183

It has now been resolved to solicit your concurrence in reserving 900 acres, about twenty miles from Dunedin, on the Great Northern Line, with a view of locating both the Industrial and Reformatory Schools, as well as the Asylum for Lunatics and Inebriates.

This area of land would afford the means of healthy employment for the inmates of all these establishments, and go far to render all of them self-supporting.

In terms of the provision of the Ordinance of last Session, a Harbor Board has been constituted for the Port of Dunedin, to which body, in accordance with what was understood to be your desire, have been delegated all the powers and functions held by me in respect of Dunedin Harbor. The Government has likewise granted to the Board the use of all the property connected with the Harbor Department, pending your decision as to whether the Province is to make a charge for the same, or whether it is to be handed over free.

It will be necessary to amend the Harbor Board Ordinance so as to afford the Board greater facility than it now possesses towards the speedy and successful carrying out of the work, with the accomplishment of which it has been charged.

Gentlemen,—In conclusion there is one subject which so vitally concerns the future welfare of this Province, to which if I, as an integral part of this Legislature, do not on the present occasion advert, I should fail in my duty to the people with whose interests I am specially charged—I refer to the contemplated constitutional changes.

It is proposed as you are aware, forthwith to abolish the North Island Provinces, on the plea that they can no longer perform the functions assigned to them by the Constitution Act, that is to say that they are unable, without the aid of the Colony, to provide for the maintenance of peace, order, and good government within their borders.

Gentlemen,—If this be so—which I deny—the cause is not far to seek. The present condition of the Provinces might be very aptly illustrated by comparing them to a man who has been bound hand and foot by one stronger than himself and then told that, because he cannot walk he is a cumberer of the ground. Of one thing I am certain, and that is, that there can be no partial abolition, but that so long as New Zealand is one Colony, the Provinces, both North and South, must stand or fall together, unless in so far as they may mutually agree to a voluntary fusion as in the case of Otago and Southland. It is useless to disguise from ourselves the fact, that abolition of the Provinces implies that the whole revenue of the Colony is to be appropriated by the Colonial Legislature, and that Canterbury and Otago which now contribute the lion\'s share of the consolidated revenue, are to be called upon to supply still more.

It implies that the resources which will be derived from our Railways—railways, the whole of which are being constructed at the cost of the Province—shall become Colonial revenue, to be appropriated by the General Assembly. It will not be long before this item figures very largely in the annual balance sheet.

It implies, moreover, that the administration of the Waste Lands and the settlement of the country will be under the control of a power much less directly responsible to and under the eye of the people than at present. Although no doubt this might suit the interests of some, it is doubtful whether, in this Province at least, it would be conducive to the public interest. In the course of two or three years, the existing leases of extensive areas of country, now held as grazing runs, will begin to terminate. If properly dealt with these runs will yield a considerable permanent revenue, which will be increasing annually for the next ten years, and which will go far towards keeping down taxation; they will also carry a large agricultural and pastoral population. It therefore becomes us to guard most watchfully against an organic change in the Constitution, which I am persuaded will prove to be as the letting in of water as respects the future disposition of the Provincial Estate.

No doubt we are told, and that sincerely, that the Compact of 1856 is to become as the laws of the Medes and Persians. I confess, however, that I have no such faith in a Legislature composed of such conflicting elements as that of New Zealand.

I regard it as the sheerest infatuation on the part of the people in Otago to countenance a Constitutional change, the advantages of which (granting that there are any), will be as the small dust in the balance compared with the risk—or rather, I should say, with the certain loss which cannot fail to result. The same remark will apply in a somewhat less degree perhaps to our neighbours of Canterbury.

Why should the people of Otago submit to their resources being still further swallowed up in the maelstrom of Colonial finance? Why should they quietly take it for granted that they must needs be the victims of the inevitable, when, if they would only pull together and rise superior to local jealousies, they have the destinies of the Province in their own hands?