ADDRESS OF HIS HONOR THE SUPERINTENDENT,

In Opening the Eighteenth Session of the Provincial Council of the Province of Otago, 7th April, 1864.

Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Provincial Council,—

The close of the financial year renders it necessary for me to assemble you in Session, in order that you may sanction the necessary expenditure of Revenue for the current year. The general circumstances of the Province also make it imperative on me at this particular time to have recourse to your deliberative judgment and counsel.

The past year, although not marked by the sudden changes and commercial excitement which followed the discovery of gold at the Tuapeka, and more recently at the Dunstan and Lake districts, has nevertheless been an eventful and important one in the history of our Province; and the evidences of improvement which are everywhere manifest, are sufficiently indicative of a sound progress.

The subject to which, in now addressing you, I feel it incumbent on me to attach especial prominence, is the financial position of the Province—present and prospective.

When you last met in Session, an Estimate of the Ordinary Revenue and Revenue derivable from the sale of Crown Lands, for the year ending 31st March, 1864, was laid before you. That Estimate showed that the sum of £350,600 might, with reasonable probability, be relied on from those sources; while from the sale of Debentures, issuable under the concurrent sanction of Provincial Ordinances and of the General Government of the Colony, the sum of £650,000 appeared to be available for Public Works. Thus, a total sum of £1,000,600, inclusive of £20,792 2s. 6d., the amount of unauthorised expenditure from the 31st March, 1863, to the date of your last Appropriation Ordinance, appeared to be at your disposal; and by that Ordinance you authorised the Executive Government to disburse, on account of Public Works and otherwise, the sum of £929,404 13s. 2d. Of this appropriation, the sum of £678,000 has been expended.

Under some heads the expenditure has been in excess of your votes, while, on the other hand, many important public works for which you made provision are either uncommenced or only in course of construction.

Under the head of Uncommenced Works may be enumerated—The Port Chalmers Pier; the Cape Saunders, Taiaroa’s Head, and Dog Island Lighthouses; the contemplated operations connected with the improvement of the entrance to, and the erection of a bridge across, the River Clutha; the Provincial Government Buildings, and other works of more or less importance.

The circumstances under which unauthorised expenditure has been incurred will be explained to you, and you will be asked to give your attention to an Act indemnifying the Government for having so far exceeded the powers with which you had entrusted them. You will be also made acquainted with the various operating causes of delay in the prosecution of the authorised Public Works which are at present either uncommenced or uncompleted.

Having seen that the Estimated Revenue and Income for the past year, from ordinary sources and from sales of Debentures, amounted to £1,000,600; that to meet the requirements of the Public Service during that period you appropriated by Ordinance the sum of £929,404 13s. 2d., and that of that amount the Provincial Government have expended the sum of £678,000 only—it follows that the sum of £322,000 ought now to be available for Public Works during the current year, i.e., provided the expectations of the Government, when they framed the Estimates in August last, have been realised.

A short reference to actual facts and figures will suffice to show clearly our financial position.

Amount of actual expenditure
for the year ending 31st March, 1864 .................. £678,000 0 0
Revenue and Income from all sources, exclusive of Debentures, during the same period ................ 374,000 3 3

Leaving the amount of .................. £304,000 0 0
to be met by sale of Debentures.

With reference to these Debentures, you are doubtless already aware of the fact that, up to the time of the departure of the last mail, the whole of our half-million loan remained unnegotiated. The high value of money which has ruled in the English market from the time the Otago Debentures were placed upon it has, doubtless, had a prejudicial influence on its sale; but in order to account for this loan being apparently an unmarketable security, other causes more influential than a temporary scarcity of money must be in operation. Among these causes may, I think, be ranked the following:—

1st. Our real position as a Province, and the nature of our Securities, are neither fully known nor recognised in Great Britain.

2. Our Provincial loans, although assented to by the Governor of the Colony, not having the sanction of an Act of the General Assembly, are not even admitted to quotation on the Stock Exchange.

3. Competition with the numerous loans now on the London market, including those of Foreign States, our own Dependencies, Colonies, and Provinces, but more especially the New Zealand War Loan of three millions, which, as a Colonial security, from the superior position it appears to occupy as compared with a purely Provincial transaction, cannot fail to exercise a depreciating effect upon the latter.

A prudent estimate of our present and immediately prospective financial position seems to point to the conclusion that, failing a speedy negotiation of our loan, even with the exercise of the utmost care and economy in the construction of the Estimates for the current year, it may not be possible for the Province to escape the serious consequences which must inevitably arise from a crippled Administration and the cessation of Public Works, clamorously demanded by the necessities incident to rapid progress, but which must be sternly denied with an embarrassed exchequer.

I have brought this subject before you in a manner somewhat unusual in an address of this kind, from a strong sense of duty, being possessed with the conviction that we may be called upon to contend with no ordinary difficulties. That these difficulties may be avoided by prompt and decisive action, I as fully believe as I do in the possibility of their occurrence; and I am equally confident in the thorough soundness and stability of the Province, and in its possession of resources which cannot ultimately fail to place it in the foremost rank of British Colonies.

Without entering upon questions savouring rather of Colonial than Provincial politics, I proceed briefly to indicate the direction in which I think security against impending danger should be sought, as also the line of action which appears best calculated to ensure future exemption from similar difficulties.

Assuming that in the event of no material change occurring in the money market of Great Britain, and