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An Act to provide for the management of the land set apart as the Manawatu Race Course.

An Act to amend the District Highways Act, Session 9, No. 10, and Session 9, No. 4.

An Act to repeal clause 27 of the Market Act, 1854, so far as concerns the City of Wellington.

An Act to provide for the management of the Hutt Public Park and Race Course.

An Act to provide for the management of the land set apart as the Wairarapa Race Course.

An Act to appropriate the Revenue of the Province of Wellington for the year commencing 1st day of April, 1865, and ending 31st day of March, 1866.

An Act to amend the Licensing Ordinances now in force in the Province of Wellington.

An Act to repeal the Wellington Town Board Act, and make other provisions for the management of the City of Wellington.

And that I have reserved the following Acts for the signification of the Governor’s pleasure thereon —

An Act to authorise the Superintendent to repay the loan raised under Act No. 4, Session 4, and provide a Sinking Fund for the redemption thereof.

An Act to shorten the notice of the sale of certain lots on the Reclaimed Land in Wellington.

An Act to enable the Superintendent to remove the Pilot Station at the entrance to Port Nicholson.

However inconvenient it may have been to have held the present session during the meeting of the General Assembly, still it will be readily admitted that some of the measures you have passed could not have been postponed without grave detriment to the public interests.

It is a gratifying fact that year by year your votes for reproductive works for colonising purposes — have gone on steadily increasing; that this year you have been enabled to appropriate to public works no less a sum than £122,000, and that to this amount the ordinary revenue, after meeting all departmental expenses, and all permanent appropriations in the shape of interest and sinking fund on your loans, has contributed some £15,000.

It is true that your appropriations, amounting to £216,000, are in excess of the estimated revenue by £20,000. But this excess is really nominal, for savings will be effected in the ordinary expenditure, and some of the works cannot possibly be completed within the current financial year. I am satisfied that funds would have been forthcoming amply sufficient to satisfy all your votes, had the existing financial arrangements between the Colony and the Provinces remained undisturbed. But you are aware that since your estimates were passed proposals have been submitted by His Excellency’s Ministers to the House of Representatives, which, if agreed to, will very materially reduce the proportion of the Customs revenue hitherto received by the Provinces.

It is to be hoped that the urgent necessities of some, and the growing financial requirements of all the Provinces, will induce Ministers to pause before they insist upon proposals so calculated to embarrass the Provincial Governments, and to render them incapable of carrying out engagements into which they have entered on the faith that under no circumstances, without warning, would they be entitled to less than three-eighths of the gross Customs receipts: though they would not be entitled to lose than that proportion... to raise a loan of £50,000 to pay off a loan of similar amount neither falls in with the views of the present Ministry, as expressed in their circular letter of the 22nd April, nor complies with the stipulations of their proposed Provincial Loan Consolidation Bill; still, seeing that you have in this and a previous Act made ample provision, without imposing on the Province an appreciable burden, for the redemption, within a period of eighteen years, of nearly the whole of your trifling debt, I cannot anticipate that His Excellency’s Government will have any hesitation in leaving the Act to its operation.

While it would have been my duty, had time been afforded to me, to have suggested certain amendments in the Wellington Town Board Act, I heartily congratulate you that it has already been brought into operation; for I feel convinced that the large and independent powers with which the Commissioners are now clothed, and the ample means placed at their disposal, will enable them to undertake and execute all those public works which the rapid growth and increasing importance of this city render more than ever necessary.

There is one subject I cannot refrain from alluding to, and I need not say I do so with deep regret. Considering the liberal apportionment of the revenue ever made to Wanganui, that which, during the present session, you have actually appropriated to that district, almost exclusively for its public works, amounts to a sum of £33,000, while the revenue for the present year cannot be estimated at more than £12,000, and that its representatives have openly expressed their gratification at the liberal spirit in which all their claims and demands were met by you, it certainly does appear strange that the attempt to obtain separation should now be revived. To show what ample justice has ever been meted out to Wanganui, it is simply necessary to state that while the total revenue derived from the district for the period commencing on the 1st of July, 1853, and ending the 31st March, 1855, amounted in round numbers to £60,000, the expenditure within it for public works and for immigration was not less than £106,000, and that Wanganui, if debited with only one-fourth of the departmental expenses, and of the interest on the loan, would have received £157,000, and contributed only £60,000.

It is some satisfaction to know that the whole of the inhabitants of Manawatu, and at least three-fourths of the settlers of the Rangitikei-Turakina districts, have already protested, and are prepared again to protest against being included in the proposed New Province, and against its southern boundary being extended beyond the Wangaehu River; the separation of Wanganui, however much to be regretted in all other respects, will, in a purely financial point of view, be a great gain to the General Government. Upon the petition I believe I shall be acting strictly in accordance with your wishes by keeping the expenditure at Wanganui as far as practicable within the limits of its revenue.

It only remains for me to tender you my thanks for the earnest desire you have evinced during the present session to promote the interests of all parts of the Province; and personally to express to you my warm appreciation of the cordial assistance you have on all occasions afforded to the Government.

I now declare that this Council do stand prorogued.

I. E. FEATHERSTON,
Superintendent.

Printed under the authority of the Government of the Province of Wellington by Joseph Bull, Printer for the time being to such Government.