Marlborough Provincial Gazette – 1865 – No. 100

Page 45

✨ Provincial Council Address

THE GOVERNMENT GAZETTE
OF THE
PROVINCE OF MARLBOROUGH.

Published by Authority.

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

A. P. SEYMOUR,
Superintendent.

VOL. VI.] THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1865. [No. 100.

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL
TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1865.

The Eleventh Session of the Provincial Council was opened this day, at Eleven o’clock, when the following Address of the Superintendent was delivered :-~

MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL—

I have called you together in order to submit to your notice, various matters of importance, which will require your calm and careful consideration, and I thank you for your attendance. And first I think it would be proper for me to furnish you with a statement, showing as nearly as I am able the conduct of the affairs of the Province since the termination of the last session of your Council; and I trust to your patience to bear with me if I somewhat exceed the usual limits of an address of this kind, and to keep in mind that my only desire is to cause you to become as well informed on every subject of interest as possible; and owing to my not (as has heretofore been customary with Superintendents of this Province) occupying a seat at this table, I feel desirous of making my statement as clear and explicit as possible.

FINANCE.

On my accepting office in September last I found that, from various causes principally connected with the goldfield or contingent upon it, the Province had expended during the quarter ending the 30th September, 1864, £20,097 2s. 2d., and it was apparent that such an amount of expenditure could not certainly be sustained, and that my first duty was clearly that of retrenchment. I therefore commenced a system of reduction as speedily as possible, and the balance-sheets show the amount expended for the October quarter ending on the 31st of December, 1864, £9733 14s. 11d., and for the quarter ending March 31st, £11,161 10s. 8d.

On my election I stated that it should be my endeavor, if possible, to keep the Province out of debt as far as the usual current expenses were concerned, although I heartily support the proposal to raise funds by way of loan for our railway, which I consider a judicious outlay of money, and one which would shortly prove reproductive. The impossibility however of at once reducing the expenditure to within the desired limit, or, if I may so describe it, of arresting the rolling ball, as well as the necessity of at once executing works of some magnitude for which you voted money last session has, I regret to say, precluded my carrying out entirely my own intention in this respect; and the Province stands now indebted to the Bank in the sum of about £4000; no great amount certainly, but still I had hopes of presenting you with a more favorable balance-sheet. To this result the present inactive state of gold-mining operations has tended not a little, whilst the returns from land sales also have not nearly reached the estimated amount.

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