NEW ZEALAND
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.
PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY.

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official signature, are to be considered as Official Communications made to those persons to whom they may relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.

By His Honor’s command,
JOHN OLLIVIER,
Provincial Secretary.

VOL. VI.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1859. [No. VIII.

ADDRESS
OF HIS HONOR THE SUPERINTENDENT, ON OPENING THE ELEVENTH SESSION OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL OF CANTERBURY, SEPTEMBER 29TH, 1859.

GENTLEMEN,

I have to congratulate you to-day on meeting for the first time in a Chamber which is not unworthy of the Legislative Council of the Province. The convenience of the legislature as well as of the whole public service is consulted by the proximity of the different departments of the Government within the building in which we are now assembled, and which is progressing fast towards completion.

The business of the session, as heretofore, will comprise the consideration of such matters only as come within the constitutional range of your functions, namely—the framing of such laws as are indispensable to the profitable working of local institutions and necessary to promote the highest development of local material resources. And as the principles governing the various proposals I have to lay before you are not new to this Council, I trust that you will have but little difficulty in organizing the several systems under which those principles shall be effectively asserted.

In considering some of the measures which I shall send down for your acceptance, reference must be had to the fact that growth of wealth and population necessarily brings with them a demand for more perfect organization, which in its turn inevitably entails increased expenditure, and an enquiry as to how funds to meet that expenditure shall be provided.

I shall submit to you a bill for the Establishment of Municipal Institutions, which has for its object the better regulation of towns and populous districts within the province.

Your acceptance or rejection of this measure will for the present determine whether the cost of the maintenance of public works within the boundaries of towns shall be charged upon the common revenues of the province or be mainly provided by the inhabitants of the towns themselves. In the course of your deliberations on this very important matter, I would have you observe that the towns have grown to a magnitude that precludes any further postponement of measures to secure, at any rate, the public health. With you now rests the grave responsibility of deciding whether the improvements I suggest are actually necessary or not; and if you decide affirmatively you will then have to weigh the propriety of charging the expense of those improvements mainly upon those for whose use and benefit they are principally intended.

The principles governing most of the other bills that will be brought to your notice you have in your legislative capacity already affirmed, and I have taken care to submit no business except what I have found during the recess and by previous experience to deserve immediate attention.

“The Waste Lands Regulations,” which have been duly published pursuant to the Waste Lands Act of 1854, are not intended to effect any alteration of the waste land system of this province; but as the Waste Lands Act of 1858 has not been assented to by Her Majesty, I propose to secure the system at present obtaining in its unaltered shape by complying with the Waste Lands Act of 1854 which is now the general land law of the colony.

By the returns that are to be laid before you will be exhibited the amount of revenue resulting from the sale of waste lands of the crown during the past financial year, which amount is considerably in excess of the sum I estimated during our last session.

I have reason to hope that an increase of land revenue, proportioned to the expansion of commerce and growth of population, will be realised during the current year. But the land sales will necessarily very much depend upon the facilities which may be at the disposal of Government for the purpose of opening up the unsold portion of the public estate. No capitalist will be found to purchase land at the present rate unless there exists a reasonable prospect of such purchase being a presently remunerative investment; and although we may calculate on large land sales for the next two or three years around the now settled districts, it would be perfectly idle to propose selling the far