Evening Post. MONDAY, MAY 20, 1912. , CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM WANTED

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 119, 20 May 1912, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, MAY 20, 1912. , CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM WANTED

The Conference convened r> by the Government td consider the provisions of the Local Government Bill will meet tomorrow, and we regret that the omens are not nearly so favourable as a laborious and x highly laudable enterprise deserves, A thorough reform of its system of local government is perhaps tho most urgent need of thie country. The present condition of affairs is qnite intolerable. The multiplicity of local jurisdictions, with the overlapping, the confusion, and the waste of money and of power that results, is purely farcical from one standpoint, but almost tragical from another. Any statesman who, in planning tho government of a country with a million inhabitants, elected to give it some 550 local bodies, would be laughed to scorn. Yet thatis the actual position in New Zealand— a. position which has developed in a blind and spasmodic fashion, and which, though nobody defends it, everybody has • hitherto consented to v <rilera,to. Nearly a third of these local bodies have revenues of less than £500 a year, and spend about 20 per cent, of their revenue in the expenses of management, ' a* against less than 10 per cent, for the counties, and leea than 5 per cent, for the boroughs. The finan-' cial waste is, however, as we have always contended, far from the worst part of the business. In public affaire, as in private life, weakness and impecunioeity are apt to produce woree evils than an honest and laborious poverty. The impotence of the local bodies in those very parts of the country where an active, enterprising, and responsible local government is needed to guide and foster their development, has resulted in a wholesale mendicancy which has degraded rural | politics and struck a dangerous blow at the dignity and efficiency of Parliament. The wretched system of financing local needs from the Public Works Fund has proved a curse to the giver and the receiver alike. It allows and almost compels Ministers and members to farm this | fund for the purposes of political favour. I The House of Representatives is dei graded into a Board of Works, and the | bribing of the people with their own | money becomes an essential part of | statesmanship. For its own protection Parliament [ must put an end to this state of things, j which is thus seen to affect general politics even more disastrously than, ib affects local politics. Everybody who has i any intelligent care for the good government of the country is therefore concerned to provide a remedy. The residents in , cities and 'boroughs who have reason to be fairly well satisfied with the machinery of local government as it directly affects them have their general interests as citizens very deeply though, indirectly affected by the atrophy of local government in the rural districts. Issues, therefore, of the very highest importance, both local and general, are raised by the Local Government Bill which wa6 introduced by the Ward Government during the February session, and is to be considered by a conference fairly representative of the local bodies of the country. But in what spirit has the matter been handled at the various local conferences held for the purpose of selecting delegates? We regret to say that the spirit has been for the most part quit© unworthy of the occasion. We hold no brief for the Bill, and can clearly see that extensive modificatioW will be needed before it reaches the StatuteBook ; but the whok&a-lo attacks that have been directed at the measure betray a complete misconception of the gravity of the issues, and of the true object of the Conference. The Conference has not been summoned to accept the Bill or to reject the Bill as a whole. It has been summoned as a consultative body of experts to advise upon the beet cource of action to be taken with regard to a position which by every competent and unbiased .ftutborij^ is, spacgded.. to. UtLiij-

tolerable. It 1b true that the BUI will form the basis of discussion, but merely to find faults in it is not the object of the Conference, nor will it do anybody any good. Fault-finding nevertheless represents practically all that the bodieß whose representatives are to meet in conference to-morrow have co far contributed to the elucidation of the problems that are clamouring for solution. A» at least 400 of the 546 existing local bodies must be superfluous, it is easy to see that if they approach the tusk in a parochial spirit, there must inevitably be a large proportion of those engaged in the work of local administration who will be opposed to any thorough-going measure of reform. Every member of the Little Peddlington Road Board may be expected to have a more vivid appreciation of the indignity which he will personally suffer through the termination of his ."little brief authority " than of what the country will gain from the merging of these petty jurisdictions in bodies of wider scope aJid larger powers. The Little Peddlington point of view has, unfortunately, coloured the greater part of tho criticism to which the Bill has been subjected. We trust that the Conference will succeed in taking higher ground. It is the interest of the country as a whole that should dominate ite proceedings, and silence the voice of local jealousy. Approached in thia spirit, we believe that the Local Government Bill may be made the instrument of a very great reform. A representative, responsible, and self-respecting autonomy for the country districts as for the cities is the end that every member of the Conference should have in view, and it is by that criterion that he should test the Bill and every criticism that is passed upon it.