THE VOTE IN AID OF NEW ZEALAND EXPENDITURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 37, 31 January 1852, Page 3

THE VOTE IN AID OF NEW ZEALAND EXPENDITURE.

(From the Neio Zealand Journal, July 2Q.) For the sum annually voted by the House of Commons, in aid of the public expenditure of the colony of New Zealand, the colony is blamed by those who seek to veil prejudices against colonies and colonisation under the pretence of regard for economy. It would be unavailing to complain of such cavillers ; they only act and speak according to their nature. But there is good cause to complain of Government, who confirm them in their misrepresentations, or misconceptions, by allowing them to assume that the vote is required to cover the natural and necessary expenses of the colony, whereas it is only required to meet an excess of expenditure, incurred by the blunders of past and present administrations. - - - .

The excess of expenditure over revenue in New Zealand is attributable to two causes: first, to debt incurred since the foundation of the colony ; second, to the needless and extravagant cost of its administrative establishment. The debt has been incurred by successive colonial governors, for purposes over which the colonists have no control ; for operations generally adverse to the interests of the colonists. The conduct of various governors of New Zealand, in delaying to take measures to extinguish the native title, in leading the natives to attribute an exaggerated value to their imperfect land titles, and in procrastinating the conveyance of good titles to the settlers, produced a state of affairs that reduced the revenue at times below its natural level. The expensive, do-nothing jobbing commissioners appointed from time to time to settle questions, which, but for the misconduct of Government, either would never have been raised, or might have been settled in a more expeditious and less costly manner, imposed uncalled-for and undue burdens on the revenue. Lastly, the native wars arising out of collisions which never could have occurred had government been carried on in a rational manner, added enormously to the expenditure. Debt has been incurred in the colony, but simply through the mismanagement of the Colonial Office and its Governors, against the interests of the colonists, in spite of the remonstances of the colonists, only because the colonists were tied hand and foot, and disenabled to prevent the mischief. Again, the actual expenditure of the colony is far in excess of what is needed. The aggregate European population of all the settlements cannot exceed 23,000. The settlements are only six in number. The most northerly and the most southerly of them are not above 700 or 800 miles distant from each other. The most populous and wealthy of the settlements is situated exactly" midway between these extremes. Even by sailing vessels, rapid and regular intercourse among them all could be maintained at little expense; by steam they would, de facto, be made next door neighbours. A municipal council, a police magistrate, and a few policemen, and justices of the peace, could do everything that was-roecessary in the matter of local administration. One governor at Wellington, with a secretary and treasurer, and one chief justice to make circuits to the various settlements, or visit them when occasion required, and preside in a central court of appeal, would completely meet all the additional administrative requirements of the settlers,. Mu*

nicipal elective councils in each settlement, and a council composed of delegates from each settlement, to meet occasionally at "Wellington, would suffice to check any illegal stretch of authority on the part of the executive, and would, at the same time, be instruments to strengthen the hands of Government in the legitimate exercise of its functions. This simple but efficient machinery of Government might be maintained at a cost not exceeding one-half of the actual aggregate revenue of the settlements. The surplus might be employed in the execution of works (roads, bridges, &c.,) which are now almost entirely neglected, and the land fund, if put on a proper footing, might furnish the means of carrying on these operations more rapidly without encroaching on the fund required for emigration purposes. But, instead of this, New Zealand is saddled with duplicate governors and duplicate staffs of supernumerary officials,who are unable todischarge the duties nominally entrusted to them, while they prevent the settlers from taking the work into their own hands, and whose salaries swallow up the colonial revenue and more, leaving less than nothing for the real expenses of administration and public works.

Of course it is not to be expected that the Government who uphold this spendthrift system, will, when the expense of New Zealand to the mother-country is complained of in Parliament, explain that the expense is solely owing to their own mismanagement. Such magnanimity is not to be looked for at their hands. And thus the opponents of all colonisation, and of New Zealand colonisation in particular, are allowed a shadowy and unreal appearance of having the advantage in argument.

The truth is, that New Zealand, if governed by rational, practical men, might at this moment be an entirely self-supporting colony. The local revenues of the various settlements are more than sufficient to meet the necessary expenses of local government ; and to supply all that is really required in the way of contribution towards the expenses or a central colonial administration. The annual vote in aid of New Zealand expenditure is a vote to pay the interest of debt incurred by the Colonial Office through its past blunders, and to pay in part the supernumerary staff of Colonial Office dependants who have got places in the colony.