CONTINUATION OF LAST NIGHT'S DEBATE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 363, 11 August 1875, Page 3

CONTINUATION OF LAST NIGHT'S DEBATE.

(Press Telegraph Agency.)

Wellington, August 11. Mr .Reader Wood, in continuing, criticised the high-handed action of the Government in saying the measure was good, whether constitutional or not, but if the Act was disallowed by her Majesty's advisers, who would bear the reproach ? The hon member reviewed the finance statements of last session, when Sir J. Vogel said, "We have plenty in the Treasury to meet everything required for next year," but when he got home, he found he had to. raise three millions at once. That was a deception, andclearlyindicatedthatdisaster was looming ahead. Last year he expressed certain views on abolition. Had this Bill been at all in conformity with them he would have voted for it. The hon member then proceeded to state in reply to the taunts that the financial state of Auckland was a scandal to the colony that with all her poverty, great as it was, she owed not a shilling. There was not one unliquidated claim against her, simply because when the real state of their purse was ascertained they resolutely declined to incur liabilities they could not meet, and if Auckland was embarrassed it was alone the fault of the House that it was so. If they passed the Abolition Bill in its present form it would plunge the colony into a maelstrom of financial difficulties. It was idle to call this an Abolition Bill; it was merely substituting another name, that of Provincial districts. The stereotyped form of lands was still retained. It was true they would not have Superintendents but they would have Satraps in their place, nominees of the General Government. He could not disguise from himself that the real object of the Bill was to cover an enormous deficiency in the revenue, and that to pass it would throw the finances of the colony into inextricable confusion.

Mr Pyke regretted that eloquence was not always a convincing argument. It was so that evening. With all the eloquence displayed, nothing had been said to influence a single vote in favour of the existing institutions. The position was exactly what it had been described to be years ago, by the hon member for Avon, when going to that House, namely, that the whole country was overgoverned, and a radical change was required. Still, with all the necessity for change, he contended that as they bore the burden of provincialism for twenty years, they could stand it six months longer, so as to have the unmistakeable voice of the people with them on t so momentous a question. It behoved them not to be hasty. If they were not afraid of the verdict of the country, why not wait for it ? He hoped the Government would do this. Whatever good provincial institutions worked once, latterly they have altogether failed to do so, having degenerated into a centralism of the worst kind. As an instance, gold was discovered in Gabriel's Gully in 1861, and it was 1874 before the main road to that place was completed. As for all the claptrap they heard about sweeping away the Constitution, it was simply making a fetish of it. As for the Superintendent representing a large number of people, he had only one vote in the Executive Council, and no more than a member representing only few electors, perhaps, in fact, he was simply a chairman of the Executive Council. He ridiculed the idea of New Zealand colonists being a down trodden lot. One of the chief reasons which made him support the Bill was the clause relating to the land fund, without those provisions he would oppose it tooth and nail—to do otherwise would be aiding repudiation. Doubtless the compact had been broken in many essential points, but the last stand must now be made to preserve the honour and credit of the colony. He trusted every member of the House, including Sir George Grey, would assist in making the Bill a complete and beneficial measure. Mr Thompson, in a long speech, Btrongly opposed the Bill, which he said should have been brought down by the member for Timaru. The Ministry ought to have resigned, and allowed Mr Stafford to form a new Mintstry, and introduce the Bill. He twitted the Government with hiving originally taken office as conservers of provincialism, but now they changed their minds, and coolly asked the rest of the House to change their minds also, and follow them. The hon gentlemen condemned the management of the Public Works, of finance, of the way in which Ministers neglected their official duties, and generally reiterated the leading arguments used against the Bill by the Opposition members. Mr o'Conor moved the adjournment of the House at 12.25.