Colonial.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 679, 7 May 1859, Page 3

Colonial.

TARANAia,

' { From this province we have, papers.of the. 21st I flnc j' 23,-d ult., which contain. the! following report of j a *peech delivered by the philosopher .of the Genera! J Government, Mr. 'Richmond, at a dinner given to H him by his friends in his native province. The day Ll of the dinner was the 19th, and the occasion of tlu> f'i speech was in replying to the^toast of his health. [I The' Herald' gives it as follows:— iff Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,—l haveto.fhank 11 you for the very kind manner in which * you have M received me this evening. I suppose according to ii the stereotype phrase in use "on these occasions I if on'°"lifc to say the kinuand 'flattering manner. But H- I,'for niy p«ivt; have no desire to be flattered, |i and you, I feel sure,, do not mean to flatter. I |jj I believe you are sincere .-in; the testimony you are B this evening giving of your rapproval of the general H principles which have guided my political course, m, and I accept with gratitude that testimony. W^'i*' if those general principles are yonlnr.w well, for I ■ ' plainly announced them when the electors of New I Plymouth returned trie in 1555. The confession I ■ then made of my political faith was- indeed a short H one, but it contained important articles, which'my If subsequent expenence.in the Genera! Assembly has ■ not induced me to retract or even to modify. My II guiding principles have been the maintenance of ■ the unity of the colony and the. maintenance of the H English character of our institutions. These.two 1 objects are closely related. You all know how I matters stood in 1856. The General Government I was in a state of collapse. lam not here to nigh t i to blame any body, or to reflect upon the past. I m merely state what you all know was the fact. On H the one side you had a General Government abdirci--1 ting all its functions, and on the ether you had the 8 Superintendents who were- "assuming power after M power. The Superintendents were an able, ener--1 gctic. and public1 spirited body of men—men::of if whom any colony might be proud. I cannot blame. If them for occupying ground which no other power || was willing or able to :occupy!' But you see that If this growing power of the Superihtendeuts.pjit "in 8 peril both the principles which it seemed to me of H vital consequence to guard. It menaced the unity S of the coiony, and it also menaced tlie English i character of our institutions. For the Superinten--1 dents being, like. the' American preside!) t; officers j returned by the direct election of a constituency iii I which the suffkgeisj all but universal, the'; lapse 1 into their hands of executive powers, which accordif. ing to English usage are.vested in Crown officers, I was plain iyn close approach to American fornis in' 1 this most important particular. I therefore kit it my I duty to make a staad against the growing power of I. the" Superintendents. These principles ■ with .us I here in Taranaki are" not-a-party question..: We m ara all agreed about them. To us it appears of II vital consequence toTpreseive: the iinity of the m colony, or at the very least to secure that the I Northern Island shall: be; under, a _single governI merit. It would not do for us to go down stream I with the iron pots. Not ajnan .of. us but sees this. But without looking'at'" the-question in the Taranaki point of, view, it has always to me appeared | astonishing that' inert "should be.found to contend ) that the islands of New Zealand are not a natural and indivisible whole. Whji, when I simply look at the chart of the world I am amazed at such an opinion. I assert thatnp part of the world is hy nature rnpre ■• eritii'e; iri: itself than these islands.

ITrne the two [islands are divided by a narrow strait, yet the wide,ocean spaces .which isolate us from all other5 terHtbry' 'seem; to'compel us to union. No doubt the islands of New Zealand are .: by nature much morei of a \vhole~tliairtiie TTiiited * ? Kingdom. Though1- the settlements which dot our t long coast line' are for the present isolated .from, I one another, yet -alreaßy vfe. begin to feel that.we have many common iuterasts. The number of tliese is continually augmenting;, arid will do so'iir a rapidly increasing ratio as thei present~irit«rve-; ning spaces between; the present centres of population fill up. Surely it is politic.to promote the growth of common1 interests, and iTo.t to adopt a course which would powerfully tend"to stereotype' the present accideiitaTdivisions,"and pVrpetuate the! isolation of our settlements. To hear some'menj talk you would think'that thesfnaller the political: divisions the better;' but T, for my part, stand for large political divisions. -Petty.governments will be ruled by petty motives. Local governments -want/ strength to combat those local prejudices and interests which so often- stand in ihew.ay of, the: development of .the resources of a country. It is a great mass of neutral"opinion which can be: brought1 to bear upon questions in which local passions are powerfully engaged. Nor have we got, men to carry on respectively six" colonial* governments. It is difficult enough to work our present institutions j but if the Ultra-Provinoialists, had their way, the difficulty would become an imposssibility. But why dolrargde thus here? It is; needless; for, as f-said before, we are all of a mind that the colony ought :ri<stf-'to be'diyided., Then as to that other principle11 h'ave*gorie*;ori—of opposing' Americanism. I believe the fundamental difference between the underlying .theories of; the- constitutions of England''and America, is as to the origin and the grounds of political power. American institutions are basedjupqn the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people'; ;No. political power can be legitimate that is not founded'ttpbn direct popular ccnsent. The will of the people is law and "right. That is the American notion.; It was the political theory in vogue at the fotmdationJof that great commonwealth. Bat .the theory has never been ] received in England. There we dp not deny,that there may be legitimate power which, is not a mere papular creation. .We still hold to' the idea that rightful power, whether in Ein.-f, Lords,'or C-.m----mous, does not merely come from below. Audit' is a necessary consequence of this that political power, whether in King, Lords, or Commons/aye, or in the holder of the simple electoral franchise, is not a property with which'a" man may without' blame do as he pleases, but a high and sacred trust, for the use. of which he is accountable to the community of which he is a member. But I must not pursue this subject, which, is not one easily exhausi ted. I will leave the theory of the thing, and say that—looking at mattei'sas a practical man—l do not consider that the American political S3 rstem, _ judged by its results, is as favourable to the well | being of mankind as our English, system. '. There- : fore whilst I would not servilely imitate every English practice, without regard to the essential differences between the old country and tins colony, still I am against taking America' for our model. Such were the grounds on which I gave .my support to the first responsible ministry, of which Mr. Sewell was the head. The ministry which I subseqently joined, and of which I have now for nearly three years been a member, has been faithful to the same principles. I will very briefly refer to our action upon those princ-iplas. In the first place we have put a term to the encroachments on the powers of the central -Executive, and have even resumed control over one or Wo depnitHionts which had been handed over to. the provincial authorities. We have, especially Celt it, f ;() i-, R our duty to take exclusive xontrol <>V llih judicial departments. The apprintment of re-ide'nt magistrates and sheriffs has been re-vented in the General Crovernment. Our'reaction has been anything but violent. Still I, for ray part, do not d*esire to see any further resumption of departments, unless it be that of the Registrar of Deeds. This. I think, ought to be under the control of the C4eneral Government; but it will be time enough when tlie l«iw relating to the Registration of Title under-

goes the revision which is so necessary. In the j next place, the action of the Provincial Legislatures has been confined within due hounds. Any one who will take the trouble to look at the Ordinances ..now sent up from the Provinces wijl see that a groat change has taken place in their character; that they are now for thu most part confined to matters which are lit subjects for local legislation. And here I would protest against the opinion which I .sometimes have heard put forward, —that the Provincial Legislatures arc now nuisances which ought to be done awny with. To me it seems a great advantage that the General Assembly should bo relieved of a mass of purely local business with which it is not competent to deal in a satisfactory way. The Imperial Parliament is overwhelmed with business of this nature —mere County or Parish-business ; —so is I ho Canadian Legislature. In this respect I think our Provincial Constitution is a great advantage. A local legislature, whose acts are subject to the Governor's disallowance, is, I think, less likely to job in legislation on .local matters than the House of Representatives, where local bills may be ran through the House, by a;few members without the possibility of official investigation, publicity, and discussion. This leads me to say that it results from taking England and her institutions as a model that we cannot be, as) some pretend to believe, hostile to local institutions, which are the strength and »lory of England, as they must be to every free • Cpun'.ry. We are called centralists. The term is ' Used as a term !of -reproach. Every Englishman hates the centralisation of the Continental Govern-ments-^-the centralisation of '"France undur the Empire. Bit the term, is ambiguous. In the debate on the new Provinces Act I tried to define this hateful ■ kind of Centralism as the interference of the General Government of a country •wi.h./pu e'y lo.al affairs. I did not. know •at the time that this precisely accords with the observations of an; eminent political writer—M. de ■Toqueville. '" In his great work on Democracy in America ho observes on the ambiguous use of the word centralisation, and distinguishes between what he calls 'Centralisiition of the Government and Centralisation of-'the: Administration. The first is the icentralis itiori of England, which for national purposes places the national resources in the hands of ;a single Government, and thus enables the nation to act as one man. Without this kind of centralisation1, de Toqueville justly says, no community can achieve great results. The other sort is the centralisation o? France; where the Bureaux at Paris pretended' absurdly to control the minutest details of the budgets of the. Communes. Under this sort of centralism local activity is put an end to, and a feeble dependence^ onGovernmeno is;substituted for an inyigorat ng self-reliance. Now, need it be said that this latter kind of centralism we hate and detest? This" matter is plain and simple. There are general interests and there are local. We may separate these, and give each class in charge to it's pYoperguai'diansJ Don't let the General Government ' meddle with the local Executives, nor the local Governments pretend to interfere with what is of wider concern than the limits of their jurisdiction. The last point to which I shall refer as illustrating the action of the present administrati ;n is the:position it has taken with respect to the Civil Service of the Colony. When we took office, and up to the late session of the General Assembly, there .were sighs of a very dangerous state of things' coming on, in:which all the.civil offices of the colony would have become the prizes of political adventurer?. You-know to what extent this is the case in the.United states, and there was imminent risk of otir lapsing into the same condition. Eesident Magistrates and Collectors of Customs were entering the arenaof politics asacti vecombatants. If this had been left to go on it would have ended by renderingall those offices political.. Each party would lnire ifcs own men,'who would have come in and gone out with" themselves We have set our faces - strongly against this, and, though we did not consider it; proper\ abruptly to check the practice, we have now, X'trusti, rendered it impossible for. the future. You see I have not. been enumerating the services of the present ministry. I have been merely'endeavouring to indicate the general tendency of o-jr political action. Before t sit down I wish to say a word Oibout two important acts of the late session which were hotly debated —the New Provinces Act and the Waste Lands Act. In some quarters the new mode of electing Superin-tendents-which that act introduces has been alleged to he a .contrivance for diminishing the weight of the Superintendent's office, and bringing those functionaries under the control of the General Government. But it is nothing of the kind. The chief object of the new mode of election is to provide the means of preventing the recurrence of those dead-locks to which the Provincial Legislatures are now subject. Under the Constitution Act a dissolution is no certain remedy, because the same Superintendent and the same or a similarly minded Council rnijjht be returned at the fresh election. But-when the Superintendent is elected by the Council this difficulty is avoided. The Waste Lands Act was also considered by some as a sort of treason against the provinces. All the Canterbury'" members opposed the act, but I am very glad to see that fair and temperate paper the ' Lyttelton Times' took a truer view of the position. The fact is that the necessity for the introduction of that act. originated with the Imperial Government. The Imperial Government having now become surety Tor the colonial loan of £500,000 has the interest of a mortgagee in our territorial revenue. At the colonial office they became quite alarmed at the tendencies of our legislation on the subject of the waste land, and, in consequence of that alarm, the Waste Lands Act , of 1856 was disallowed, and it became necessary to pass a new act on a different principle. We framed an act which was a very liberal concession t<> the local legislatures. It confirms the existing land laws, and vests the sole power of granting supplies for"Tithe administration of the Land and Survey Officesin the Provincial Councils. Mr. Stafford and t represented that it was, in fact,- a very liberal measure, and as much as could possibly be asked for from, the Imperial Government, but we were suspected1 of covert designs of encroachment; and we "we're not believed, especially, by some of our Canterbury friends. From recent intelligence received from England, it would seem that the bill which was reserved for her Majesty's assent is in some danger of rejection. I should regret this because it would leave our land laws in a state of frightful confusion, and uncertainty. The very doubt, however, as to the fate of the bill .should, vindicate our good'faith with our friends at Christcburchand Lyttelton. I must occupy no more of yonr time and must thank you for the patience with which you have heard me. I have purposely co;i fined myself to generalities; but theve is no va^urness, I hope, in (he. principles I have enunciated. It iswell that men occupying prominent political positions should fairly stats from time to time what what their views are—not only on matters of detail, but of principle. When' the general law which governs the motions of a p 'litic:-irman is understood, you then know, as it is quite necessary you should know, what you may expect of him, and where you ought to find him. Then it bocomes evident -whcthiT his avowed principles or some secret and illegitimate attractions sway hi:-, action-^. The, principles which I have to-night avowed are identical with those with which I entered political life in the colony. I have, to the best of my ability, adhered to those principles: I hope and believe that to the end I shall be found faithful to theifir