THE New Zealand Herald. SEPTEMBER AGENDO. THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1876.

New Zealand Herald, 30 March 1876, Page 2

THE New Zealand Herald. SEPTEMBER AGENDO. THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1876.

The more we reflect on the new Constitution sketched by the Premier, the more apparent does it become that the whole thing is unsound, weak, and unsatisfactory. It is unsound in conception, "weak in its display of inability to grasp the "whole question, and unsatisfactory in its results. The errors of conception are apparent in the Premier's idea that it is only necessary to take a firm stand and to shew that Ministers are ready and prepared to take orer the Government of the Colony, when we shall find that the people, -weak and "wavering, "will submit to inevitable fate, and " a great moral effect be produced." • .These errors are equally apparent in the following paragraph, which is worthy of attentive perusal : — "Last session," says thej>Premier, "when "we brought down our proposals for abolishing the provinces "we had no guarantee the Assembly would agree to them, and therefore we had not even an excuse for anticipating talcing possession and, preparing for it, as "we are now to a great extent justified in doing, by the simple fact that the law says, on the day after the close, of the next session of Parliament the provinces shall come to an end;" The. statement that an " excuse" "was necessary is curious enough, but more I curious is the manner in which the deep I and enduring interests of the people in I their Constitution are entirely overlooked. I It was in regard for those interests that I:

.the operation of the Act was 5 deferred till the' peo'ple, through representatives, had given _ an opportunity of expressing jthoir opinion. Th§ ['Premier commits? jthe! grave error "of' regarding Abolition--aa' -thei sole j end of considering fthe struggle over, and of casting the important 1 / Local Government Bill aside as a ""-secondary and trivial matter. Inability to grasp the whole question is also strongly displayed in this and in the after-mode of treatment. The changes in the Constitution are looked at as a mere departmental business. Put this branch of the public service under one Minister; put that under another; create a new Slinister or two to take charge of Crown lands and goldfieldsf; appoint heads to the several departments in each province,- and, according to Sir Julius, the thing is done. Not a word to indicate a sense of the revolution in our political and social condition which the destruction of local and accessible control implies. ISfot a word of the enormous additional patronage given to the Government and the increased danger of corruption. a thought of the certain and immediate effect of this monopoly, in crushing our present active political life down to the exercise of an election, once in five years, of members who can find time, or who can make it pay, to spend half the year in Wellington. The scheme is unsatisfactory in its results because clearly unworkable. It would obliterate the whole of the last quarter of a century from our Constitutional history, in order to start us afresh on a series of c< tentative measures," out of which a new Constitution, on entirely new principles, is to be slowly and painfully elaborated. So violent a disruption between the past and the future, with so complete a disregard of the habits, condition, and aspirations of the people, is not statesmanlike and cannot prove satisfactory. The Parliament (that is to say the late Parliament) has decided certain things, Bays Sir Julius, and "we have determined not to remain idle until the day for talcing possession arrives—not to postpone action until the new Assembly meets." It does not occur to Sir Julius that the object in deferring the Abolition Act last session was to get a new ppinion from a new Legislature thereon. It is a coup d'etat and not sound English progress in Constitutional Government to which such language might more properly apply. The County scheme, which Ministers propose as a " tentative measure" to amuse us while they absorb all power and patronage and confine all political life to the Assembly and themselves, i 3 only a burlesque, and a very absurd one, of the County and Parish systems that have grown up in England. They are there surrounded with the halo of time and are connected with venerable traditions. They are worked by men settled for generations in the land, full of a broad and generous patriotism, ready to make any sacrifices for their country in its need, bound to those around them by an active sense that property has duties to perform as well as rights to maintain. Shall we find such men here in the numbers necessary ? Our County Councils and our County Magnates, are to be elected, and for that purpose each county is to be divided into seven or nine electoral districts. Our Lord Lieutenants will be the " delegates" of the Ministry, who were promised us in the Abolition Bill. In England the " Council" is composed of the leading county gentlemen, linked to the county and to the people by common struggles against Eoyal tyranny in the past, by common sacrifices, and by the traditions and glories of their common hist ory. "We have nothing analogous in colo.uial life out of which to evolve our Lord'| Lieutenants or county magistracies. Our Road Boards are to be the proto types of English parishes, where petty strifes and Bumbledom are provei "bial. Our hospitals, asylums, and c charitable institutions are to be locally managed, and it will be our duty, siays the Premier, "to make proposals ; in that direction, so that the Goveriunei, it of the Colony may be relieved of the char ge." In these "local managers" we havt 3 again the prototypes of the Boards of Guardians, and others who manage "local" institutions in England, and who rely for their support on the pariah, poor, or county rates. Even in England, where this system ha 3 grown with the people and become part of the life of the nation, it is not now considered satisfactory. We have all heard the increasing cry for more power to localbodies —more local governments, in fact. So loud is the cry, t hat Lord John Russell, a few years ago, proposed, with great commendation f.i'om many English statesmen, that England should be divided into three or four provinces, and that each province should be under the control, in all internal affairs, of a local representative body, endowe d with definite, large, and independent p>owers. " It is unlik.ely that the Constitution proposed by th e Premier will receive support from any considerable section in the country. It may please the " recognised heads of departments" whose appointment the Premier thinks necessary " when the provincial heads are abolished." It may please the Police— "that very .strong and important service" who are not to be incorporated with the demilitarised .Armed Constabulary les;t " they might entertain the feeling that they would not receive fair treatment at the hands of the department (of Native ."Defence) inasmuch as it would not unnaturally favour its own force, the Armed Constabulary." It may satisfy the amour propre of contractors, for whom local treasuries are to be continued because " wis recognise they would feel aggrieved if, because of a political change, they should be compelled to send vouchers to Wellington and be kept longer out of their - money." It may please those who are to become heads, delegates, and officials in the highlypaid and well-pensioned service of the General Government, instead of the illpaid and unpensioneol service of the provinces. But it will not please the people whose political life is to be crushed, irhose aspirations an e treated as unworthy a thought, wlho are to be put inder a Parliament an d a Ministry over yhicli they have little' or no direct control, and who are to bo entirely depend;nt on that Parliament for subsidies vliich extravagance or jobbery may at my time make it necessary should be rithdrawn. Nor will it- solve the diffi:ulty .of dealing with vj u-ious systems of and sale and adminis; tration, various ystems of education, and other things rliich it is strangely proposed to keep iuact and yet to place tinder local (i.e. rovincial) control, after the provinces iave been so careful ly obliterated, lany of the details given in the peech are trivial, and ;yet amid them ne of the most simple matters has een completely disregard led. In creatlg his counties the Premi 3r has forgotten 3 say where are the co' unty towns in hich the Councils shoirld meet when presenting sparsely-peop! led or outlying istricts —such, for exai nple, as our "orthern peninsula—or t ,vhere they are > keep their records, arid rate-books,, leir plans, their roads a -nd pay offices, id their engineer's department—where, . short, they are fc> pet form eren the

limited duties, and to expend even the limitei/funds the needs "of.;.the General Government would leave at their disposal. : ."filing, a wretched "jumble, in winch-details are made.to- do_duty_,for ancTthe interests and Views of ail amlitious bureaucracy; are represented, instead of a. true statesman's desire* to encourage" and foster. healthy political action among a vigorous, free, and selfreliant people. The JSew Zealand Times, the colonial journal par excellence t the exponent of • Ministerial opinions at head-quarters, has followed the example of the Guardian, and come before the world with a confession of failure iu plan and execution. Nobody can forget the flourish of trumpets with which the Tinita burst upon the world. The WtlUng to?. Independent was bought, but the = name and the whole style of management vrere to be changed. Sir Julius Yogel, who has been far more successful as a Premier than as a newspaper manager, was the father of the New Zealand Times, and the »originator of all those brilliant and original ideas on which it was to be carried on, and with which it was to astonish the world. Firstly, it was to be conducted with distinguished energy and skill. The fact was, that in these respects it commenced to sink as soon as it came under the management of the company. During the first session after the creation of the " colonial journal," visitors to Wellington were surprised to find that if the House , sat till three o'clock in the morning, the last two or three hours were left unreported, and the report marked, "Left sitting." During all this time, the expense of managing the paper was enormous. Further changes have been made, but it was not possible to overcome the vicious principles upon which the paper was founded, and continual loss has been the result. One of these principles was frankly acknowledged at the meeting to be bad, and a declaration was made that it, at all events, would be thrown overboard. Mr. Walter Johnston, M.H.R., declared, in the face of Sir Julius Vogel, " That the directors had been mistaken in their idea of making the Times a colonial journal." We are glad to hear they have come to this conclusion. All the newspapers of which the New Zealand Times is a type, had at first very large ideas. They were to • expand the minds of the people, and teach' their readers true patriotism. They were to look to the interests of the colony forsooth, and were, if their masters thought fit, to go , against the interests of Otago, or Wellington, or Auckland. The New Zealand Times at first-pursued this course with something like spirit, at the time when Sir Julius Vogel had a controversy with Wellington. It found out • its mistake, by a continuous loss of public confidence and support; and although it was the only morning newspaper in a largo community, where an enormous trade is done, and although it had a great subsidy in Government advertisements, iv» was a financial failure. Now Sir Julius Yogel finds it to be his interest to conciliate the citizens of Wellington, and the Times finds that it must abandon the role of "colonial journal." Seeing that he cannot create a colonial fournal in Wellington, the Premier sets up a " colonial harbour" there. The public of Dunedin and of Wellington have shewn their appreciation of the attempt to establish amongst them, and to maintain from them, newspapers which disregarded their interests, and the people of Auckland have done so too. It is charming to see how nobly Mr. Moorhouse, the "Jidus Achates"and mouthpiece of Sir Julius Yogel, takes the loss. They are engaged in a noble work, and ought not to be despondent if it involves a loss. The proprietors of the Times, we presume, desire to make their property a paying one. To do so, however, they must secure for their newspaper a character for independence. People will pay little attention to the sounds emitted by a mere organ. It may pay Mr. Moorhouse, and perhaps Sir Julius Vogel, to maintain the Times at a loss, not that it gives them much strength or assistance, but because it keeps an independent paper out of the field, and affords them an amount of patronage; but these motives cannot actuate the whole of the proprietors. Unless, however, the New Zealand Times becomes something else, and something -, than the mouthpiece of Ministers it will not, even in so favourable a situation as it occupies, become a profitable concern. We hope that the difficulties in the way of diverting the balance of the grant to the Pumping Association from continuous sinking of the big shaft at the Thames into driving southward from the shaft will be overcome. The Mayor of the Thames and several mine managers of acknowledged skill had interviews yesterday with the Colonial Secretary and the Superintendent on the subject. There are three parties concerned; the General Government, who have advanced the money; the directors of the companies formiug the Pumping Associa- i tion, who have pledged their whole properties for it; and the Superintendent, who, on behalf of the province, has become surety for it. Sir George Grey, it will be remembered, occupies a somewhat peculiar position in respect to this matter, for he only continued the guarantee given by his predecessor under some kind of protest. Of what avail he expects that to be we do not know, but we understand that he is willing to sanction the new arrangement subject to the same protest. Tho directors of the Pumping Association are also willing that the money should be expended in driving, and the Colonial Secretary has communicated with his colleagues in Wellington, and finds that Ministers are quite agreeable to give their consent. After the consent of all these parties is obtained, there would still remain many difficulties to be overcome, for stipulatians would have to be made with the companies through whose ground tha drive would pass, and also with those whose ground it would drain.