COUNTRY EDITION. The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3155, 8 August 1881, Page 2

COUNTRY EDITION. The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 1881.

Ik the debate that followed on Mr Orraond'B amendment to the Crown and Native Lands Bating Bill, Mr Moss ; made a telling speech in favor of local

government. Tbe Colonial Treasurer,said Mr.- Moss, tells us that we self-government. I deny it ■ absolutely. Where have you local self-government at the present moment? Yo-j' create a few Road Board* with limited powers. and you call that local government. I call it local administration. You put up a few boroughs with limited powers. You tell them that they are to regulate the length of a barber's pole; what the width of a verandah is to be ; that they may prohibit perambulators from being wheeled along the footpaths: and you call the management of these things local government. Do these boroughs resemble tbe boroughs existing in the Old Country ? Have they the powers which tbe boroughs have there ? Honorable gentlemen know that they have not, and I need not waste the time of the House by pointing out tbe enormous difference that has been- made in this country. Then you put up certain things called counties. What powers do you give to them ? What means do you give them of raising their own revenue ? Why, the whole purport of the Bill now before us for consideration is to subsidize these counties—to find the means for them which every governing body ought to be in a position to find for itself. I say that any Government that has not full power to raise its own revenue—any Government that has to depend for revenn<* upon another body—is not worthy **' •* name of a Government. The ' jf ™ c member for Cheviot und- . <J<»*orable out the reasons why *\ -««ook to point I will follow hi- ', -frovinciahsm fell, but I shall-'..- 1 m the same course* too b- • Jir L jr somewhat from him. I. i '- hid some experience in the | „kiog of provincial institutions. I have seen them in their glory, and I have seen them at their lowest." I have seen them when tbey were the real governing power in this country—when even a Justice of the Peace could not be appointed without the consent of the Superintendant of a province—when they made their own land laws—when they entirely administered their own affairs. And was ever the country more prosperous ? Was there ever. more real progress in it than 'there was at that time ? At that Vime the Constitution of New Zealand was this: There were real local Governments to administer local affairs. This Assembly, composed of thirty-five or forty men, never interfered with those Governments. I remember two occasions when the Assembly only met on«e in two years; but so long as it refrained from interfering, so long was the country prosperous, co long did there exist content, and so long was there good government. But, unhappily, there were ambitious men in the colony at the time, and it is an extraordinary thing that they generally came from Taranaki. There were ambitious men, gifted with great powers, and who, unfortunately, found Taranaki too small a field for the exercise of those powers. Tbey came into the General Assembly, and into General Government of the country. From that moment there was no peace. These men determined that New Zealand should not be governed by the then existing institutions—that they were too democratic / —and that they would set up in their I stead other institutions more in accordance with their own personal views. That, was the original difficulty between the provinces and the General Government.