COLONIAL AFFAIRS.

North Otago Times, Volume VII, Issue 157, 23 November 1866, Page 3

COLONIAL AFFAIRS.

(To the Editor of the Oamaru Times.) Sib, — I have read with interest, in your issue of the 13th instant, your able leader on the public affairs of the Colony, and it ia gratifying to see that these affairs now engage the attention of ao many thinking men ; for with the exception of those most obstinate centralists, those apostles and champions of a policy and systom which affords them ample opportunity to gratify their vanity, their avarice, and their nepotism at the public expense, all who take an interest in the prosperity of our Province are beginning to feel that the evils of our Government, and the taxation under which we groan, are becoming unbearable '• that the Stafford Ministry, bent upon testing the public endurance, " will add straw after straw to the load till the camel's back is broken." It is fitting, therefore, that all who are true to the land of their adoption should bo prepared to do their duty and perform their part at this trying epoch in our history, and not only to devise a remedy, but to apply it with firmness and prudence, and if the peoplo of tho Middlo Island and their representatives are faithful to their trust, the wound might yet be healed ; but if we delay, a moro violent remedy, a more radical euro will be employed, resulting inevitably in insular separation or worse. In the " Bruce Herald," of the 1st inst., I endeavored to suggest an arrangement in some respects similar to that which you so ably advocate. You, however, express the Oamaru plan to abolish provincialism utterly, but provincialism with all its faults has many and great advantages, and whilo it would be well to abolish Provincial Governments as legislative bodies, with all that mischievous combination and parody upon the Constitution of Great Britain and the United States of America, we would do well to otherwise retain our provincial institutions for administrative purposes, ior in them we would have tho only effectual barrier against the centralising proclivities of the General Government, our surest means of retaining for expenditure amongst ourselves the revenues which we raise ; and each Province being divided into counties (here termed country municipal ties), these would come in for a share of the spoils which the Provinces would be able to save from the rapacity of the General Government. The electors of Bruce are now fully alive to tho importance and responsibilities of their political position, and will, I am conyincrd, gladly co-operate with the electors of other districts in supporting any measures that will secure justico to ourselves and promote the prosperity of tho country. I am, &c, WM. AKCHD. llUBRAY. Waitahuna, 15th Nov., 1866.