MONDAY, JUNE l5.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3405, 15 June 1868, Page 3

MONDAY, JUNE 15.

The meeting at' Pa^tt?S-3irl' ! ntlsy last was uot*%t*Bvceessi«v Possiblymany thragsvsnay hft^^btfttibirted to this' unfortunate Result, »dlt%y^fe tonfrir^ cnai-geit up6n>ny ons*h)ne.[ TKere was bne radical blundeiy howtfver, rwe believe, which was'safficieniipiof itsdlf u «p^liave l'aeBtroyed'thl 'ae8troyed'th© t success of the' m&fflpg.^ Tf, instead ' of sixteeii, there had bee!}' %yro, hundred- electors present — if, instedd ol^eat apathy, great eagerness had been ma^erftfedjL-^liefacVthWtll^'proinoters 6fthe mee l^ti^ il meant; one thiia^'wheh'"they' put forward another, was enough* to turn success intotiMlure/} > AjdA it ia^erideiri; 4hat they did so. "fChey* called 'meeting apparently "to leai^^o'^ie^'df .andVexf, peo^t'weabierg on the/gejierkl of tbf ooloAJT; the)r intepWw*o')infcfcfoi^i*

meeting 'to condemn' provincial institutions. However badly provincial institutions may have worked in the Franklin and .Kaglan districts, this was not the way to deal with them, and a failure was only the natural result of a bad beginning. But when we call the meeting a failure, we do not mean that it failed in every way. Of thespeeches made, not one was wholly devoid of interest, or of some kind of value. A good deal may be learned both of men and things from studying the report of these speeches, and hundreds who "were not at the meeting itself may be the wiser for something that was said there This is indeed the main advantage of such meetings at present. No one has very defined views on the subject which is uppermost in politics at present. It is not natural — we donotfcnowthatit would be desirable — that they should havea cut-and-dried panacea ready to apply to the political ills which we all more or less acknowledge. Nothing but the contact of minds, the friction, as it were, of the ideas of | one man and another, can evolve anything worth much from the vague wishes, yearnings, and half schemes which are abroad at present. T^e Papakura meeting' did this more than any meeting that has yet been held in this prpvince, and so far it was no failure, but a success, in short, it failed in endorsing a little cut-and-dry policy, prepared by its prom )ters ; but it succeeded in contributing so nething towards a large and really national policy, which has yet to be elaborated by some ore. The weak point of all our politics ap pears to be their tendency to narrowness. Tie peculiarity of the English character, wj lich tends so directly to looal self-govern-m mt, appears to be wonderfully developed in th i> settlers of this province. That peculiarity is the tendency to concentration. Our ideas, ou r wishes, and our aims have a constant in ilination to come to a foous in a very small pcint. "We smart under some evil in our o\rn street, or our own district ; and the Proviicial Council, the Assembly, or even the Imperial Parliament seems to be viewed by ua, for the time at least, entirely in connection with our grievance. The Papakura meeting, and indeed every meeting we have yet had, illustrate this. The out-settlers are dissatisfied with their position at present. It is useless to disguise the fact that their objections to provincial government are mainly fotmded on its poverty. While £5,000, or £10,000 a year was spent in) extending and improving the South Road and its branches, the people of Franklin and Raglan liked Provincial Governments very well on the whole. It is only of late that it has dawned on some that thje country districts should 1 have had more policemen. It is Quite a new discovery made oy the settlers of JPapakura and Drury that they have been robbed to pamper Auckland. Aad not only are these discoveries new, but tley are for the most^part untrue. They are no more than the recriminations too apt to dijvide families when th© funds run low Such recriminations, let us recollect, enrich no one. To overstate, as Mr. McDonald overstated the case as against the province, is not only a waste of words — it is something far wprse. The' present is not the place to enter uion the" whole question of the 'extravagances of! Auckland as a province. It is impossible toj deny that foolish things have been dene ; and equally impossible to lose sight of the fact that every such foolish act must have iniured the out-districts, and, we may add, the city. At present, however, all this is beside the question. Such appeals as those of. Mr. McDonald to his brother settlers are simply mischievous. By overstating real faults, and inventing a few imaginary ones in the past administration of affairs, they pave the way for a reckless cry for change. They do not lead in any way to that calm deliberation which is the only safe course in a crisis like the present. iWe have said that it is the poverty of the Provincial Treasury, and not the misgovernment of the province^ that offends reformers of the class represented by Mr. McDonald. The burden, it is true, of that gentleman's speech was that the out-districts had been robbed. His questions were, where had the proceeds of the land sales gone 1 Had a fair per-centage been handed over to the districts for local purposes ? Had- the 'boundaries of highway districts been well defined 1 Had they had a fair share of policemen) and was a proper provision made for education % To all these things Mr. McDonald answered, No ! no ! and thought he had proved something in favour of his own scheme. Hehad done nothing of the sort. His questions might perhaps admit of much more equivocal answers than his own No ! no J but in any case they could but prove that the Provincial Government was poor. A rich government could no doubt have spared part of the' money got for the waste lands, and have handed over a fair percentage for local improvements. So far as the Papakura district went, the Provincial Government had, in better times, actually done more than this. The money spent on rdads and bridges in the neighbourhood was far beyond the 'whole amount 1 realised for the land. Again, a rich government could no doubt provide the luxury of as many policemen as Mr. McDonalds dearest wishes could desire, and so remove another grievance. In richer times there actually were policemen at Papakura and Drury, although' we cannot say whether' there were ' enough to satisfy Mr. McDonald. Finally, nothing but poverty withdrew the education grant. It is easy to say it was withdrawn to pay useless officials ; biit it would be equally easy for a provincialist to deny this j and it only resolves itself into the old crime of poverty. ,It will .be well to consider how the county " system is to make the' districts anyricher. If Mr. McDonald, and those who think with him that this is a simple matter,to! be dealt with offhand, imagine that the destruction of the. province would cause an immediate flow of cash into the coffers of the counties, they have a sad disappointment before them, we fear. If they see, in imagination, J a large land revenue coming in, a pewerful staff of • nolice'irien, 'a strong contingent of schoolmasters, following on the exp6cted«orerturn of provincialism, we warn them that i it is the only place- they* ever willsee it. We know how little a Provincial Government can now do for the province or its iout*lymg districts: we know-, also that a County Council will be quite fas powerless J becauße quite 1 as poor.' Could the Provincial Government impose local taxes, and the people pay them, all that Mr.-' McDonald wishes might be done at present : unless the County' Council can do do also, none of them w. II be done. And this is iihe keystone of th a whole edifice, which too manyof us leave dufc. If our 'Colonial '•Government is to tax *us to'tM'uttermost farthfn'g, then we' can pay ,nc "more* !whbever'asks -as. for it. We are JH !t«Btsowerle»fi tor pay the county eolleotort Withe provincial collector, go long «r&?

colonial collector • steps in first and demands our all. The true advantage of a change in our provincial institutions, therefore, will be found in the opportunity it will afford for remodelling our whole government. To substitute countieß for provinces may very easily, indeed, aggravate and not cure our political disease, unless this change is only one part of a system which simplifies all our government and diminiwhes all our expenditure.