism. Prom the honorable aud erratic member for tho Bay down to the puniest twaddler who finds it easier to string together words than to ascertain i'acts, it has been quietly or boldly taken for granted by not a few that " provincial insti- " tutions" aro the source of almost all our ills, aud that the cost of provincial institutions absorbs the life-blood that would otherwise circulate through and invigorate the country. If tho province is badly off for roads and bridges, the cause is, wo have been told, the enormous expense of the double Government. If the country districts have not received, or have not sought to exercise, a machinery of local self-government, it is because provincial institutions have been an obstruction. If the Improvement Commit-, tee at Shortland is unable to mend its ways, and the streets of that town have neither consistence enough to be walked over as a portion of terra firma, nor yet quite enough of liquid depth to be decently navigable, this amphibious condition must bo attributed to the continuanco of Provincial" Government. Only have done with this incubus, let Wellington instead of Auckland be our head-quarters of reference, and let ua have the well-known economy and purity of colonial administration instead of tho extravagance and rapacity of provincialism, and then wo should see what we should see. Local selfgovernment would drop to us from the clouds, and for every pound expended in local improvements by the people of the locality there would be poured into their pockets two pounds, or " at least one pound," not contributed by themselves, nor by the people of the colony but—from "Wellington. These vague notions have had their little day, and now the bubble bursts. It is coming to be plainly understood that self- j government, whatever shape it may assume, means self-taxation —an excellent thing, as J tending to check extravagance, but a very ■ different thing from exemption from taxation. People are beginning to understand i also that an undue localizing of every; department of Government would involve a multiplication of expenditure. Would the people at the Thames, for example, be' benefitted by having to find a Supreme Court of their own, a separate gaol and police, hospital and asylum, a Native Com-, missioner all to themselves, and che manifold etcetera of administration ? A certain, amount of local management ought to be

combined with a due degree of centralization, and, practically considered, the .Province of Auckland is extensive enough and important enough to have a centre of its own, while it is so isolated, and so peculiarly circumstanced, as to require a centre of government close at hand. "While these general considerations cannot be set aside, there are at the same time a few simple facts of finance which have the closest bearing upon these questions. The Thames goldfields —the welfare of which is the concern of all of us—have hitherto cost the Provincial Treasury nearly two thousand pounds more than the gold-revenue has yielded. The pound paid for each miner's right goes, as everyone is aware, to the alaori proprietors of the land ; and very fairly so, for the revenue thus obtained by them, though considerable, is certainly not disproportionate to the rich proceeds of the goldlields. lithe ground belonged to European proprietors, the bargain to be made- with them ] would not, to say the least of it, bo an easier one. So much for the payment made for the miners' rights. Then as to the duty paid upon the export of the gold, every shilling of that has hitherto been taken arid held by the General Groverninent. To the Provincial Treasury there has accrued, so far, only "what is called the " goldfield revenue," which is made up of miscellaneous fees and business licenses; and up to the present time this revenue has not amounted to the one-half of the provincial expenditure upon the goldfield. Nobody, however, grumbles at this expenditure ; the money, no doubt, has been well invested. The provincial authorities have not taken.any undue advantage of the gold-fields'finances, and they arc evidently aware that it will not be in their power to do so, oven if such a desire existed. "We]], the relation between the gold-fields and the Provincial Treasury is one financial fact, which was not understood a little time ago ; and now we have before us, in the estimates just passed by the Council, a further very simple statement that must go far to disabuse many persons of what remaining trust they may have reposed in the cry against provincial institutions. Thanks to the clear system of classification that has been adopted, wo can see at a glance what tho several departments actually cost. The payment of tho interest for tho provincial debt being now taken over by the General Government, tho total amount voted by the Provincial Council for the half-year now commenced is about six thousand pounds, in addition to nearly five thousand pounds to bo paid for previous purchases of Native lands. This comprises tho expenses of the Executive, tho legislature, lands and roads, police, gaol, harbors, ferries, miscellaneous items, contingencies. A direct tax, as we all know, of a temporary nature, has been enacted for tho relict ot the sick and the destitute. Of tho various heads of expenditure enumerated above, tho first two alone, the Executive and the legislative, represent what may be fairly termed provincial institutions ; and here we find the aggregate of all the salaries, including that of his Honor tho Superintendent, to be less than £1300 for the half-year, or considerably less than three thousand pounds a-year. For this outlay wo have at the present time the services of an able and trustworthy Superintendent, an efficient Executive, and a Council whose proceedings are presided over and recorded in a manner t hatwould be creditable to any colonial lcgislalature whatever. We have these advantages at the present time for three thousand pounds a-ycar. The other items of expenditure, such as police, gaol, land and roads, &c., must bo maintained and defrayed, wjiatover form of Government may bo adopted ; and a woeful experience assures us; that it they were handed over to the general administration of the colony, tho cost would be vastly increased, while tho results would be far less satisfactory. Our readers aro well aware that columns are not devoted to the advocacy ot any system of partizansliip, nor to the support of any public man or set of men. Our aim is to apply to these affairs an unshackled common sense, and so to seek for whatever arrangements may appear to be most beneficial and cheapest for tho community. AVe may, without presumption, claim tho credit of having done our part in putting clearly before the public view, the ruinous extravagance of the present system of double government —that is, a rival partnership in a common purse. And we yield to none in valuing highly tho advantage and necessity of local self-government, carried out to its fullest beneficial extent. But we would now go on to remedy tho defects and excrescences that have cost us so dear, by operating where operation is most needed, namely, the monstrous development ol the colonial administration and expenditure. And as our bodies of local management must have a centre of reference, we would make that centre be in Auckland, and not in the South. "Wo have reformed, and we can exercise control over our Provincial institutions ; but wo cannot in like manner cohtrol tho General Government. We aro now getting good valuo for what wo expend on our own executive, legislative, police, &c.; it would bo an excollent thing for the Province if we got anything like equally good value for what the General' Government expends in the Province, and compels tho Province to pay for. A different quantum of beneficial result is to bo found in theso departments from the expenditure as such a sum of three thousand, or six thousand pounds a year.