PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4263, 18 November 1874, Page 5

PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES.

' :_♦ (From the Sydney Morning Herald.) Our readers have already been informed of the proposal in New Zealand to diminish the amount of provincialism, by smeltiing all the provinces of the Northern Island into one. This proposal, though not yet carried out, is likely to be, and will establish a precedent certain to be followed with regard to the provinces of the Middle Island. Provincialism seems to have dono its work, and now that steamboats, roads, railroads, and telegraphs are binding the different settlements together, the advantages of having so many separate seats of Government and so many separate sets of officials, are getting outweighed by the disadvantages. Without any policy of "blood and iron," without any conquest and defeat, but simply under the controlling influence of economical and political considerations, provincial frontiers are about to be obliterated for everything oxcept municipal purposes. This phenomenon is not an isolated one. It is not only in New Zealand that peaceful consolidation and the abolition of governments too little to be useful are the order of the day. On the other side of the world, and in another group of British colonies, wo see the same policy asserting itself, though under somewhat different conditions. In the Dominion of Canada were grouped together several different colonies, but some of them were really too small to make it worth while to preserve their separate identity ; and it is now proposed that the maritime Governments of the Dominion, namely, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland should be fused into a single province, under the name of Acadia. The scheme has not yet been carried out, any more than the corresponding schemo has received Parliamentary confirmation in New Zealand. But it has been suggested; and when ideas are in harmony with the progress of events, and in fact are merely bom of the time, they are ideas that will sooner or later bo realised. We may look upon it as a certainty that in both cases there will bo a con-

solidation 'of small governments brought about under the operation of free institutions, just as in Germany there has been a similar consolidation brought about by military force. It may be asked whether such consolidation, repeating itself as it is doing, in contemporary history under various forms, is to be read as a protest by the spirit of the age againßt federation. There are at present, as there have long been, some theorists who maintain that the federal system is the beau ideal of government—the only form that can Combine local attachments with large communities; and there are, both in France and in Spain, those who would break up the present unity of the Government, and reproduce a federation of the ancient provinces of those two kingdoms. It is argued on the other hand that federation is a policy of the past, and that for military as well as for civil purposes consolidation is the more effective form of government. So far, however, as consolidation is only that of inconveniently small communities, it is not in itself an argument against the practical expediency of federation. It only goes to show that there are limits of convenience with respect to the size of separate Governments. It is possible that the separate elements of a confederation may be too small, it is equally possible that they may be too large ; and there may be a juste milieu, which only experience can determine, which will give the perfection of results to the federal system. In modification of this view, however, it may be observed that we have not yet determined the limits of consolidation. All that contemporary history shows is a strong tendency towards such consolidation, without at all indicating any limits to it. What we are witnessing in our own day may be repeated in the next generation on a larger scale. The facilities for governing from headquarters are greater than they ever were before in the history of the world. Telegraphs and railways have proved great patrons of concentration, and it is impossible at present to set a limit to the area of territory, or the number of people who may be contentedly governed from one centre. The whole subject is one of very great prospective if not immediate interest to the Australian colonies. That these colonies are tending towards some sort of union is treated everywhere as an axiom. But it is still an open question of what sort the union will be. The general impression has been that it will partake of the character of a federation—an idea which is mainly due to. a supposition that we must necessarily follow the example of the United States and of Canada. . But if, during the period which must yet elapse before an Australian union can be cemented, it should appear, as seems not altogether unlikely, that the federal system should become somewhat disparaged, and that a consolidation would be preferable, it may be that Australia will skip the intermediate stages passed through by its precursors, and form that closer land of union to which American institutions seem to be tending. It seems admitted by all politicians that the American civil war made a great change in the character of the American federation. The first aggregation made after the war of independence was of a much looser texture than that which was subsequently effected, and that in turn was still looser than the bond which now exists. The war killed the doctrine of State sovereignty, and made the American Republic for ever one and indivisible. From the time that the several colonies were simply united by being colonies of Great Britain down to the present, the movement of events has been steadily towards concentration, and there is no indication whatever of any reverse movement. We need not suppose it necessary that a fresh war will be required to make a fresh change, while it is easy to see how, as a matter of convenience and public policy, a greater unity of action may grow up, first as a voluntary imitation, and ultimately as a matter of conpulsion. Efficiency of administration is undoubtedly promoted by centralisation; but, on the other hand, the love of liberty, the individual initiative, the variety which can only take place where there is free scope for social and political experiments, and the iuter-action of ideas out of which progress is born, are to some extent most favored by localism. It is one of the unsolved problems of practical politics how far it is possible to combine the advantages of the two systems, and, when such combination is impossible, on which side the balance of advantage lies. ...