Mount Ida Chronicle AND St. Bathans Weekly News. NASEBY, SATURDAY, SEPT. 11, 1886.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XVI, Issue 883, 11 September 1886, Page 2

Mount Ida Chronicle AND St. Bathans Weekly News. NASEBY, SATURDAY, SEPT. 11, 1886.

The occurrence throughout a rery large area of the country districts of serious special damage by floods, causing in many cases the partial destruction of costly bridges and other works, recalls once more with unpleasant force the unfortunate position of the country settlers in these matters, as compared with the advantages they enjoyed under provincial government, and subsequently under the first constitution of county government. It is true that it has been the policy of successive Ministries to induce the rural populations to forget how widely different a thing is county government now from the excellent and satisfactory system which was offered them under that name in. 1575, and for which they were induced to abandon the somewhat mixed blessings of Provincialism. But every now and then a disaster such as the recent flood does bring the settlers unmistakeably face to face with the realities of the change in their position. It is impossible to help reflecting that, under the provincial form of government, not only was no direct taxation of any land ever levied for the maintenance of main lines of road or the construction of important bridges, but on an occasion such as this the special damage to such | works was undertaken with as little reference to the rural settler specially as the repairs to damaged railways are now. The thing was taken straight in hand by a local central organisation, located in the chief town of each province, and possessing a competent stan? of engineers, inspectors and gangers always ready for work in any part of the provincial district. There was no attempt to fix the entire cost of replacing a huge bridge, or repairing the encroachments of a dangerous river, upon the handful of struggling settlers who happened to live near it. Nobody in those days thought of contending for. the principle that the inhabitants of the large towns, whose business depends mainly upon the maintenance of proper communication with the country districts which supply them with goods for export and consume their imports, should contribute nothing directly toward the expense of such matters. In the first system of county government these principles were fairly well maintained, the method by which they were secured being the payment out of the consolidated revenue of liberal subsidies to local governing bodies. The effect of that was that the general taxpayer of the Colony joined with the local ratepayer in the expenses attending the. construction of main country road works. Of similar effect also was the further provision that the nett land revenue raised in each provincial district should be returned to the local bodies of that district in their respective proportions ; so that on the whole, though the abolition of provincial government earlyintroduced the settlers in scattered rural districts to the unpleasant attentions of the local rate-collector, it offered them practically equal justice. I and better roads for their money. But it was not long before the process began, which Phaeaoh found so effectual with the refractory Israelites, of withdrawing a large proportion of the wherewithal and demanding ne9«> theless that the same amount of wojk Bhould bo duly performed Firrt tu^W

land revenue was taken away, then the subsidies; and though for a time, after the counties had been nearly starved into bankruptcy, a Eoads and ■Bridges Construction Act was invented to allow of the construction of new

works urgently required for the service of the public, it was so hedged round restrictions and injunctions that ruinous process was resorted money upo; a deviation to some £IOO of rates "int upon repairs—a transaction N , astounding as it may seem, actually the local body indulging in it, such were the unique provisions of this remarkable measure. Then, after a period of deplorable shillyshallying, local bodies were offered a half-subsidy for one year only; and this year the process is repeated, with a very vigorous warning that it is for the last time, and that henceforth borrowing iB to be the only aid to rating. All this compares very badly with the good old times ; and the reasons are, first, that the whole of the revenue which used to be applied by the proyincial government to roads now goes . up, to.. Wellington to be spent on Goodness knows what; and, second, that owing to the almost complete repudiation of the colonial engagements under which Otago was induced to vote abolition we have dissipated and discounted our position as the leading revenue-yielding province, and are now being made to bolster up with our hard-earned funds those Northern districts which never did and never will pay their own way. We are not praising Provincialism, still less are we advocating a return to it; but occasions like the recent floods are times at which no fault can be found with people who remember with regret and resentment that it was by false pretences that they were induced to abandon that system of government and throw in their lot more intimately with the remaining portion of the Colony. We hold, as in all our re- . marks about local government we have held, that the. Colony owes proper endowments preferably by annual subsidies—to local bodies for the maintenance of the main lines of road and principal bridges throughout the coub- . try, leaving the smaller district roads and bridges as a charge upon the rateß; and also that whenever new blocks of land are opened it should be the rule, and not the exception, that the first proceeds should go to the local body to recoup the cost of the necessary new roads. Such an arrangement, made on a scale fairly representative as between the general taxpayer and the local ratepayer, would come appreciably near to reproducing the old satisfactory relations which existed under provincial government, without restoring any of the fatal drawbacks of that obsolete and unre'gretted regime. The matter has. become all the more urgent because a process is now taking place as regards the provincial works analogous to that which begins to effect a new life assurance society in the tenth year of its existence, when "the lives begin to come in." All has gone swimmingly enough as regards many of our big bridges and smaller timber works for these ten years since abolition; but now it is a common thing for a £2OOO or £300» bridge in a poor and embarrassed county to be declared " shaky," and this state of affairs . can only increase as time goes on. What is to be done to meet this growing necessity? No local government scheme yet proposed by any government provides for it: all those schemes fail to recognise that " the lives are beginning to come in." And, as we have said above, it is specially at a time of widespread and ; serious damage, such as this, that considerations of that kind begin to press heavily on the mind of the already overburdened ratepayer.