THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrezi. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2173, 21 December 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrezi. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1875.

»■ One of the most important speakers of the House of Assembly has addressed his constituents at New Plymouth, and if his retrospective glance be not so satisfactory as it might have been, his promises for the future certainly are so. Major Atkinson, the Colonial Treasurer, has dealt in his speech with the past, the present, and the future, and looking at the present as compared with the past, and the promises of what in the future are to be the plans of the Government, his speech is in every way re-assuring. To be as brief as we may in dealing with the statistics which of necessity form a large item in every treasurer's speech, we may say that the population of New Zealand now, as compared with.that of 71, or the time at which the last general election was held, shows an increase of 100,000. With this increase of population it is satisfactory to mark that the increase of revenue has increased still further in proportion, for while the population has increased from 257 ,OCD in 1871 to 357,000 at the end of 1875, or, in other words, has increased by two-fifths its former total, the revenue, which was in 1871 £935,000, has risen at the present time to £1,600,000, or, by the same comparison, augmented itself by more than two-thirds. The ugly part of this is, of course, what we may now fairly term the national debt, which has more than doubled itself in the past five years, rising from £8,000,000 in 71 to £17,400,000 in 75. This is a serious matter, and the question is, what have we got for it ? Major Atkinson informs us that we have £2,000,000 in hand, and sundry other assets in the way of railways, telegraphs, and lands acquired, and to be acquired, from the natives. This is all very well, and if these railways and other valuables will pay the interest on our national debt, and yield enough besides to provide for the sinking fund which must be formed, we have not much cause for complaint; still £9,000,000 is a large sum and a still larger proportionate increase, and it is a matter of importance that this increase shall be made to pay its way. So much for the past with which Major Atkinson deals, which if as we have said, not wholly satisfactory, need not be made unsatisfactory. But besides the increase in revenue itself, satisfactory though that be, there is another point which Major Atkinson makes cause, and justly too, for gratulation. That is that although the revenue has increased in a greater proportion to the population, yet the. departmental expenses have only increased in a less proportion to the revenue; the departmental expenses being £478,000 in.7l, against £648,000 in 75, or an increase of only £170,000; whereas the increase in revenue is, as has been shown, £665,000, thus leaving a clear increase of £495,000 revenue over increase of expenditure. As regards Provincial Institutions Major Atkinson states there is a fixed determination in the minds of the Government to look

on the day of these as past, and gives good reasons why it should be so. Amongst these reasons we may notice one which the recent pamphlet and speech of Mr Macandrew have supplied, viz., that by provincial institutions, their best men were prevented from giving that attention to colonial matters which the good of the colony required, a fact which few will gainsay when they read the example, which Major Atkinson, quotes, of Mr Macandrew saying in the House last session that he was absolutely ignorant of colonial finance ! Much has been said on I the subject that the Government has no right to abolish the provinces without supplying something in their stead; and it has been also asserted that the Government wished to centralise administrative powers, and govern the country by nominees of their own. Both these assertions Major Atkinson's speech was a complete answer to. He denied the second allegation in toto, and stated what the Government were prepared to supply in the place of the provinces. In the first place the provinces to the eye of the Ministry are to bo regarded as dead, and neither will they agree to any scheme involving or countenancing Separation, or to any revising of the Provincial Governments in the way of a federation. In place of these they propose submitting a Bill to Parliament which will divide the colony into shires, and by this means the people are to have absolute control over their own local affairs ; the land fund is to be made over to the district after payment has been deducted for the interest on the loan; pound for pound is to be given as subsidy to rates levied by boards; and councils are to have power to borrow money as well as levy rates. These are to be the chief conditions of the New Shires Bill, and these conditions, we take it, are, and will be found eminently satisfactory, and if carried out will form a fitting reply to those who use as their cry that the "rights" of the people are being taken away, and the country ruled by nominees of the Government. The original scheme of having main trunk lines of railway through the two islands is also to be carried out, and harbor and river improvements effected as opportunity serves. We then come to education; and on this point the utterances of Major Atkinson are very judicious and opportune. Education, according to Major Atkinson, is the duty of the Government to provide, and this duty he proposes to perform by making it, as it should be, a charge on the consolidated revenue. If this be the case, the education rate, so distasteful to the majority of ratepayers, will cease to exist, and more than this, we shall not hear of applications for necessary repairs to school buildings, and grants for no less necessary new buildings being constantly refused or deferred, as is now the case, because the tax, obnoxious though it be, will not satisfy the needs of a province which has recourse to it. Nor is this all. Major A fckinson, we are glad to see, recognizes? the necessity that exists for supporting or assisting a higher class of educational establishments than we have at present, for, without these, as wehaveoftenandoftenoarselves advocated, no scheme of education would be complete. As regards taxation Major Atkinson says what is perfectly true, that it must depend on the people themselves ; it is obvious that much requires to be done in the way of public works in this Colony, much which sooner or later must be done ; if these improvements are to be forced on, taxation must proportionately be increased, while if they are to be done as opportunity offers, the Colonial Treasurer sees no need of increased taxation. The last part of Major Atkinson's speech is by no means the least as far as we of this district are concerned. Goldfields are to be divided into counties, with large powers of local control, and the revenue subsidised as provided by the Abolition Bill. Surely the people of the Thames can find no difficulty in deciding between these propositions and the abortive scheme concocted by Sir George Grey under the pseudonym of Provincialism.