✨ Superintendent's Address to Provincial Council
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,
CHARLES ROBERT BLAKISTON,
Provincial Secretary.
VOL. VII.] MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1860. [No. V.
ADDRESS
Of his Honor the Superintendent on opening the Twelfth Session of the Provincial Council of Canterbury, Tuesday, the 27th day of March, 1860:
Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen,—
I have called you together for the express purpose of considering and advising me upon the proposed Lyttelton and Christchurch direct Railway.
You are aware that his Excellency the Governor has been advised to withhold his assent to the Lyttelton and Christchurch Railway Ordinance and the Loan Ordinance, upon the ground of alleged legislative incapacity of the provinces to create the powers intended by the Railway Ordinance.
I have not requested your attendance here for the purpose of considering me upon a reaffirmation of the unavoidable necessity for constructing the Railway. But I wish to lay before you the course which I deem it proper under existing circumstances to adopt, and to ask your concurrence in an alteration of the Railway financial arrangements adopted by you last session.
Before proceeding further, I must congratulate you and the province on the fact that the General Government had evinced the most lively interest in our proposed undertaking, as you will learn from the correspondence I shall cause to be laid before you.
Subject to your concurrence, I intend to promote a Railway Bill in the House of Representatives during its next session, similar in all essential particulars to your Ordinance of last session...
I shall suggest for your approval an important modification of the Railway financial arrangements adopted by you last session.
Although at first sight the alteration I propose (involving as it does the raising of a much larger loan than that first contemplated by you) will appear to cast a more serious and formidable burden upon the province, yet I shall cause evidence to be adduced in proof that although a larger immediate debt would be incurred by the mode I recommend, the effect of incurring that larger amount will be to secure an undoubted capability of properly carrying out this Railway without neglecting the many lesser but indispensable public works required in a new and rapidly thriving colony.
I trust that in the General Assembly there will be no difficulty in the way of procuring powers to construct the Railway, and that I shall, with your sanction and assistance, be enabled to procure a loan adequate to a creditable completion of the work.
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Canterbury Provincial Gazette 1860, No 5
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🏘️ Address by Superintendent on Railway Proposal
🏘️ Provincial & Local GovernmentRailway, Lyttelton, Christchurch, Provincial Council, Address
- Charles Robert Blakiston, Provincial Secretary