THE GOVERNMENT GAZETTE

PROVINCE OF MARLBOROUGH.

Published by Authority.

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

WILLIAM ADAMS,
Superintendent.

Vol. I.] FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1860. [No. 2.]

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

May 22, 1860.

The first session of the Provincial Council was opened on the first day of May, and after the election of the Superintendent and Speaker, adjourned to the 22nd day of May, at 11 o’clock, upon which occasion His Honour the Superintendent delivered the following speech:—

Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the Provincial Council:—

I am happy to meet you again, as one of your body. It is very satisfactory to feel that we meet on the most friendly terms, and I trust that we shall so continue to act, first we shall join our best endeavours for the furtherance of those measures we consider to be for the welfare of this province.

There is one point on which I hope for your cordial assistance—that is, in supporting me in carrying on the business of this province in the simplest manner.

I have prepared, and will lay before you a draft Executive Bill, by which you will perceive that I do not intend to appoint any Executive; but have retained in the Superintendent the entire administrative and executive control of the business of this province.

I have done this on mature consideration, and frailest reasons:—

First, having carefully weighed, and on closely called together, I consider it much better, and more in accordance with common sense, to take the opinion of the whole Council upon all important measures than to rely upon the judgment of two or three of your body as a Government Executive.

Secondly, because one of the main principles upon which we grounded our arguments for separation was the intention and the hope of conducting the business of this little province in a plain and unostentatious manner; devoid of all the expensive paraphernalia of other provinces.

The exorbitant expenditure and amount of assumptions of Provincial Governments is one of the main arguments in the public mind against this form of Government, and the cause, more than any other tending to destroy the popular feeling for Provincial Governments, and the rock upon which most unsteadily they will be wrecked if not guarded against. In a very short time, when the land sales do not yield the abundant harvest to the chest they have hitherto done, the costs of the Provincial Governments will exceed the ordinary revenue of the provinces, and then heavy taxation must follow.

By the course I am wishful to attempt, I hope to steer clear of the shoals that other provinces have struck upon, who cannot, or have not the courage to break through the barrier of official appointments, and the interminable net of machinery that has been gradually gaining upon them. Let us, therefore, in the beginning, while we are free to choose our course, view our little province as a small county, and manage all our matters in a plain, unostentatious manner, and then we shall be able to expend the principal part of our revenue in forming good roads and bridges through the length and breadth of our province.

I know the opinion of many of the other provinces is that we shall not be able to carry on without the like official machinery as themselves, but those opinions must be viewed with caution; lest we diverge from what should be our self-interest.

I think differently, while supported by you; and trust to prove the truth of the old adage—"Where there is a will there is a way."

In following out this principle I believe we shall have the full concurrence and support of our constituents at large, and without that, no representative government can ever aspire to do any good.

On this principle I shall ever try to act, and