NEW ZEALAND

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE,

(PROVINCE OF NELSON.)

Published by Authority.

All 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.

ALFRED GREENFIELD, Provincial Secretary.

VOL. XVII. NELSON, TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1869. No. 19.

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

Tuesday, April 27, 1869.

The Nineteenth Session of the Provincial Council was opened this day at one o'clock, when the following Address of His Honor the Superintendent was delivered:—

MR. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.—

1. The visit of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to this Province, will, I am confident, have given as much satisfaction to you as it has done to myself, and I believe to the community generally. I have endeavored, with the zealous assistance of the gentlemen appointed for that purpose at a public meeting, to afford to the Prince a reception which, while consistent with our means, should, at the same time, be in some degree worthy of our illustrious guest.

I have the gratification to inform you that I am commanded by the Prince to say that His Royal Highness was satisfied and pleased with his reception and entertainment.

His Excellency the Governor also desires me to assure the people of this Province of the great gratification which this, his first visit to them, has afforded him.

2. The Receipts of Revenue during the year, I regret to say, fallen very far short of the estimate which I submitted to you at its commencement.

The Treasurer's Annual Statement, which will be laid upon your table, shows that instead of £144,000, at which I estimated them, the actual receipts have only reached to the sum of £99,000, making a deficiency of no loss than £45,000. This deficit is attributable in some degree to the decrease in the population of the South West Goldfields, which took place early in the year, in consequence of the attraction of the Goldfields of Queensland and Auckland, but mainly to errors made by the Colonial Treasury in the sums paid to us during the previous year, on account of the Provincial share of the Consolidated Fund, and on account of Land Revenue.

These errors, which may be ascribed chiefly to the retrospective action of the "Public Revenues Act, 1867," consisted in the payment to this Province of nearly £16,000 more than we were entitled to, and as the payments were made in many cases by lump sums on account, unaccompanied by any definite figures, it was impossible to discover that any excess of payment had been made.

Not only, therefore, has the sum so paid in excess been deducted from the Revenue accruing to the Province during the year just ended, but my calculations as to Revenue for the same period, based upon these erroneous Receipts, have been entirely upset, the result being a deficit of at least £35,000, in addition to the decrease arising from the causes to which I have adverted, together with the general depression which prevails throughout the Colony.

As soon as the actual state of things became apparent to me, I reduced the expenditure upon public works as far as was consistent with engagements already entered into, to a point within the diminished means at my disposal, and devoted my attention to all practicable reductions in the department expenditure of the Province.