THE NATIVE DEPARTMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4298, 23 August 1875, Page 3

THE NATIVE DEPARTMENT.

To tho Editor of the Herald. Sir, —Now that tho result of a hurried meeting of the residents of the township of Alexandra lias pronounced in favour of the abolition of provinces—a change anticipated to bo fast approaching—and a major opinion arrived at by other meetings of the same nature—the question naturally prompts itself, " Would it not be equally well to exhibit the same feeling towards the abolition of a heavy burden upon the colony, viz., the Native Department ?" Let us assume that Federalism or Provincialism has exerted a momeutary strain upon the financies of the country, with every prospect of its continuing to do so if it remains in existence. I ask, do we not equally know that that Native Department,—its policy of bribes, its train of subordinates, tripled with its sycophancy, has helped to exhaust, and as long as it exists will illigitimately continue to drain, the country of a considerable portion of its finances ? We know well that such is the case. Then, if it is so, it is a change as greatly required as abolition of provinces. If such eagerness is manifested to help Government with abolition, and the object of Government be understood to bo au aim at an economy of expenditure (a motto, lot us hope, they will endeavour to illustrate in their Government Interests), why could we not as justly be in favour of the dismantlement of that mammoth structure of flour and sugar interior ? Many say, " First abolish the province, the other of its very nature will follow." If so, well and good. But we will find that the power will have passed out of our hands, contracted in a splenetary moment, and that it would havo been far easier to have at first demanded a responsible Constitution, one more rational than the present Provincial or intended Government systems. If Government had first led the van by sweeping away that native obstacle, as an example of their zeal for tho financial welfare of tho colony, then, many of those who have been and are indiscriminately classed with Provincialists, but actually patriots of liberty resisting the Government proposals with a conviction that those proposals enfold a latent keyway to despotism or despotic triumviratisra,—then they would havo, in the mai.', had confidence in the sincerity of the motives under which Government undertook to carry forward their proposals for tho intended changes. It is palpable that it is the same of that department as of Provincialism of the present—" that it is a thing of the past." That if it has subserved any good at all, the time has gone by, and it is now of no effect whatever.—l am, &c, Sat-Colonial. Alexandra, August 20, 1875. *