17

NEW ZEALAND

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE,

(PROVINCE OF NELSON.)

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereunto annexed, 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,

ALFRED GREENFIELD, Provincial Secretary.

VOL. XV. NELSON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1867. No. 6.

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1867.

The Fifteenth Session of the Provincial Council was opened this day at One o'clock, when the following Address of the Superintendent was delivered:—

MR. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL—

1. My first duty in meeting you on the present occasion will be to lay before you a full statement of the causes which have compelled me to ask your attendance at so short a notice, and at such a highly inconvenient season; as, had the circumstances been such as to leave me any choice on the subject, you would naturally and justly feel dissatisfied that I had not incurred any amount of personal responsibility rather than have called upon the Members of this Council to leave their homes in the height of the harvest, and without any sufficient notice, for the mere purpose of voting money to carry on public works, about the most important of which a great majority of members have already expressed their opinions, and sanctioned the necessary expenditure, without, however, giving that sanction the form of law.

By the 10th, 11th, and 12th clauses of the new Provincial Audit Act, which came into operation on the first of this month, the Provincial Treasurer is forbidden to pay, and the Auditor and Superintendent are forbidden to sign warrants for the payment of any public money "unless the sums therein mentioned are then legally available for the services therein specified, by virtue of an Act or Ordinance of the Superintendent and Provincial Council of the Province." By rendering himself "liable to a penalty of one hundred pounds" for each signature "to be recovered in the Supreme Court at the suit of the Provincial Auditor," the Superintendent is, however, permitted to sign "special orders directing the Provincial Auditor to certify warrants" for the payment of money not authorised by Act, or in excess of any sum so authorised; but even this power is limited to a total amount during the whole of any financial year, not exceeding one-twentieth part of the amount of the Ordinary Provincial Revenue of the preceding year, amounting this year to £2784 11s. 4d., beyond which sum no discretionary power whatever is left to the Executive or to the Auditor. On receiving a copy of this Act some considerable time after it was passed, and without the slightest previous intimation from any quarter that such an important alteration was to be made in the discretionary powers of the Provincial Executive, I still hoped that the liberal sum of £18,000, voted by you last session, and made available for almost any want that could arise on our West-land territory would enable me to meet all the urgent demands of the migratory population of our expanding gold-fields; but on the 12th instant I received information from Mr. Commissioner Kynnersley that the anticipated large influx of miners south of the Buller had been so greatly in excess of the number that could be located on the payable