NELSON PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 499, 4 May 1869, Page 2

NELSON PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

THE SUPERINTENDENT'S SPEECH.

The nineteenth session of the Provincial Council commenced on Tuesday last. The new members are Dr Irvine, Mr Edwards, and Mr Luckie for the City, Mr Hennelly for Cobden, and Messrs M'Dowell and Reid for the Buller District. These gentlemen, with the exception of Mr Reid, who had not arrived in time for the opening, were severally introduced to the Speaker, and took their respective seats. His Honor the Superintendent read the following speech :

Mb. Speaker, and Gentlemen of "hie Pkovinciatj Council—1. The visit of H.R.11. the Duke of Edinburgh to this Province will, I am confident, have given as much satisfaction to you as it has done to myself, and, I believe, to t he community generally. I have endeavored, with the zealous assistance of the gentlemen appointed at a public meeting, to afford the Prince a reception which, while consistent with our means, should bo, in some degree, worthy of our illustrious guest. I have the gratification to inform you that I am commanded by the Prince to say that 11.R.11. was satisfied and pleased with his reception and entertainment. His Excellency the Governor also desires mo to assure the people of this Province of the great gratification which this, his first visit to them, has afforded him.

2. The receipts of revenue during the year have, I regret to say, fallen very far short of the estimate which I submitted to you at its commencement.

The Treasurer's annual statement, which will be laid upon your table, shows that instead of £144,000, at which I estimated them, the actual recicpts have only reached the sum of £99,000, making a deficiency from .my estimate of no less than .£45,000. This deficit is attributed in some degree to the decrease in the population of the South-West goldfields, which took place early in the year in consequence of the attraction of the goldfields of Queensland and Auckland, but mainly to errors made by the Colonial Treasury in the sums paid to us during the previous year on account of the Provincial share of the Consolidated Fund and en account of Laud Revenue.

These errors, which may be ascribed chiefly to the retrospective action of the "Public Revenues Act, 1867," consisted in the payment to this Province of £16,000 more than we were entitled to ; and as the pa3*ments were made in many cases in lump sums on account, unaccompanied by any definite figures, it was impossible to discover that any excess of payment, had been made. Not only therefore has the sum so paid in excess been deducted from the revenue accruing to the Province during the year just ended, but my calculations as to revenue for the same period, based upon these erroneous receipts, have been entirely upset, the result being a deficit of at least £35,000 in addition to the decrease arising from the causes to which I have adverted, together with the general depression which prevails throughout the Colony. As soon as the actual state of things became apparent to me, I reduced the expenditure upon public works, so far as was consistent with engagements already entered into, to a point within the diminished means at my disposal, and devoted my attention to all practicable reductions in the departmental expenditure of the Province.

By the Estimates which will be submitted to you, you will find that the reductions which have been made effect a saving to the extent of between £12,000 and £13,000 in the annual expenditure of the Province in salaries and contingencies. In making so sweeping a retrenchment I have performed a difficult and extremely unpleasant duty. I ask for your support and encouragement in a task which I have endeavored to execute with as little inconvenience to the public, and as little hardship to individuals, as under the circumstances was possible. The principle upon which I have mainly effected this large reduction in our expenditure has been that which invariably guides commercial establishments in a similar position, namely, the reduction in the number of officer; employed, and not the reduction of the salaries of those whose services cannot be dispensed with and whose work i 3 in many cases largely increased. 3. When the Estimates for the current year, which arc now in course of preparation, are placed before you, you will see that I have abolished the formal distinction of " Departments " in the provincial service, and have classed them in groups under distinctive headings. Each officer will be required to give his services in any way in which they can be made efficiently available, an arrangement which, although only occasionally practicable, will probably prove useful with a staff so greatly diminished. 4. The office of Commissioner of the Southwest Goldfields having become vacant by the resignation of Mr Kynnersley, I have not thought it necessary to appoint a successor to that office, whose ordinary duties can, now that a line of telegraph lias been established throughout the district as well as at headquarters, be efficiently performed by the several Wardens, while the more settled character of the goldfields renders the services of a resident officer, with large powers, positively unnecessary. 5. You will bo aware that the execution of many of the public works for which you made appropriation in your last session has unavoidably been postponed, and that much dissatisfaction has arisen in consequence, especially on the West Coast, where a movement in favor of separation has been initiated, and a petition to the General Assembly, praying that the district may be formed into a separate Province or County is now in course of signature. This movement originated in West port, in consequence of my refusal to expend a large sum of money without your authority and directly contrary to law, in the protection of the Colliery and Native Reserves from the destructive action of the Buller River. Reports upon this subject from the Colonial and Provincial Engineers will bo laid before you, and I think that you will agree with mo that, allowing for the very probable destruction of portions of the work before the whole could bo completed, it would be throwing away money to enter upon the construction of protective works with a less sum than £15,000.

While I deeply regret the danger to -which both private and public property is exposed, I am not prepared to recommend you to withdraw that sum, or anything like it, from the amount available for expenditure on publio works on the goldficlds generally, to the manifest injury of the districts of the Grey and Charleston, which have equal claims with Westport upon the public funds, especially in view of the fact that far more than its due proportion of the revenue has hitherto been expended in Westport ; although. I consider that the past expenditure has been fully justified by the importance of Westport ashy far Hm bflsf r o»t °,» tko West Coast of this island. Looking to the immediate origin and object of the petition for separation, I can scarcely believe that any larje proportion of the inhabitants of other districts of the goldficlds will be induced to commit political suicide by attaching their names to it. The petition itself abounds with the most gross and palpable mis-statements both of facts and figures. Its framers have not scrupled also to misrepresent the opinions I expressed in my first address to you on taking office; in one case by suppressing the concluding words of a sentence, and in another by applying words which I used in reference to the effect of the goldficlds generally, those ofOtago, Canterbury, and Nelson, upon the finances of the Colony, to the financial relations between the South-west Goldficlds and the rest of this Province, to which the words quoted had no reference whatever. If there were any truth in the allegations of the petition, that a due share of the revenue raised upon the goldficlds had not been expended within them, I have no doubt the General Assembly would lend a willing ear to the prayer for a redress of the grievance, but as a reference to the published accounts of the Province will at once show there is no foundation whatever for those allegations, I have little fear that the Assembly will consent to the establishment of additional Provinces or Counties, involving the multiplication of governments and Councils, greatly increasing the already excessive administrative expenditure of the Colony, and adding to the existing number and complication of its laws. My own opinions, as you arc aware, have always been strongly in favor of the reduction instead of the increase of these evils ; and you may rely upon my best efforts, as a member of the House of Representatives, in opposition to the petition to which I am referring, as well as to all others of a similar character. 6. The Waste Lands Board having been unsuccessful in their endeavors to lease the Brunner Coalmine to a Company prepared to construct a Railway for the transport of the coals to Cobden, I have thought it better to continue to work the mine upon a small Scale than to entrust it to a temporary tenant, who might work it with a view to immediate profit only, to the permanent injury of the property. Apart from the purchase of plant amounting to about £2OOO, a small profit has resulted from the year's operations, but upon this subject I refer you to the detailed report of Mr Warden Button. 7. An Act embodying the resolutions yon agreed to in June last, enabling me to appoint an agent in London, with full power to enter into a contract for the construction of a line of Railway from Nelson to Cobden ana Westport, was passed by the General Assembly without material alteration. As soon as copies of the act could be obtained, they were forwarded to Mr Morrison, the agent for the Colony as well as for this Province, together with copies of all surveys, reports, maps> plans, and other documents bearing on the subject, and a power of attorney under the seal of the Province. Mr Morrison has acknowledged their receipt, but as the letter of instructions forwarded by the following mail has not reached him, ho confines his letter to that acknowledgment, and a month or two will probably elapse before I can hope to receive from Mr Morrison a report as to his prospects of success in the London Money Market. 8. Amongst the Public Works the execution of which I have been compelled to abandon, is the proposed Dry Dock in Nelson Harbor, and my estimate of the probabw revenue for the current year is not large enough to justify me in again proposing to you to appropriate the large sum required for this purpose. But the successful operation of a floating dock, which has lately been constructed at Port Chalmers, leads me to thin* it desirable to amend " The Patent Slip Dry Dock Act, of 1867," so as to enable mew t guarantee interest for a term of years upon

the much smaller amount of capital which would be required for a floating dock. 9. Although the new Hospital in this city has now long been completed, I have deferred its occupation until you should have an opportunity of expressing your opinion on the subject. The number of patients in the present hospital is now, and lias for a long time past, been so small, that I have been unwilling to incur the greatly increased expense which I fear so large an establishment, so utterly disproportioned to our present wants, would entail upon the Province. I have also thought it desirable, in the absence as it appears to me of any necessity for its immediate application to the purpose for which it was built, to keep the new building unoccupied in view of a probability—not I fear in the present state of the North Island a very remote one—of accommodation being required for women and children whom it might be considered necessary to remove from Taranaki or Wanganui, and placed under our care as was the case eight years ago. 10. The building of the old Hospital being still occupied by patients, I have abandoned" for the present at all events, my intention to convert it into a home for destitute children. Arrangements have, however, been made for ; their maintenance and education at Motueka, which, unless the number of children to be provided for should greatly increase, will, I think, prove more satisfactory and less expensive than those I contemplated last year. 11. A bill has been prepared for your consideration to repeal the various existing Representation Acts, in order to reduce the number of members forming your body from twenty-six to nineteen. The number of members representing the goldfields has not been interfered with, the proposed reductions being confined to the more settled parts of the Province, so that the influence of the goldfields members in your counsels will be greatly increased, while, by the formation of the new electoral district of Charleston, the various interests of the West Coast will be more distinctly represented. I think that, if you should see fit to pass this measure into law, it will tend materially to diminish the length, and consequently to reduce the cost, of your sittings, without interfering with your usefulness to the Province. 12. For full details of the various pub'ic works which have been executed during the year, I refer you to the able reports of the Provincial and District Engineers ; and for information as to the present state and prospects of the goldfields to those of the Wardens of the different districts. I now declare this Council opened for the despatch of business. On Thursday Mr Eeid was introduced to the Speaker, and took his seat. Mr Donne was also present. A petition from Mr Lynch, of Brighton, was presented, praying for compensation for dismissal as clerk to the Warden's Court. The Provincial Solicitor moved the secoud reading of the Provincial Council Bill, but the debate was adjourned till Tuesday.