Page 2 Advertisements Column 4

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XIII, Issue 1367, 8 September 1858, Page 2

TO THE HLiiOTORS OE THE CITY Of WELLINGTON. BROTHER ELECTORS,— According to the law of the Province, any member of the Provincial Council who accepts a paid office, or who becomes one of the advisers of the hedd of the Government by joining the Executive Council, forfeits hts seat, in order that the Electors may decide whether tk y approve of the appointment. They generally have the opportunity of doing so soon after the appointment is made, and at any rare before it has censed. In my case, however, you will have had no opportunity of testifying your approval or censure, until six weeks after I ceased to hold any office. On the 12th of June, Mr. Ludlam, the Speaker, assumed the office of Superintendent, which .Dr. Featherston had unlawfully kept in bis grasp until he was sued for it, and made to give it up. Dr. Featherston’s advisers immediately resigned : Messrs. Fitzherbert, Woodward, and Brandon giving up the offices of Provincial Secretary, Treasurer, and Solicitor; while Mr. Fox held on to hi; Commissionership of Crown Lands, and resigned his seat in the Executive Council only. Mr. Ludlam at once asked me to form a Government according to law, so that his acts as Superintendent might be legal. I found no difficulty in the task; for as it was understood that the temporary state of things would not last more than a month, Mr. Borlase consented to become Provincial Solicitor, and Mr. Hunter to bo a i Executive Councillor without office, while I undertook to discharge the combined duties of Secretary and Treasurer. We performed these duties for seven weeks, without salary, having made that a condition of our acceptance.

As the public money could not be legally paid away until the election of a Superintendent, we had to provide money from private sources, in order to keep up the Government establishments and public works. Messrs. Ludlam, Borlase, Hunter, Bowler, and myself, became each of us personally liable to the Union Bank for .£7OOO, and a credit to that amount was thereupon granted to Mr. Ludlam. On the 30th of July, Dr. Featherston was re-elected Superintendent, and my offices became at once vacant by law. I ceased to hold any office ; but the acceptance of office, in order to help the Province through a temporary difficulty, had deprived me of my seat in the Provincial Council. Only an elected Superintendent can issue writs for new elections. During the time I held office no one could issue a writ. According to the Constitution Act, Dr. Featherston ought to have issued them on the 31st of July. But he broke ihe law, in order to do you the injustice of leaving you only represented by ten members instead of twelve, while be endeavoured to persuade the Council to pass the Estimates, and leave him free of any control by you. I believe that the fear of being again sued for a breach of the law has alone dragged compliance from him, three weeks after the time. The 9th and 10th days of September are now fixed for the nomination and polling respectively. I confidently offer myself to you for re-election : because I cannot reproach myself with having in any way betrayed the trust which you reposed in me ; nor am I aware that I have in any way swerved from the course I undertook to pursue when you elected me in November last.

1 need hardly repeat to you the long list of measures which, as a sincere Radical Reformer, I will alwajs strive to obtain. My short tenure of office has enabled me to declare, positively, that one man of ordinary industry and ability can, with perfect ease, perform the duties of the Secretary and Treasurer combined. I shall therefore refuse to vote salaries to two officers for the future, and thus endeavour to save the Province £4OO a-year. The more general adoption of the Contract system in public works, and especially in road making, is most essential. The work should be given out in small contracts, such as labouring men can themselves undertake. Thus an expensive host of paymasters, time, keepers, and inspectors could be dispensed with : the best men would earn the best wages ; the work would be better and more cheaply done : and the workmen would more rapidly become independent, in mind as well as in body. As matters stand at present, the best man, if he has independence enough to vote against the Government who employs him, is very likely to be given the lowest wages: while another man, who may be less able or willing to work, is highly rated because he will go to the poll under the escort of the Engineer and Paymaster of Roads, Messrs. Roy and Holdsworth. In short, the public money, borrowed at a heavy rate of interest, is being spent waste!ally so as to produce the greatest number of votes, instead of being econoraised so as to produce the greatest quantity of permanent improvement. In no department is a Radical Reform more urgently required. The new Regulations, establishing the sale of land on credit, and an allowance of land for passage-money, which have been published in the newspapers in compliance with the law, have yi t to be adopted by the Council and Superintendent for recommendation to the Governor. They may require some alterations of minor importance: but no further time should be lost in making them law, so that the rich and available districts of Waikanae and Manawalu, now in progress of being bought from the Natives, should be laid open for occupation by industrious farmers of all classes. The Council requested the Superintendent to reserve those Districts, so soon as bought, for the above purposes ; and before he resigned be agreed to do so. Dr. Featherston’s well-known objections to the system of selling land on credit, require that he should be carefully watched, lest he so administer the system when adopted as to obstruct its successful working. This was actually done at Auckland for several years, by a Superintendent on whom the system was forced against his will.

The laws for licensing sheep-runs and for the sale of land in pastoral districts require alteration, inorder to protect the really improving occupier against the mere speculator or land monopolist. A large amount of evidence on this subject has been collec'ed by a Committee of the Council, and ordered to be printed. In any new Regulations which may be based thereupon, the greatest encouragement should be afforded to that class of occupiers who will most contribute to the productiveness of the land. During the past year, a very few persons have secured the actual possession of large tracts, which they do not improve, by buying up all the choice land on their runs. Unless all choice land be, as soon as possible, reserved for settlement by real occupiers, a large portion of the Province will be locked up from occupation by the people at large. Immigrants who pay their passage-money ought to receive the whole value in land, and to be secured in a legal title to it. I consider it most niggardly treatment towards them, to offer them 25 per cent, only of what they have paid to swell our numbers, and give them no better title than a Certificate from Mr. Holdsworth, which amounts to so much waste paper until sanctioned by law. Persons who paid their own passage, and military settlers paying for their discharge, are quite as much entitled to a grant of land, equal in value to what they paid, as those whose passages were advanced by the Government.

Every transaction relating to the sale and letting of public lands should take place before a Board as open to the public as a Court of Justice. Thus would be prevented all possibility of that favoritism, which a Land Commissioner, who engages in violent and vindictive paity politics, can practise, and conceal from the public under the present system. The inhabitants of every district should have the largest powei s of managing their own affairs, and of spending their fair share of the revenue. In all cases, they should receive endowments of public land, in order to construct local improvements without taxation. This City ought to have a Municipal Corporation, with the management of the Town Belt and of the land to.be reclaimed from the Harbour. Public v.hatvcs, good streets,and other improvements could then be effected by the inhabitants themselves, without taxation, and without requiring aid from the Provincial revenue, or interference from the Provincial Government. The City should repay to the Province the money al:eady expended on reclaiming land. A Bill to this effect has been passed by the Council; but Dr. Featherston has taken no notice whatever of it. I strongly advocate the expenditure of whatever sum, within our means, may secure the establishment of efficient Steam Communication between Melbourne and Wellington. The real Capitals,—the natural Centres,—of Australia and New Zealand cannot be too intimately connected. With regard to the above, and other important Reforms of the Provincial Government, I shall be ready and anxious to offer further explanations, on every public opportunity where reason shall not be stifled by the clamour of those, who are interested in hood-wink-ing the public, I remain, Brother Electors, Your faithful and obedient Servant, E. JERNINGHAM WAKEFIELD. Wellington, August 21,1858.

WAN J LI) a Female Servant. Apply to Mrs. JOHN MARTIN, lugcstre-street, Te Aro June 21,1858.