The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1875.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 4426, 21 April 1875, Page 2

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1875.

Sterne in_ his “ Tristram Shandy ’’ solves the difficulty which the old man in the fable could not get over, of pleasing everybody, and yet at the same time saving his ass. He tells how two ladies were driving in a calash drawn by a mule; the mule would not get on for want of his usual modicum of muleteers’ oaths; the good women could not bring themselves to use such a spur as an oath, so they hit upon an expedient,- one took the first syllable of the oath, and the other took the second, and by repeating them in rapid succession, they produced on the asses’ ears the full effect of the good round oath. Thus they saved their consciences and their rate of journeying at the same time. The expectant provincial solicitor, and the expectant provincial secretary, seem to have adopted a similar ruse in the debate last week on the Municipalities Bill. The one said to the municipality in a round about way, “You’ll get;” the other said, also in a round about way, “ No- “ thing.” And thus between them, they managed to drive their mule through the bill, oust the Government, please their constituents, get themselves into office, and yet commit themselves to nothing. The magnificent vagueness of the embryotic provincial solicitor’s “ Ton’ll get,” is so apparent as to need no sifting; his utterances remind one of Jack Cade’s “ There will be in Eng- “ land seven halfpenny loaves sold for “ a penny; the three-hooped pot shall “ have ten hoops; and I will make it “ felony to drink small beer.” Yague and exaggerated promises for the sake of office are only too common, and are their own refutation. But the elaborate “ Nothing ” of the embryo Chancellor of the Exchequer is worth noticing, if it were only for the uniqueness of the production. Like Gratiano “he speaks an infinite deal of “ nothing; his reasons are as two grains “ of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; “ you shall seek all day ere you find “ them; and when you have them they “ are not worth the search.” Or rather his speech is like a decimal fraction; the figures look large and valuable, and taken separately they are valuable, but taken as joined by a decimal point, their value is next to nothing. The prospective Treasurer’s speech is a very nice one, if only one tries to read each sentence quite apart from the sense of the rest. Take the speech as the production of one man at one time, and it is sheer nonsense. As an instance, compare this—- “ No injustice had been done to munici- “ palities in the past, because if they “ thought they were being Unfairly dealt “ with they could have come to the “ Council, and he felt sure that their “ case would have been fairly con- “ sidered ” —with this—“ He thought “ the matter was fully and fairly argued “ out last year; the argument that they “ could not afford to vote this money was “ a sufficient one to warrant honourable “ members in rejecting this hill.” Again, “ He preferred to consult the interests “ of the province as a whole ;” and yet he acknowledges his darling Road Boards did no good to the ratepayers of their districts—" The ratepayers of the “ country districts reaped no such “ benefit.” Oh, sweet spirit of Sancho Panza ! thou art resurrected, and Canterbury is thy Bavataria ! hut thou hast I not left thy ass this time to pine away 1 in obscurity during tby term of office !

We can fancy the new-fledged secretary, after persuading the municipality to appear before him with its petition, exclaim, with his great Baratarian prototype, “ Impudent scoundrel! I have “ not yet had the Government a day “ and a-half, and you expect I should “ have six hundred ducats !” The municipalities, we suspect, will fervently pray that this new Governor of Barataria may also exclaim soon, “ Let them “ take back their Government; for an “ office that will not find a man in “ victuals is not worth two beans.”

We shall be just to the speaker, and take him at his best. We will not take the speech as a whole, but fix on one of the grains of sense in it; we will choose the sentence that seems to contain most of the speaker’s rustic philosophy. “It “ was said that the rates in the munici- “ palities were much higher than “ those in the country districts, but it “ was forgotten that every halfpenny “ spent in the municipalities benefitted “ every ratepayer, but the ratepayers in “ the country districts reaped no such “ benefit,” “ Bless thee. Bottom, bless “ thee, thou art translated !” The prospective wand of office must have harlequinade d thy ears ! Wilt not give us more of that sweet voice, “which “ will roar you as gently as any “ sucking dove ? ” But there is evidently philosophy in the sentence, if only we could get at it. At first we thought the sentence was an answer to some conundrum in political economy, and that the emphatic word was “halfpenny;” but the reasoning overleaps itself; if the country ratepayer’s do not reap any benefit from the money laid out by Road Boards, who does P and if nobody reaps benefit from what Road Boards spent, what is the good of Road Boards spending money at all? rmless we want to keep them up as expensive training schools for the financiers of the future. And if every halfpenny spent in the municipalities benefit every ratepayer in them, could the money of the province be better spent than in benefitting a place so capable of being benefitted ? According to the reasoning of our new financier, money spent in the country districts benefits nobody, and might as well be thrown into Lake Ellesmere ; whereas money spent in the municipalities benefits everybody in them, not to speak of those outside. But this cannot be what the champion of the country districts means. His reasoning seems to be, if he can be said to have reasoning, that the wider the districts the less benefits do the individual inhabitants receive from the public money spent in them. If this be the principle with which the youthful Hercules of finance would strangle the petition of the municipality, we are sorry for the ministry of which he is a member; we may expect to see Canterbury funds divided according to the acreage of districts ; even Road Boards will have to give way, and the province be divided into districts of say a thousand acres for the purpose of distribution of money; thus Oliriotolnuvdi will get about the ten thousandth part of the sum set apart for the improvement of the province. Nothing could be so pernicious to the interests of New Zealand as this paltry parochial spirit which would subdivide it for the purposes of local government, not into provinces ranging round centres of population with more common than divided interests, but into petty districts that will in their rivalry and antagonism let slip through their fingers their real common good in eagerness to grasp at narrow interests. The reductio ad absurdum of this principle is the complete annihilation of local government by making each man rule his own property. We would remind the clamourers against Provincialism that Road Board districts are not the ultimatum of subdivision, and that Road Boards are as open to complaint as Provincial Governments. Only last week we noticed a petition forwarded to the Nelson Provincial Council by the Nelson miners against both Road Boards and Provincial Governments. And the impossibility of putting a stop to the process of subdivision is well illustrated by the history of religious sects. There is a story told of a Scotch sect which had got so subdivided that at last there remained in the original stock only two members. Some outsider and heathen remarked to one of the two, “ Well, Janet, I suppose you and John are the only true members of Christ’s kirk upon earth.” “lamno so sure about John,” was the reply. Again, to make area of district the principle of division of money which is gathered per head is one of the most iniquitous of proceedings. The centres of population are more used by the people of the province than any other part, and it is the extreme of foolishness to spend most on that which we use least. The language used by this opponent of municipalities is the best argument for the endowment of municipalities with larger incomes than country districts. What benefits the smallest number of people, should always give way to that which benefits the largest number. Only the most wretchedly parochial mind thinks of districts, instead of masses of population. If money is to be distributed according to area, the mountains will have the best of it in New Zealand.

Happily for the province, the secretary’s sentiments are, as we have shown, at sixes and sevens, as also seem to be the elements of the new Ministry. “ Misery and politics acquaint a man with strange bedfellows.” Most, we doubt not, will say of the present Ministry as Master Slender in the Merry Wives of Windsor said of his marriage : “If there be no great love in the “ beginning, yet heaven may decrease it “ upon better acquaintance when they “ are married and have more occasion to “ know one another; I hope upon “ familiarity will grow more contempt.” We wait the result as we would the solution of a conundrum.