THE PROVINCIAL SYSTEM.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 482, 27 February 1868, Page 3

THE PROVINCIAL SYSTEM.

(Condensed from the ' Tress.')

j We frequently hear the question of Provinces or no Provinces argued as if it were only a financial one. But is it so ? The financial part of the question promises fair to be that which will force on a decision ; but, wholly apart from financial considerations, is it desirable that Provinces should exist with separate legislative and executive powers ? No one can deny there are great inconveniences in the system. The very existence of no less than ten statute books in a country is an evil, The diversity of laws in different parts of the Oo.ony is an evil. Everybody aoinits that. The Provincial system, with all its drawbacks, was an admirable expedient for settling and colonising New Zealand. And had not the Provincial Governments, one and all, abandoned this trust, and voluntarily incapacitated themselves from performing it in future, by anticipating all the revenues by which colonisation could alone be carried on, the provincial system might at this day be as necessary and useful as at any previous period. It might still be well worth while to put up with all the inconvenience of the separate I Provincial Governments and the cost of the separate Provincial establishments if the colonising power of the colony were enhanced, as formerly, sixfold. It is nonsense to say that Provincial Governments are necessary as a part of the machinery of government, because we are surrounded by communities at least as well governed as we are where no such system obtains They were useful, even as governing powers, at a time when the several colonies already settled in New Zealand were isolated one from the other, and communication between different parts of the island was infrequent and difficult. Their special usefulness as a part of the governing machinery has passed away ; for Government can now communicate from Wellington to Southland with infinitely greater rapidity than the Superintendent of Southland can with many parts of his own Province. We turn to another side of the question. Are they doing positive harm? Yes, they are; and harm of such a character and to such an extent as to corrupt the whole political life of the country. The provincial logrolling in the House of Representatives has often been s oken of as an evil. The history of last session has shown us to what a scandalous extent it may be carried, a<id the manner in which the taxpayer may be plundered in consequence. Every ind pendent authority in the colony —that is. all who are not interested in the result—know well that a vast sum of public debt was imposed on the colony last session, solely for the benefit of private persons or companies. And it is equally certain that the result could never have been accomplished without the block voting of the provinces. So long as the Provincial system exists; so long as a Superintendent sits in the House of Representatives with his Provincial Secretary or Provincial Treasurer, or both, and it may be two or three more of his Provincial Executive at his back ; so long will members for particular provinces vote just as it suits the interest of the Province—not the interest of the colony, and not the interest of the taxpayer. We have* had bunkum enough talked about excluding salaried officers of the General Government from Parliament; and we have seen Act after Act passed excluding such paid officials of the General Government of various kinds from the Assembly. And yet whole gangs of provincial officers are still allowed to sit in the House of Representatives, and to force the Government, against what it knows to be right, to supply the Provinces with funds which are to pay their own salaries. But it is not only on finance questions, but upon all others, that the provincial sentiment cripples and corrupts the straightforward action of the General Government. We speak as we have heard from many a member who mourns and grieves over the stain of the character of our Colonial Parliament. It is a fact well known from end to end of the colony. Questions are not considered in the Assembly upon their merits. It is not a question —is this right or is it wrong ? —is this wise or is it unwise ? Not at all. But the problem is—how will this question affect some other question in which our local interests are involved ? A multitude of instances might be adduced, showing that the honest sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, policy or impolicy, is fast disappearing, if it has not already disappeared, from our Parliament; and for this simple reason —that the men who compose the iiouse of Representatives own another master, and recognise a higher allegiance than that of the colony. They are members of the Parliament of the Colony, but they are mere political agents of the province. This is the system. So long as it lasts, so long will debt and taxation increase ; and the merchant, and the laborer and the farmer will be ground under the heel of the colony for the honor of belonging to a Province.