The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, FEB. 8, 1877.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 4984, 8 February 1877, Page 2

The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, FEB. 8, 1877.

We have in a former article commented on the present unsatisfactory state of the General Government in this Colony. We will now turn to the new system of Local Government which Ministers are inaugurating. And first we must notice a vicious off-shoot which has sprung from the diseased parent tree, an offshoot for which Ministers are solely responsible. We refer to their appointment of Prefets of Provincial Districts. We had hoped that this arrangement would have come to an end on the 31st December last. But we learn to our surprise that such is not the case, and that the Officers, Members of the Legislature, who were appointed on the Ist of November, and who were required by law to resign on or before DecembepnSl, any appointment which they might hold, have by some evasion of that law been continued in, or re-appointed to, their offices. We do not learn this from the New Zealand Gazette, for Ministers apparently think that secrecy makes sin venial, if not even virtuous. We derive our information from other public sources, and, in this Province, from statements made by Mr John Hall and Mr E. Richardson in their respective capacities of Member of the Selwyn County Council, and of Chairman of the Lyttelton Harbour Board. On January 17 Mr Hall moved that a copy of thd report on a sheep dip and reserve at Waiau be forwarded “ to the Agent of “ the General Government in this “ County.” And on the preceding day Mr Richardson, as Chairman of the Lyttelton Harbour Board, said that, although the Gazette containing the notice of the meeting being called for that day had not been received, “ the “ day had, however, been appointed by “ the Governor, and Mr Rolleston had “ received a telegram from the Oolo- “ nial Secretary to that effect,” and further, as we understand the statement, that Mr Rolleston had sent official notices to the different members

informing them of the fact. Now, Mr Rolleston must, if he complied with the law, have resigned this office before the end of the year. When was ho reappointed, and why is the public not officially informed of his re-appointment if it has been made ? We very much regret that Mr Rolleston should have ever accepted such an appointment. It was an ill-advised step on his part to do so. He erred, no doubt with the best intentions. He wished to aid in winding up the Provincial estate with a view to preventing confusion and inconvenience consequent on the summary abolition of the Province. But it is false morality to do wrong that right may follow; and it is incontestable that, in becoming the delegate of the Governor under “ The Provincial Abolition Act, 1875,” Mr Rolleston did a public wrong. What are the circumstances of the case ? The Act was originally submitted by Ministers to the Legislature with a clause enabling the Governor to delegate all Superintendents! powers, which were by the same clause vested in him, to any other person, on the abolition of a Province. The feeling against that power of delegation had, on various occasions, been so strongly and generally expressed in the House of Representatives that Major Atkinson, who was in charge of the Bill, withdrew the objectionable part of the clause when it came under consideration. Subsequently, another clause, which obviously had been originally worded so as to agree with the other clause as it at first stood, occasioned considerable debate, because it interpreted the word “ Superintendent ” to mean the Governor or his delegate, and because, consequently, as it was fairly urged, it was inconsistent with the former excision of the power of delegation. Major Atkinson, on the part of the Government, distinctly assured the House that neither the object nor the legal effect of this interpretative clause would be what was apprehended, and that its pissing would in no way militate against the former decision of the House that the Governor should not be able to delegate the powers of the Superintendent vested in himself. Upon that assurance, the clause, the 12 th section of the Act, was passed. And yet, on the first day of last November the present Government, with Major Atkinson as Premier, without any further authority of law, caused the Governor to delegate these powers under this very twelfth section which Major Atkinson had positively told the House could not and would not be used for that purpose, and which had been passed on his assurance to that effect. We do not attribute to Major Atkinson intentional breach of his word. He may have forgot what he said, or not understood the full import of his words, or he may have been misled by the casuistry of the present Attorney-General into the belief that what he promised as Colonial Treasurer in 1875 did not bind him as Premier in 1876. But there the fact remains; the decision of the House was unmistakably that the Governor should not bo able to delegate the powers in question, and it was authoritatively told that that decision could not be set aside by a side wind; and in spite of these facts, the decision has been so set aside. Under these circumstances it was, we repeat, incontestably wrong on the part v£ mr nuuescon, a Member of the Legislature, to accept the office of delegate, and thus aid and abet the Ministry in setting at naught the will of the House of Representatives, and the direct promise of the Premier. But, apart from these reasons, Mr Rolleston should have been the last person to have lent his aid to the destroyers of Provincial Institutions in the consummation of their policy. Some other hand than his should have been employed to administer the estate of the dead. As the late elected Superintendent, he was utterly out of place as the nominee of the present Government. It is no doubt the duty of public men to acquiesce in a change of law, however much they may have opposed it, but it is not their duty forthwith to take office with, or under, those who have brought about that change, and whom, as a Government, they oppose. What would have been thought if, upon the disestablishment of the Irish Church, Mr Disraeli, or Lord Derby, or any leading Conservative, had forthwith joined Mr Gladstone’s Ministry, or accepted from it a Oommissionership to arrange the details of what, as a Conservative, he would consider legal spoliation. Mr Rolleston, on the second reading of the Provincial Abolition Bill, in 1875, said, —“I believe “ that the election of the Superinten- “ dents of the different Provinces —in “ future to be called merely Provincial “ districts—and the retention of the “ Provincial Councils, are points essen- “ tial to popular government.” As a nominated Superintendent, then, he must, by his own admission, betaking an active part in unpopular, and therefore unconstitutional, government. It is true Other Superintendents are doing the same thing. But, even if that were, which it is not, any justification, he is the only elective Superintendent who opposed Provincial Abolition and also has become a nominated Superintendent. Moreover, Mr Rolleston has shone among Superintendents as the moon among minor lights. It is impossible to reprobate too strongly this first product of our new Constitution. It is the worst form of Centralism, for it is Centralism in disguise. We have been deprived of the power of electing our own Superintendents, and we have foisted on us Government Agents whom we do not appoint, and whom we cannot control. We have been deprived of the power of electing Provincial Councils, and we are given in exchange County Councils, who know not what to do, and cannot do it when they know. And this is called Local Self-government!