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Lyttelton Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 4618, 2 December 1875, Page 2

The electioneering campaign in Christchurch may be said to have fairly commenced with Mr Stevens’ address to the electors on Monday evening. There was only a tolerably good attendance, a fact which may be accounted for by the breaking out of a fire only a little while before the time advertised for the holding of the meeting. From this cause, too, there was some little interruption during the earlier part of the evening owing to the continual arrival of latecomers. But throughout a very long address, Mr Stevens was listened to with great attention if there was no very great display of enthusiasm on the part of the audience. For about two hours the candidate discoursed on the various leading political questions of the day, ,viz., Abolition, the constitution of the Upper House, Education, Finance, and the mode of dealing with the pastoral tenants in view of the expiration in 1880 of the present tenancy of the runs. Everybody was prepared to hear Mr Stevens announce himself as an Abolitionist, but we doubt if all, or even any of his heai’ers were prepared to learn that he is so completely a Centralist as in his speech he declared himself to be. However, before we touch on this question, we may allude to what- Mr Stevens brought forward as a novel argument against Provincialism. We quote his own words :—“ In consequence “ of the enormous sympathy, I may say “ the sole sympathy, of the people of the “ Provinces being taken up with their “ own Provincial Governments, with but •' the Government under their own eyes, “ things have been done by successive “ Colonial Governments which ought “ never to have been done, and which “ never could have been done if the “ people had taken the same interest in “ the Colonial Government and Legisla- “ ture as they had evinced in the Govem- “ ment and Legislature of the Province.” Precisely so; but it is just because of this very fact that it has been constantly insisted on in these columns that Provincialism had very great advantages which we are being asked to throw away without receiving any adequate return. We understand our own affairs, and are able to keep watch on the Members of our local Provincial Councils; but, seeing that the interests of the various Provinces, from one cause or another never have been, and are not yet identical, it is not in the nature of the case that the same intelligent watchfulness can be exercised over the Colonial as over the Provincial Government. feel and cannot but feel that they do not understand a question that relates to Auckland or Hawke’s Bay as fully as they do one that relates to Canterbury. Surely it is wither a strange argument to use, that because successive Colonial Governments have done things which ought never to have been done, therefore we should hand over our all for them to make ducks and drakes of. It is as though a man who had a servant, whom he had proved to be untrustworthy in the department committed to his charge, should be asked to dismiss other servants of proved faithfulness. and industry, and commit their duties to the dishonest servant, because, foresooth, a better watch could by this arrangement be kept on the knave’s movements. Mr Stevens is far too good a man of business to practise any such wild theory in his own concerns.

Coming to the question of the form of Local Government -which is to replace our present Provincial Institutions, Mr Stevens is of opinion that everything can be done by a series of nominated Boards. Tlie reason -why these Boards are to be nominated, rather than elected, is because he thinks it would be more in accordance with the received theory of Parliamentary Government. A Minister nominates a Board, which, in some way not pointed out, is responsible to Ministers, who again are responsible to Parliament, which in its turn is -responsible to the people. Thus, for the sake of a symmetrical theory, the only public function which any of us are to be allowed to perform, is to elect our representative in the General Assembly, and blindly trust him and his colleagues to keep in check a Ministry endowed with a power which, so long as it lasts, is little short of absolute. Why cannot the members of the yarioiia Boards he elected by tlie public at large, i tD.U uuuo be made to feel that they owe to the public a direct responsibility, and that if they abuse the trust committed to them, a speedy expulsion from their office will follow P The same sort of check will then be exercised on the members of these Boards as has been hitherto exercised on the Members of our Provincial Councils, and of the efficacy of this check we are quite willing to take the testimony given by Mr Stevens himself in the paragraph of his speech which we have quoted. But he may reply that these Boards must be entrusted with the expenditure of public money, and ought, therefore, to be directly responsible to the Ministry, and he may say that it is an unsound principle of finance, that a body should have the spending of money which it has not raised. Admitting that this is correct, we reply that Ministers in making the grants to the various Boards, do, in effect, spend the money, and if, after due inquiry, they found that a Board had, during any year, been wasteful and lavish in its expenditure, the remedy would be in their own hands; they need not make such a large grant to that Board another year. But even supposing that any real inconvenience arose, then there is before us a choice between two evils—the choice of a cer-

tain waste of money and absolute Centralism. For ourselves, we unhesitatingly choose the former risk, knowing, that with proper care at headquarters, it is not a very great one. To complete Mr Stevens’ theory, he ought to declare himself in favour of nominated Road Boards end Municipal Councils. ' Under the Abolition Bill, they will have the spending of money which they do not raise; they ought, therefore, to be responsible to Ministers who raise this revenue, and ought, therefore, to be nominated by them. There is one point in connection with | Abolition on which Mr Stevens was not 1

explicit on Monday evening, and which is of great interest to this or any other Canterbury constituency. This point is, what is to become of the residue of the Land Fund after paying the various charges provided for in the Abolition Bill. That residue is at present a very substantial reality in this Province; and we do not imagine that the electors of this City or Province are willing to give up many thousands of pounds to throw them into the Colonial chest. The question should be distinctly asked—Will Mr Stevens consent to Abolition if Abolition means giving up the Land Fund ? Under the Bill that was provisionally passed last Session, the Land Fund is to be localised, but there can be no doubt but that many new Members will be returned to the next Assembly, and therefore that many of the principles of that Bill will again come under discussion in the House of Representatives. Many who clamour for Abolition in the Provinces of Nelson and of Westland, as well as in the North Island, will naturally be most anxious that this fundamental principle should be re-discussed,. Each Canterbury constituency, therefore, ought to insist that its representative is sound on the question of the Land Fund. We shall refer to the other topics touched upon by Mr Stevens in a subsequent issue.