New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1874.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4172, 4 August 1874, Page 2

New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1874.

Never can a measure be brought forward for the benefit of the whole Colony, present and future, without its acceptance being rendered doubtful by the sleepless jealousies of Provincial Governments. Embarked irrevocably in a policy which has already dispelled the gloomy depression of many years, and in its stead produced prosperity more general than was ever previously known, and on which our whole future depends, every suggested safeguard finds wretched selfishness of the parts at once marshalled in opposition to the welfare of the whole. When last year it was proposed to take security in land for railways, as they were constructed in the several Provinces, at once local interests stood forward and prevented the salutary precaution from being adopted. Reason had no power against prejudice. To point out the necessity that existed for giving increased confidence to the foreign capitalist by setting aside blocks of lauds as security for advances was of no avail, and so the last chance of providing a complete guarantee against financial dangers was thrown away. So sound is the policy, and so great are the resources of the Colony, that there can be little fear of any crisis beyond: our power to deal with, and yet, were it only as a reply to those prophets of evil, whose words sometimes travel beyond our shores, the tangible pledge of land might weir have been given. The absolute refusal to concede security was a poor reply to the bold assertions coming from each Province, that the works they desired must pay. If so, then4he produce of the estate would have remained with them ; it could only be in case of their assertions being falsified by the event, that the price of one acre could have been taken from them. .The same daring assertion of a right being inalienably vested in the Provinces, apart from and opposed to the general interests; of the Colony, has been renewed this your, in the discussion of the Bill for the conservation of forests. Year after year evidence - has been accumulating of the reckle'ss waste of public property and tho deterioration of climate by the wholesale destruction of our forests; ; Every part; of the country can furnish proof of present. .injury, certain to increase as time passes, but as soon as it is attempted to do anything beyond spending Colonial funds for

the benefit of localities, as so.on as a pitifully small percentage of land is sought to be taken in each Province to protect future generations from a timber famine, then the Superintendehtal forces are at once mustered, and the Minister presuming to provide for anything beyond the wants of the day is proclaimed a ruthless spoiler. The Colony cannot. fail to estimate at its true value the denunciations of the Superintendent of Wellington, and to compare the moderate demands of the Government with the great concessions previously made to his Province. When the schedule of railways was agreed to in 1871, it is well known how great was the difficulty in prevailing on Parliament to sanction so large an expenditure in Wellington. Indeed, had it not been for special security in land being taken it would have been impossible to secure a majority. These lands have been released, . and, in 1 addition, Colonial funds have been devoted to the purchase of a further estate; but spite of all, when it is sought to set aside some small part of that which the Colony has paid for, so as to ensure the future against the waste of the present, resistance [is offered as bitter as if a private property were sought to be confiscated. In Mr. Fitzherbert we have a man whose long experience in high office might well have been supposed to have prevented him from making the petty demands excusable in the mere Provincial officer. He cannot be supposed destitute of the knowledge, that by unity of action alone can the-general welfare be assured, and still he ,is first among the opponents of a proposal, admitted to be necessary to meet a pressing want, even by those who differ as to detail. Not content with objecting to forest reserves on the ground of a reduction in the amount of property he is in a position to dissipate by hurried sales, Mr. Fitzherbert professes to see an insidious attempt to secure a fund for the payment of our national debt at the expense of the Provinces. There is surely a rare amount of courage required to make such an assertion immediately after it has been made known that the interest on railway outlay will be met by the Colony. It is expecting too much from popular credulity to believe that the same Minister who makes so great a concession, at the same time casts a greedy eye on the public estate, because accident has placed it, in the hands of local administrators. Whoever looks forward for even a few years cannot fair to see the certainty of one Government alone existing in New Zealand. The construction of trunklines of railway must speedily be followed by the abolition of Provincial distinctions, arid long before the termination of thirty years one purse will have to meet every demand. Is it then too much to require the reserve of some trifling part of the public estate to indemnify the Colony ? Can any person doubt the necessity for protection to property now burnt and hewn down to enable a few more sheep or cattle to feed—property that, if judiciously cared for, would furnish a perpetual income 1 It is inconceivable, and the fact of the resistance to so prudent a project will do more, when coming from Provincialist leaders, to promote their disestablishment and the substitution of one Central Government, than all the assaults of their enemies. The indiscreet advocates of a falling cause are rapidly convincing all but those directly [interested, that a change cannot loug be postponed. In all these obstructive artifices it is the Provincial officers alone, and not the people of the Provinces, who are acting. The careful expenditure of their funds, the efficient conduct of their establishments, is all the mass of the people seeks, and every year witnesses a strengthening desire to extinguish the army of local rulers, and to seek rest in unity. Mr. Fitzherbert has unintentionally made no insignificant contribution to the hastening of this consummation. Asserting without measure the divine rights of the Provinces against the Colony, of which they are merely pans, is the certain way to make these pretended rights odious, and to secure their speedy extinction. The landed estate of the Colony was only placed in the hands of the Provincial Governments as a trust to be administered for the general good. No one contemplated the foundation of purely local claims, and now these are maintained with so much vehemence, those who concern themselves with the permanent prosperity of the Colony are compelled to consider whether the whole question does not demand reconsideration.