THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1877.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 5019, 17 December 1877, Page 2

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1877.

Attempts oil the part of Southern members in both Houses of tho Legislature have been made to create enormous land endowments for numerous public works in tho shape of harbours and railways in the South Island. Had sundry Southern members had their way, something over a million of have been at once locked up ibr Southern local endowments. How far this process

has readied of anticipating the hour of making the Land Fund colonial revenue and of°preventing large tracts of Southern lands from reaching their legitimate place —the coloaial exchequer —may be seen by the recent proceedings in Parliament with regard to various harbours. What was done in Otago and Canterbury was seen some years ago, when the then existing provinces set apart great blocks as educational reserves. These, however, are now so arranged for by the Education Reserves Act of the present year as, to a certain extent, to frustrate the somewhat selfish efforts by which these large reserves were proposed to be so severely localised. Under the Act last referred to, the land reserves set apart for educational purposes will by and by be placed under the control of the General Education Department of the Colony, and in the end will become applicable for the general purposes of education all over the Colony as a common fund. It is only just that this should be done ; for, seeing that the Colony will have to provide large and every year increasing amounts for educational purposes from the consolidated revenue, it would, be a grave error were the income arising from these reserves of common lands to be merely apportioned locally, and not allocated generally as a part of the common education fund of the Colony, so as to deal equal justice in this respect to all parts alike, and supply the means of education with even hand all over New Zealand.

What was tried with a temporary success in the Southern provinces with respect to these educational reserves was strenuously sought after by members of the Assembly during the session just closed. In the Legislative Council the Hon. John Hall moved a bill for the endowment of Timaru Harbour with 50,000 acres of Canterbury land, a provision which last year was refused. The Harbour Board of that port had already received a sum of .£'loo,ooo from the Canterbury Provincial Council for harbour purposes, «£ course, out of tho Land Fund o£ the Colony, which in that province, Canterbury had so long and successfully received and administered to her own special advantage. Yet, in the face of this grant, a demand for a block of land which might by-and-by be worth £200,000, was coolly asked for by bill. Then, the very same day, another Canterbury member of the Upper House, the Hon. Mr. Wigley, moved the second reading of another endowment bill, this time for a grant of a tract of so-called shinglo bank between the Lagoon at Milford and tho sea, and also for a giant of another 50,000 acres of land for the purpose of constructing a harbour at Milford, which is inst eleven miles distant from Timaru. Then there was another bill for a grant of 8,000 acres for Kakanui. harbour, a smiiU inlet in Otago province, to meet outlay incurred over and above some £10.000 formerly expended on this place, and of course again provided out of receipts for public land sold in Otago. Next, there were some three or four hundred thousand acres of Otago land demanded for the Taieri! Railway extension ;~aud 15,000 acres for another harbour at Foxton, in Wellington province. In truth, there was no end to this kind of arrangement, and, happily, tho majority of the Legislative Council (to their credit be it said, notwithstanding the Canterbury leases extension, which they, so to speak, forced on an unwilling Lower House at the end of the session) set their faces against such reckless land alienation. All these little bills have been treated as their partial self-seeking character deserved. They have been rejected, and wisely so. What could possibly be more prejudicial to the credit of the Colony at such a moment as the present, when it is again to go into tho London money market, than to offer, as an additional g\uir:uitoo of its credit, the Land Fund as now made colonial revenue, and in the same breath to show that nearly a million and a half of acres were being taken for other purposes ? A few extracts from the speeches of some of the Councillors will be useful, as showing tli9 tone of a majority of the members of the Upper House on the subject. The Hon. Mr. Robinson said :

What would bo tlie consequence if the London creditor were told tlr.it we could not make both ends meet, and were therefore obliged to make the Land Fund colonial revenue in order to enable us to do it, and that immediately such a policy was resolved on we commenced to reserve endowments for such works as those, whereby the Land. Fund would be rendered mythical ? If it were known that we were so acting, the London creditor would have very little confidence it us, and the loan would have to be paid for very dearly. Again, if there was a deticieucy, where would the means of meeting it come from ?

Here Captain Fraser interpolated the words, " From a land tax," upon which Mr. Robinson remarked, "Yea, a tax of every kind. They would have to tax the honourable gentleman's watch." That resort will not be necessary ; but Captain Fraser subsequently said, "he should be delighted to see a land tax. He would suffer in proportion as others did ; his small patch would bo taxed when other honourable gentlemen 'a 200,000 and 230,000 acres would be taxed ; but the Colony would get a good revenue from that tax." This gentleman went even further than this, and made a point of which probably we may not have heard the last. Ho said that he hoped a railway tax would be imposed. The property of gentlemen in this Colony, lie declared, " had been doubled and trebled in value by railways going through their land ; and if there was a dissolution he was sure that there would not only be a land tax, but a railway tax besides." The honourable gentleman seems not to consider that an income and property tax, which means a tax on income from all sources, whether real or moveable property, would embrace all this.

To return to these endowments and the remarks of the Lords, Colonel Kenny said that "the Council seemed determined to give away these endowments, which ought to remain the property of the Consolidated Fund." And the Hon. James Williamson gave a commercial view of the transaction, thus :—

Honourable members could imagine themselves supporting an individual or firm largely, and the party supported finding himself in want of further supjiort. Suppose that person secured all his valuable effects, and settled something that would keep himself and family comfortable in another direction. If, after that, he went to bis friends and said, " I want more money ; I will give you my bond, and you may depend upon it, it will be repaid those friends would be finite justified in saying, "N T o, we do not like the way we have been going on. You have been making away with effects to which wo have looked as something to pay your debts."

Mr. Williamson's conclusion was that this illustrated the position the English creditor would take up if such reckless dispositions were made of tho public lands; and, ho added, that "he had heard the Crown agents, among others, say that it would be very diiiicult to float even a two million loan," and that, therefore, the Council " would require to act in such a way as would inspire confidence on the other side of the world." The Hon. Mr. Chamberlin, rc-ferring to the proposal to make an endowment for the Waikato Harbour, (which proposal was a sort of sporting ollVshuot of these other Southern endowment schemes), said that although ho came iiom Auckland province he would "oppose that proposal as strongly as any other of the kind, as the Waikato was connected by means of a railway with Auckland, and all the produce could very well be sent by rail." As it happens, these endowment schemes were all rejected, and it is satisfactory to the country, and we should think to the Government also, that they have been, for otherwise they would have seriously damaged the prospects of the loan ; not to mention that they would have created a feeling of soreness among Northern constituencies, by reason of the

diminution of the Land -Fund, and that their passing would have made the new allocation of that Fund less of a reality and more a form, which would keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope.