CENTRALISM WITH A VENGEANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1307, 24 January 1868, Page 2

CENTRALISM WITH A VENGEANCE.

IMPORTANT TO VOI.TJNTF.ERS

Ak order, we are informed, has been received from Wellington/ by the officer commanding the Volunteer force in Auckland, that no Volunteer shall absent himself from parade but on application- to the War Office at..Wellington. Formerly when a Volunteer or Militiaman thought: it necessary to ask for leave beforeabsenting himself, he applied to the officer commanding in Auckland ; now he must apply to the Minister of Defence at Wellington, even though he merely wish to visit the Thames gold-field! . ~ _ And this is the centralism to which Messrs.. Carlton, Creighton, and a few morewould consign the people of Auckland! We have a sample in this order of what we might expect it we abandoned ourselves to the sole charge ot the General Government. It is well that the people of Auckland should fully know at the present moment what they may expect as the result of throwing their affairs into the hands of the Government at Wellington. Just as in matters military, that Government would enforce so irksome and arbitrary a regulation on those within its power, would it, in matters locally political, compel us to bend to its centralising yoke. To yield up our provincial safeguards until we have some other substitute wherewith to replace them, is to change our present system o'f government, faulty as it as, for an intolerable and unendurable oligarchical tyranny. Provincial institutions may be susceptible of amendment, so, too, is the General Government of the colony. The whole Constitution is out of gear and must be renewed as a whole and not in part only. With regard to the order aforesaid, and which we suppose applies to the militia also, though of this we are uncertain, we can only regard it as a piece of uncalled-for interference. Surely the officers in command of the local forces here are best qualified to say whether this or that man shall receive leave of absence or not. If they are unfit to determine such a matter as this they are unfit to hold commissions at all. Does the Government of New Zealand desire to discourage the Volunteer movement and to stir up in the population generallv a determination to refuse to enrol themselves in the militia ? If it does so it could not, as regards this province, have taken a step more likely to advance its wish. The Government of IS'ew Zealand must remember that if the people of any province refuse to_ accept military service it has no actual force at its command, except popular opinion, to enforce the execution of such duties, and we make bold, on the part of the Auckland public, to assure the Government at Wellington that public opinion, in the case of such orders as that referred to, will take an entirely different direction.