THE DEBATE ON MR. ANDREW'S MOTION.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 2434, 16 May 1874, Page 2

THE DEB ATE ON MR. ANDREW'S MOTION.

The reports of the debate in the Provincial Council on Mr Andrew's motion implying want of contideiice in the Executive, occupy a large space in the Wellington journals, and are much too long to be given ju full in our columns. We can only afford room for a summary of two or three of the speeches . — Mr Andrew rose to move the following reply to his Honor's opening address : — " The Council cordially agrees with the policy of your Honor in forwarding the practical work of colonisation, by the settlei merit of newly arrived people on the soil.

To this end, and for the purpose of opening up, and rendering habitable the country, 'by roads, bridges, and public works, the Council is now, as ever, ready to support; your Honor in obtaining loans on the ■ security of special blocks of land. We ob- ! serve with pleasure that your Honor proj poses to apply to the General Assembly in its next session for power to raise a loan on this principle to the amount of £66,000 The Council regret that they do not concur in the view expressed by your Houor on the disallowance of the Bridges and Roads Act of List session, and reluctantly find themselves unable to approve of the action in the matter of your Honor and the Executive, as shown by the correspondence with the General Government, and as explained by your Honor. The Council have to thank your Honor for the valuable papers and statistics laid before them, which they will examine with care. Their zeal for the wellfare of the province (of which your Honor is the elected head) will be best shewn by their attention to the various bills j and measures which will form the business of the session." He began by enquiring, what was man? Bishop Wilkes had replied by defining man to be a being with a sense of morals and responsibility. It was evident the Bishop knew nothing of Provincial Executives, or he would never have given such a definition. There were various other definitions of man, but none of them he thought fully spplied to members of Provincial Executives. Scripture was sometimes quoted for unholy ends, but it remained Scripture notwithstanding, and although the fact was surprising, he intended to quote from his Houor certain standards of morality. His Honor laid it down that it was very wrong for a person to say I one thing while thinking another, and also that if a man was treacherous in one thing he would be in others. He might assume that a man who said what was untrue was a j treacherous man — now he thought that there was ample evidence that his Honor and his advisers were, and had been, to use a Parliamentary term, entirely disengenuous. He might use a less classical term, in fact, an emphatic Saxon word to characterise some of the statements referred to, but he preferred the phrase "entirely disengenuous." He would move a reply to his Honor's speech, even if he stood alone, for J it was not fair that his Honor should place on record his view or affairs without the members of the Council having an opportunity of recording theirs. With the general policy of the Goverumeut in prosecuting j public works he entirely agreed, and would j willingly assist his Honor to obtain even a larger loan than the one of £66,000 proposed. With the commendation bestowed by his Honor on the departmental olticers he had no fault to find, although the report of the Provinciai Engineer disclosed a tendency to break the law. He referred to the sale of certain lands to Mr Waterhouse, on conditions for which no authority was given by the Waste Lands Act. Mr Waterhouse bought a lot of land at Castlepoint, at 7s 6d an acre, on conditions that a grant of £280 was made to the local Road B.ard. The suspension of Provincial payments during a portion of the recess was, he thought, the fault of his Honor and the Executive: instead of the General Government, on to whose shoulders his Honor tried to shift the blame when returning thanks to the provincial creditors for the palieuo manner in which they had subinittea to the inconvenience. He did not think the Superintendent was justified in putting his own accession to office and the present prosperity of the province in the relation of cause and effect. . Hawke's Bay had attained equal prosperity in the same person without the aid of his Honor or his Executive. It was, in fact, a matter of doubt what Executive his Honor wished to claim credit for, as he had had two during his term of office, and once for a month had none at all. Perhaps things would have been equally prosperous had the latter condition remained unaltered throughout. As for his Honor's influence in settling the Horowhenua dispute, he would remark that Mr M'Lean had once or swiee been known to settle similar disputes without his Honor's assistance. To render fair the comparison of the amount of direct taxation raisedfby the province under his Honor's administration, with that raised uuder his predecessor, account should be taken of the indirect taxation formerly raised in the shape of school fees, road rates, &c. The rise in wool, and the expenditure of large sums of money under Mr Vogel's scheme of public works, had more to do with the prosperity of the province than the provincial administration, although his Honor now claimed all the credit. In the second paragraph of his reply, he expressed dissent from his Honor's views. He did not in the words used imply that his Honor was wrong, but only an opinion that his Honor's own statement of the facts of the case were not satisfactory. If his Honor had not alluded to the subject, he wonld not have done so but as his Honor had placed on record his views, it was necessary that the Council should guard against being supposed by its silence, to acquiesce in those views. It was entirely disingenuous of his Honor to speak of the Roads and Bridges Act being left to its operation for several weeks, when the fact was that the period was only nine days and as to his Honor's attempt to show that the Auditor's warrant was required for the whole amount, because iiis Honor contemplated leaving the provincu for a time, it too was entirely disingenuous. If his Honor on the 28th January wanted to leave the province for a considerable time he should have informed the Council of it when addressing them on the 19th. He entirely denied that the case of Dr Feather stono's absence furnished a precedent for such a warrent. He also denied that iv January last the Council was aware of the intention of the Government to contract an illegioaate overdraft. He remembered Mr Ludlam asking the question as to where the moneygwas to come from and although he could not find a report of the answer, he remembered the Provincial Secretary replying. " Out of the ordinary revenue in the Provincial chest." In conclusion Mr Andrew expressed regret at having been obliged to introduce his Honor's name in the discussion especially as his Honor was necessarily abseut. The peculiar position his Honor took up in regard to his Executive in Nov, last rendered it necessary however that he should do so. His Honor'sjchampions on the Government benches would no doubt defend their chief ; but in any event he himself would be glad to meet his Honor face to face in another place.

Mr R. Phabazyn seconded the motion. Speaking at a subsequent period of the debate,he said lie was somewhat surprised that the amendment was proposed because it amounted to an admission of blunder. If this were so it was a pity the Superintendent had not made the same admission.

IHe was sorry to hear the statement that ! the motion was regarded as expressing a ! desire to turn the Government out of office. It was nothing of the sort. It was simply an expression of opinion, from which even the supporters of the Government could not escape. The Council he believed would 1 have preferred in the matter of the Provin--1 cial Auditor, to let sleeping dogs lie, but as ! the subject had been brought up, he must : say that it could not be denied that there j was a desire on the part of the Provincial Government to set themselves up against the General Government and in order to ac- | complish that end they have ingenuously manipulated the various acts relating to Provincial finance, in a manner that was not creditable. Hon members could not refrain from expressing themselves decidedly in regard to the action of the Government. The hon momber who had just sat down (Mr Hunter) seemed to regard Provincial institutions as something divine but he most decipedly misinterpreted the opinion of people outside of the Council, for the general belief was, as far as he could ascertain, that the benefits of Provincialism were very temporary. Nobody doubted that the Province had progressed, but it had progressed simply because of the prosperity induced primarily by the policy of the General Government, which had inaugurated large works in various parts of the Province, and introduced large numbers of immigrants. The whole tone of His Honor's speech was ungrateful, so much so, that for his part he felt fully justified in supporting the motion proposed by the hon member for West Wairarapa. There was no doubt that the Province was looked on with a great deal of suspicion, and there was no doubt when it went abroad that his Honor was still practising these little tricks to raise money, it would be difficult for the Province, sound as was its position, to obtain any small loan for which the sanction of the General Assembly might be required. People throughout the Colony were suspicious of our Provincial Government, and it was with the view of setting the Province right with the General Assembly that he gave expression to these views. It was with no desire to damage the Government he supported the resolution, tie acknowledged all the Government had done — and they had done a good deal— but he felt bound when a question of the kind came up to express himself in an unreserved manner. The Government ought to be much obliged to those members who had taken upon them selves to express their opinion, because a discriminating support must be much more valuable than an unthinking acquiescence