Auckland Provincial Government Gazette.

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY.

VOL. XXV.] MONDAY, APRIL 24, 1876. [No. 15.

PUBLIC NOTIFICATION.

Superintendent’s Office,
Auckland, 24th April, 1876.

THE following Correspondence is published by direction of His Honour the Superintendent.

Reader Wood,
Provincial Secretary.

(1c.)
Wellington, 23rd February, 1876.

To His Honour Sir George Grey,
Grahams town.

The late Colonial Treasurer has no recollection of any agreement as to the capitation balance due to the Province being one thousand pounds a month. There is no doubt, however, that neither he nor the Provincial Treasurer took into account the stoppages for railway deficiency, and that the stoppage of three thousand and fourteen pounds on account of the Mercer railway must have conflicted with the expectations of the Provincial Treasurer. As to there being no power of stoppage on account of the obvious mistake of eighteen hundred and seventy-one for eighteen hundred and seventy-two in the fifteenth section of the Immigration and Public Works Act, I have submitted the point to the Solicitor-General, who thinks that the error is obviously clerical, and that any Court would construe it according to the obvious intention. The stoppage of Goldfields revenue collected in the Auckland Goldfields is almost wholly paid to the natives; fees and fines of the Warden’s Court and certain office fees alone being payable to the Province; the total amount which, judging by the last six months, the stoppage Goldfields revenue will bring to the Colonial Treasury for the six months ending thirtieth next is estimated at five hundred and twenty-six pounds, and up to the twenty-fifth January the stoppages had amounted to thirty-three pounds. It is hardly necessary to say, therefore, that the stoppage was not made on account of the amount it was likely to yield, but simply because it was considered the law imperatively required it on account of its being part of the land revenue, which under the Abolition Act it will not continue to be.

I wish your Honour to understand that these stoppages are not matters of discretion, but are made imperative by law. Apart from the points raised by your Honour’s telegram, the late Colonial Treasurer understood that the spirit of his agreement with the Provincial Secretary was that the Government would provide sufficient funds up to sixty thousand pounds to enable your Honour to administer the Government of the Province. The late Colonial Treasurer will telegraph to you the course he proposes for adoption, and which the legislation of last session renders necessary. If the Provincial Treasurer without much inconvenience could come here, the whole question might be more easily arranged, but if such a visit is inconvenient we will spare no pains to settle the matter without him. Major Atkinson telegraphs concurrently with this message.

Julius Vogel.

(2c.) Memo. upon Sir Julius Vogel’s Telegram of 23rd February, 1876.

Sir Julius Vogel proposes that I should go to Wellington to see Ministers upon the subject of the Auckland Revenue. From Sir Julius Vogel’s telegram it would seem that there is no difference of opinion between the late Colonial Treasurer and myself as to the understanding with regard to the Provincial finances. It is admitted by both parties that neither took the stoppages into consideration, and it is admitted also that these stoppages must have conflicted with the expectations of the Provincial Treasurer. The Provincial Executive arranged its affairs upon the most economical scale, and found — reckoning upon the regular payment of the ordinary capitation allowance, the Goldfields revenue, the Provincial Miscellaneous revenue,