PROVINCIAL COUNCIL,
October 16, 1856.

HIS HONOR THE SUPERINTENDENT opened the Provincial Council this day with the following speech:—

Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Provincial Council,—

Whatever inconvenience you may experience from the occurrence of another session so shortly after your prorogation, I am sure you will admit that the occasion justifies me in requesting your attendance.

The subjects which will be referred to you are those only upon which immediate action has become necessary, arising out of the recent legislation of the General Assembly; and you will, probably, think it inexpedient to enter upon other subjects in a special and exceptional session, such as the present.

A copy of the Acts of the General Assembly will be laid on your table. You will see by the Waste Lands Act that full legislative power over the Waste Lands, together with the administration of the Land and Survey Departments is transferred to the Provincial Government. Owing to certain legal and formal obstacles, the Land Fund is to remain for the present year General Revenue; but, with the exception of a fixed charge of £4,000 a year, it is to be treated practically as any other Provincial Revenue. The costs of collection and management are to be paid as heretofore under the Governor’s warrant, but the amounts are to be fixed by the Provincial Governments. It therefore becomes my duty to ask you to fix those amounts in the same form as the ordinary Provincial Estimates and your votes will be carried into effect by His Excellency’s warrants.

The Local Posts Act requires that you shall, by resolution fix the maximum amount of postage to be charged for the conveyance of letters by Local Posts, and that you shall guarantee out of Provincial Revenues any deficiency which may arise in their maintenance. The General Government does not propose to maintain any Local Posts beyond Christmas next; consequently they must be re-established under the new Act, after that date.

These two subjects alone would have rendered your attendance in session imperative for a few days. But there is one other of more immediate importance, which will demand your attention. I mean the state of the roads and Public Works, and of Immigration.

The settlement of the pre-emptive right question has been followed by the revival of a Land Revenue, and by the resumption of Public Works as will satisfy all the pressing demands which the greatly increasing traffic on the public roads is daily making on the Government. On the other hand the final adjustment of the public burdens by the General Assembly places it in our power to offer such a security as will justify us in borrowing money, for the purpose of promoting Immigration, and executing the necessary Public Works. You will therefore be asked to authorise the Government to raise the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds, half to be spent in Public Works and half in Immigration. It is proposed to limit the sum to be spent on the Public Works, to twelve thousand five hundred pounds, because it would not be possible efficiently to expend more than that sum in one year with the labour at our command; but the prospects of the Land Fund are such that I do not anticipate having to raise so much by way of loan. The Union Bank of Australia has undertaken to advance the sum of £4,000, should the Government require it, to enable us to carry on our Public Works for the present summer; but it is proposed that the loan of £12,500 now contemplated should include this advance from the Bank.

Estimates will be submitted to you for the expenditure of this money on the various roads, thereby opening up fresh land for sale.

Amongst the Public Works to be completed, the communication between the port and the inland country stands as the most important. I am well aware that there is much dissatisfaction in the province on this matter; a dissatisfaction in which I fully share. I am sure all thinking men are equally agreed with professional men as to the necessity of land carriage, and that the line which has been adopted is the only one available: but most persons are disappointed at the expenditure of large sums of money with no present result. I am willing to admit that it might have been wiser to have done nothing, unless you were prepared to vote such sums as would have completed the whole work at once.