✨ Superintendent's Address to Provincial Council
67
In the opinion of the Superintendent, the alteration made by the Provincial Council is of a substantial nature, diverting the service from the City of Auckland to the general purposes of a City Council; under which (speaking in the way of illustration) out of the £2000 appropriated, nearly £1000, as he is informed, would have to be expended in salaries, while the whole might be so disposed of, should such Council think proper. It appears to the Superintendent that even could the different services be considered as virtually similar—though not the same—the Provincial Council have taken upon themselves to make that more precise specification of service which is withheld from them by the Constitution Act.
The Superintendent addresses the Provincial Council without reserve, and will state that it had never been his intention to risk a collision between the Provincial Council and himself, by pressing the two first mentioned amendments beyond a simple proposal for acceptance. But upon this, the 4th amendment, more decidedly perhaps than upon the 3rd, he had resolved to disallow the Bill, should the Provincial Council refuse to appropriate the sum in question to the specific service recommended.
Nevertheless, even in the event of a refusal, the Superintendent will not withhold his assent from the Bill—for the sake of conciliation—for the sake of carrying on the public works—for the sake of averting from the Province the ruinous confusion that must supervene, should the supplies be stopped. He will waive his own opinion of the correct interpretation of the 25th clause of the Constitution Act. He deems himself partially justified in such a course by the opinion of Mr. Whitaker, the Acting Attorney-General, delivered from his place in Council, that the change of service introduced by the Provincial Council is not an infringement of the Act. At the same time he thinks it his duty to place a sum of money upon the Supplementary Estimates sufficient for the obtaining a legal opinion in England whether such change of service be a violation of the letter, as it evidently is of the spirit of the Constitution Act.
The Superintendent does not disguise from himself the weight of the responsibility which he will incur by assenting to the Appropriation Act if returned to him in its present state—risking the removal of a Constitutional land-mark, by the Provincial Council overstepping the line which separates the Legislative functions from those of the Executive. He will also state that, in assuming the responsibility, he has thought it his duty to take it undividedly upon himself, having therefore purposely abstained from referring the question to the Provincial Law Adviser. At the same time he is fully aware that, if a collision with the Council were inevitable, he could take up more advantageous ground than the assuming the defence of the Constitution Act, and resisting what may be fairly presumed to be encroachments by the Council, in order that he might hand down the powers of the Superintendent unimpaired to his successors.
WAR. BROWN,
Superintendent.
Superintendent’s Office, Auckland,
24th April, 1855.
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Auckland Provincial Gazette 1855, No 10
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
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Superintendent's Message to Provincial Council
(continued from previous page)
🏛️ Governance & Central Administration24 April 1855
Appropriation Bill, Provincial Council, Salaries, Constitutional Interpretation, Legal Opinion
- Whitaker (Acting Attorney-General), Provided legal opinion on constitutional interpretation
- WAR. BROWN, Superintendent