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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 817, 14 January 1868, Page 2

“ The Editor of the Chronicle rejoices to find that the Provincial Treasury chest is unable to meet tlie demands made upon it. Every application for sums of money voted ou the supplementary estimates during the last session of the Provincial Council has of necessit3 r been refused, and every refusal has been a cause of rejoicing, and a subject of ridicule to our contemporary of the Chronicle. We may mention the grant for the Great Northern road of £IOOO. The equivalent of £SOO for the Wanganui Coal and Gold Mining Company ; the sum voted for the improvement of the river ; that for the Acclimatisation Society, and others, the want of which every right thinking man will regret, become each in turn a source of merriment to the Editor of the Chronicle.' 1 ' I —Times of Saturday.

We daresay tlie public generally will believe us when we assure them that so far from rejoicing that the provincial funds are not coming up to the amount estimated, we regret it very much, as likely to become a source of public embarrassment ; but such a result might have been anticipated, and is one that carries a lesson along with it, which tlie wise heads in the province would do well to learn. Everything has its limits, even the elasticity of india-rubber, and the revenue of a New Zealand province cannot go on paying unnecessary expenses for ever. Let provincialism adjust its cloak, and fall, if not gracefully, at least, with as little discomfort to those depending upon it as possible. It seems, however, an impossibility for our contemporary to post himself up correctly on the simplest matter of fact. Will .{.he man not try to get hold of some subject ill at he can make something of ! He understands the provincial estimates in much the same degree as he understands the Town Board accounts. They are both as much a mystery to him as a piece of Latin or Greek. He mis-states or misunderstands every item referred to in the above short paragraph. (1 ) There was no grant made by the Provincial Council for a “Great Northern Road,”—there is no such road—there is no grant of £IOOO for any road ; but a sum of £2350 was voted (not in a supplementary estimate, but in the estimates proper) for the “Great North-West-

eru,” as far as Waitotara. And we have never ceased to keep before the Government the necessity and importance of spending a large portion of that money in repairing the road from Wanganui to Waitotara and on to Pat.ea. Nothing, however, has been done. (2) There was no Coal and Gold Mining Company brought before the Council; there was a sum of £SOO put upon the supplementary estimates for a Wanganui Coal Mining Company, but the Superintendent frankly stated there would be no money to pay it. The thing was known to be a piece of bosh from beginning to end. (3) There was no sum voted for the improvement of the navigation of the Wanganui river. Mr Hutchison moved in that matter and proposed that a sum of £450 should be put upon the estimates. No notice of the proposal was taken by the Superintendent probably because Mr Hutchison was the mover of it ; at all events, it was the only one brought forward by any member of the Council which was not either put on the estimates, or shunted into the supplementary siding. (4) The vote for Acclimatisation (there was no special vote for the Wanganui Society) was made on the recommendation of the Superintendent himself, and £IOO promised to this locality (the grant was not part of the supplementary estimates), and we never heard of any one rejoicing et its non-payment, unless we set down a horse-laugh of our contemporary at the Acclimatisation meeting, when the inability of the province to pay was announced, as a dull species of rejoicing on the subject. But correcting mistakes of this kind is idle work, and we may as well give it up. The writer will fall into as many more next day —probably repeat some of those which have now been pointed out to him. And all this with the utmost complacency. He settles things after the manner of Sir Callaghan O’Brail agh an : “ That, my dear Sir Archy, is the Scotch account, which never speaks truth, because it is always partial ; but my account must be the true one, for it was written by an Irish poet of my own family, Shemus Turlough Shanagan O’Brallaghan.” But the editor’s family poet is the editor himself and nobody else.