266 Auckland Provincial Government Gazette.

might possibly amount to £2000 during the same financial year; but such large reductions are made by the General Government upon account of various claims from time to time brought against the province, that we cannot reckon with any certainty upon receiving perhaps even two-thirds of these estimated amounts; indeed one-half of the land revenue must be deducted to pay advances already made to this Province by the General Government.

Whilst the Provincial revenue proper is so small, a very large revenue is raised in the whole from the inhabitants of Auckland. Generally the heads of that revenue may be stated as follows:—

Making a total of ... £309,086 0 11

The inhabitants of the Province are stated in the last Census as being 67,450 souls, excluding natives. This gives a taxation of about £4 2s. a head on every man, woman, and child composing the European population, which means that each small farmer or labourer who has a wife and four children contributes about £7 2s. from taxation each year to the revenues of the colony. If we consider the condition of a labourer so circumstanced, receiving five shillings a day wages, and working every day in the year, without one holiday, or one day's sickness, and never being out of employment for a single day, he would then earn £76 in the year. Such income is, however, reduced at once to about £48 a year; for the present system of taxation, which is levied mainly upon the necessaries or comforts of ordinary life, falls heavily upon the poor. This large proportion of his annual earnings is taken from him by indirect taxation in such a way that although he feels impoverished he finds a difficulty in tracing out the cause which leads to his embarrassment. Yet this cause provides that education shall almost be withheld from his children, whilst he, together with them and his wife, must be deprived of many comforts which his labour and providence justly entitle them to, if their interests were duly attended to by the Government; and his chance of making any considerable savings from his wages is now very small.

You are aware that by an Act passed in August, 1874, an advance of £40,000 was authorised to be made by the General Government to the Province of Auckland, on terms to be arranged between the two Governments. The agreement made, in compliance with this Act, was: that £6,000 was to be paid immediately after the passing by the Provincial Council of an Appropriation Act, and £6,000 to be paid every three months thereafter, until the total amount of £40,000 had been reached. The General Government has paid £18,000 of this advance, but refuses to carry out the agreement entered into, stating that the portion of the £40,000 paid in any one year must not exceed £24,000, as if it were an annual grant. I beg you to consider whether it is desirable to receive any further sums upon account of this advance from the General Government, as half the land revenue of the province is for the first two years to be taken by that Government in payment of the advance so made, and after that period of time the whole of the land revenue is to be taken in payment of the advance until the entire sum advanced has been repaid. You can, therefore, only avail yourselves henceforth of this advance by consenting to a considerable reduction of your annual revenue in each year after the termination of the present one.

You will observe that such advances made by the General Government to this Province are apt to mislead the public. We appear to receive a boon, but merely increase our indebtedness and dependence. There can be no doubt that in its revenues this Province has been greatly wronged; and I think it would be better, instead of begging for advances which are to be repaid, quietly but manfully to require that justice should be done to the inhabitants of Auckland—that an immediate stop should be put to the extravagant expenditure which is effecting our ruin, and that the financial rights of spending ourselves the main part of our own revenues, which were assured to us by the Constitution Act, should be at once restored to this Province.

By another enactment the General Government made provision for carrying out an agreement the Ministry had concluded with the Pumping Association at the Thames to advance them £50,000, upon securities given by that body to the Superintendent of this Province. The General Government now propose that this £50,000 should be made a charge upon the Province of Auckland. All the papers connected with the agreement will be laid before you, and it will be for you to determine whether you will assume the liability for this sum of £50,000, and will annually vote such portions of it for the use of the Pumping Association as that body may require.

The sum of £60,000 was appropriated by the General Government for the construction of roads in the Northern Island of New Zealand. Of this amount only a sum of about £10,000 has been placed at the disposal of the Provincial Government. The accounts connected with the expenditure of this amount shall be laid before you.

Such portions of the special allowances of £25,000 and £4,000 respectively as have not been absorbed by claims made against the Provincial Government have been paid, or will be paid, to your Treasury during the course of this year.