8.—2.

VIII

So far I have only been dealing with Counties and Boad Boards. As will have been observed by honorable members, my proposals do not affect the Boroughs, except to the extent of granting them power of rating all Government property Avithin their boundaries. I think, with every desire to help the Boroughs, we must recognize the fact that the surest and most effectual method of helping them is to encourage successful settlement upon the land. With a well-roaded and prosperous country the difficulties of the Boroughs w*ill end. In the above proposals I conceive that Ave are, in fact, carrying out the idea of the Legislature in withdrawing the 20 per cent, of the produce of land sales from appropriation by the County Councils. That fund w Tas meant to be devoted to the opening out of the very districts from which it arose. Unfortunately, the Councils (following suit to the Legislature itself) had treated it as ordinary revenue, applicable to any of the objects under their control and administration, using it, in effect, to lighten local rates, or dispense with them altogether The result of the proposals I have just submitted Avill not then be to reduce the proportion of the Land Fund locally expended, but in most cases, and for some time to come, to increase it materially , but it will be expended under such safeguards as will insure its application to the colonizing uses to which this House desired to devote it. I think the warmest advocate of the localization of the Land Fund can desire no more. Before quitting this branch of my subject I will deal shortly Avith the suggestion that the Government should take over and maintain the main roads of the colony, a proposition which goes far beyond the centralizing tendencies sometimes imputed to the present Government. We are not ambitious to take charge of some thousands of miles of roads, and do not feel ourselves competent to the task. The House will certainly not appropriate the needful funds out of ordinary revenue, nor will it invite an annual repetition on its floor, and on a petty scale, of the struggles for local appropriations which have impaired the success of the Public Works policy In the face of the complaints which are already abroad of the concurrent rating poAvers of County Councils and Boad Boards, the House is not likely to undertake itself the duties of a third rating authority, nor can it, in the present condition of the general finance, abandon any part of the proceeds of the Pro-perty-Tax to local administration. Such, then, Mr Speaker, is a brief sketch of the proposals of the Government with regard to local finance. It may be said that there is nothing very new or startling about this scheme, and that, Sir, may be true, but the question is, is it a plain workable scheme, easily understood, and will it give us what we must have, as rapidly as our means will permit, roads throughout the country ? I submit, Sir, with confidence, that it Avill, and that it will also relieve both this House and Ministers from pressure to supply local Avants which cannot be ignored if settlement is to advance, but which it is very undesirable should be dealt with directly by this House. I do not, to-night, intend to trouble the House with elaborate arguments in support of it, because I believe honorable members desire, upon such an occasion as this, only a broad outline, to enable them to judge of the effects of the proposal upon general and local finance. That the scheme, if it becomes law, will make our local finance as distinct from and independent of our general finance as possible cannot, I think, be doubted, and that it will make as ample provision for the local bodies as our means now permit is, I think, also certain. It has also this great advantage, that, should it prove successful, it can be expanded Avithout difficulty to meet all the future Avants of the country, and is equally suitable to our local bodies whether Ave enlarge them and multiply their functions or keep them much as they are. ESTIMATED EXPENDITURE FEOM ORDINARY REVENUE, 1881-82. I now come, Mr. Speaker, to the consideration of the estimated expenditure for the current year. It will be within the recollection of honorable members that last year the Government, with the assistance of the Committee of the House, made very large reductions in the Estimates as sent down, and that, after these reductions had been made, I stated to the Committee that the net results for the year amounted