THE Press. SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1869.

Press, Volume XIV, Issue 1880, 24 April 1869, Page 2

THE Press. SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1869.

It so happens that several of the Provincial Councils will have held their sessions very shortly before the meeting of the General Assembly. The session of the Wellington Council is just over ; that of the Otago Council began on Thursday; while the Council of Canterbury, in accordance with the understanding between it and the Executive last year, has been summoned for a short special session on the 7th of next month. This arrangement, whether accidental or designed, is advantageous, for there are many matters to which it may be useful to have public attention directed before the Assembly enters on its deliberations. The session of the Wellington Council was very brief. The condition of the province is such that members seem to have given it up as hopeless, and to have thought it but waste of time and trouble to endeavour to find remedies for what was clearly beyond remedy. The Provincial Executive have nothing left but to hold their official robes around them and prepare to encounter their fate with what dignity they may; not, however, without a secret hope that a goldfield, that deus ex machind of distressed provinces, may yet turn up in time to avert the throes of a too evidently impending dissolution. Mr. Pharazyn's proposals furnished the Council with some more substantial materials for debate j and though the discussion they underwent was not profound and ended in nothing particular, yet they must at all events have brought the questions raised therein before the; public in a definite form, and have prepared them, should any similar proposal be made in the Assembly, to give it an attentive and intelligent consideration; , In Otago, where more than in any other province the Government has magnified its office and delighted to take upon j itself a quasi-imperial state, stern retrenchment is now the order of the day. The Council will nave to determine how to maintain the efficiency of government while pruning away with unsparing hand expenditure. They wul have to unlearn the ambitious

lessons of older times, and to recoteuu-ej the wisdom, of the prove-rh advises the fashioner of a garment to have an eye to the measure of his cloth. Several sweeping projects of reform have been mooted; and even should the discussion lead to no immediate practical result, suggestions may be thrown out which may be found of value and may bear fruit hereafter. In Canterbury the work before the Council is most important. The members will be invited to examine into the existing Boad Board system, with a view, if possible, to devising some scheme—whether by enlarging the! powers of the Boards, by guaranteeing them some fixed endowment, or appropriating to them a definite portion of the land revenue —by which they may be made more widely operative as a means of local self-government. We hope the question will be fully, carefully, and impartially considered. It goes to the very root of the matter. The problem is, to provide a machinery which shall supply the wants of the country districts, check the centralising tendencies of the Provincial Governments, fill up as required the gaps where provincial institutions have broken down, and prevent any undue absorption of political power by the central authorities. Perhaps if, setting aside for the time all thought of maintaining the dignity and importance of the provincial governments, we regard only the interests of the people, it will be found the simplest plan to begin at the lowest end of the scale, and, taking the Boad Board as a unit, to look to aggregations of Boad Boards for the means of managing such affairs as extend over a wider area.- It would be quite possible, we think, to frame a system on this principle which would work satisfactorily, could be enlarged to any extent when wanted, and, while thus capable of being adapted, or ratber self-adapting, to future requirements, would iuvolve the minimum of disturbance of the existing order of things. If the Provincial Council of Canterbury can succeed in elaborating, or even sketching a tolerably distinct outline of such a system, they will have helped the colony in a dilemma, and have done right good service, not to their own province only, but to the whole of New Zealand.