The Otago Witness DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, MARCH 4.

Otago Witness, Issue 1005, 4 March 1871, Page 13

The Otago Witness DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, MARCH 4.

The subject of retrenchment is one the necessity of which has long been seen and acknowledged even by Provincial Councils, and numerous Committees have been appointed to enquire and make recommendations as to a reduction of expenditure, but without any practical result. In order to effect such reduction to any appreciable extent, the changes necessary to be introduced have apparently been so great that each successive Committee has shrunk from the task. The subject, however, unpalatable as it is, must sooner or later be taken up and dealt with in a practical and comprehensive manner. From utterances which have been given during the late contests for seats in the General Assembly, both in the North and Middle Island, it would appear more than probable that during an early session an attempt may be made to remodel our provincial institutions, or, at all events, to simplify their machinery and curtail their expense. Considering the stand taken by the Council of this province against some of the General Government measures, it cannot be doubted that the Colonial Treasurer would gladly listen to any proposal having for its object the curtailing of the powers as well as the expense of these Councils. Those who know him best will not doubt that he would even go the length of abolishing Provincial Councils altogether, if they were found to stand in the way of his own schemes being carried out. That he would be able to carry such a point in the Parliament now elected | is scarcely possible, but it is not st all ! improbable that a reconstruction of the working machinery of Provincial Councils may be successfully attempted. | What form this reconstruction would assume it is of course impossible to say, but considering che intimacy which subsists between the Colonial Treasurer and our present Superintendent, and the harmony of their aims and actions, it is just possible that the changes foreshadowed by His Honour at the prorogation of last session of Provincial Council maybe those which would first be attempted. His Honour says :: — * I am persuaded that in the matter of government it will be found that the more we can adopt the principle of direct action, the more we are likely to ensure economy, efficiency, and promptitude, and that the whole of the administrative functions of the Government can be satisfactorily fulfilled by the Superintendent who devotes his whole time to the duties of the office.'

Had the administrative functions of the Provincial Council been in Mr Macandrew's hands during the past fewyears, we should now have had several Immigration Agents in Great Britain drawing high salaries out of the funds of the province. The number and class of immigrants which would have been ordered are enumerated in His Honour's memorandum submitted to his Executive Council, and read by him when recently addressing the electors in Dunedin, and it is a subject of fair consideration, as to the benefits or otherwise which would accrue from the large expenditure proposed by His Honour for the purpose of introducing a heterogeneous mass of Cornish, miners, Welsh flannel makers, stocking weavers, and German girls to change the blood of the colonial race. With these located at Stewart's Island and other uninviting places, it may perhaps be doubted whether their chances of bettering their own condition would be very great, or whether^ the expense to be incurred to the province would not exceed the benefits to be derived from the novel importation. Had His Honour had uncontrolled sway in the province, he certainly would very speedily have turned the first sod of the Clutha railway, but the contract for its formation would have been entered into with a confessedly 'dummy' Company, and upon such terms as no prudent man would ever think of adopting in connection with his own business. The whole ex* I

pense of the formation and registering of this Company, together with its preliminary balariea and expenses, would have been paid by the province. The Company would have had no outlay and no responsibility. The only duty of its individual members would have been to draw the salaries they might apportion to the various offices they might nominally fill, with the addition of what they would name as a reasonable profit which ought to acorue from an undertaking of such magnitude. In the event of their speculation turning out a failure, it would be a failure only so far as the Government was concerned; to the Company it could prove only profitable Then, again, we should have had the Government engaged in an immense mining speculation on the goHfields for the exprese purpose of finding employment for the unemployed, and with Mr Macandrew as manager no one can doubb the issue of such an enterprise. One result would have been that hundreds, perhaps thousands, would at present have been engaged at the Government stroke in Macandrew's claim, whilst the cry would be heard everywhere throughout the province of the scarcity ot harvest hands and high wages. It is idle to say that the working of the claim could be stopped during harvest. The nature of the work would not admit of a stoppage ; but, besides, it is well known to every settler in the province that during Mr MACANDREW'sterm of office Government works on roada, &c., have been commenced exactly at the time men were required for the harvest field, and in consequence higbe* wages have had to be paid by agricul turists. Many other of Mr Macan Drew's schemes might be mentioned, but if such, as those referred to have been propounded by His Honour when he knew he had an * obstructive Executive' to consult, what grand exhibitions of inventive genius might we not have witnessed had he been left to the freedom of his own will, untrammelled by those drags to progress of which he so loudly complains?