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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4278, 5 December 1874, Page 2

The Haiolce's Buy Herald has an article upon the expiring throes of Superintendentalism in the North Island, which we append, to show our readers what view outsiders take of questions which many amongst us conceive to bo of purely local interest. Now, we do not quite go the length of saying that we endorse everything in the annexed extract from our Napier contemporary, but we shall do him the Justice of saying that there is a great deal of truth in it. _ Colored it may be ; but yet it is sufficiently faithful to be accounted a true picture. The Herald says ; Provincialism grows worse as its life gets shorter, and it seems likely that its dissolution, which is rapidly approaching, will take place amid much scandal. It appears to have lost all self-respect, and to have become utterly reckless, much In the same way as in the days of the great plague in London, when, amid the horrors of death in Its most revolting forms, people seemed to feci but little of the solemnity of tho occasion, but abandoned themselves to careless profanity, often sitting on the dead bodies of those slain by the pestilence, drinking and carousing, and utterly regardless of present circumstances, or tho future before them. From Auckland, tho last provincial scandal is an abortive attempt by tho Superintendent and Provincial Secretary to take a trip to England in order, nominally, to personally superintend the sending immigrants for special settlements in some garden of Eden in tho pumico stone conntry. Tho trip would involve very considerable expense at the very time when tho province would become bankrupt but for the money advanced to it by the General Government last session. The people of Auckland are a iniich suffering race, and have endured much at the hands of provincialism; but this projected trip of the Superintendent and Mr. Sheehan to the old country, at the public cost, has been too much, oven for the Aucklanders. and they have plucked up spirit at last, and have stopped tho little game intended to bo played at their expense.

From Wellington, provincial scandal of yet deeper dye reaches us. Provincialism there has made an attempt at a sort of wholesale public robbery, by seizing upon land at Thorndon beach, as yet unreclaimed from the sea, with a view of selling it without delay for whatever it would fetch, so to grab the money before the crash comes. Here again, however, a counter-move on the board has been made by the municipality, who arc desirous that the valuable harbor endowments should not be frittered away in this manner. They have consulted their solicitor in the matter, and he has given his opinion that, “ under existing Acts upon the subject, the Superintendent does not possess the power of giving a valid title to the whole or any part of the land, if sold.” If this opinion be sound, the Superintendent's little game at Wellington will be stopped like that of his Northern contemporary. From Nelson wo don't hear such grave scandals, but we hear of the place being in a very unprosperous state. Whilst immigrants by hundreds at a time are being absorbed into the working population of this little province, and into those of the larger provinces in the South, Nelson dreads the coming of a fresh importation of labor to its shores, and cries out that immigration is overdone. Yet this is the province that is to be the “Staffordshire ” of New Zealand, the seat of potteries and coal-mines, and of a great manufacturing interest. Taranaki, like Auckland, loafs on the General Government, amt with its three votes in the House manages to make its appeal felt. When, however, the happy time shall arrive when provincialism shall bo no more, and when there is one united Central Government over the whole colony, the vast resources of the country from north to south will be developed. Money that is wasted in keeping up the five petty principalities with their separate parliaments and cumbrous adjuncts, all fighting for themselves, and with little regard for the good of the country, will be devoted to more legitimate purposes, and bo more equally expended. That provincialism has had its day, and must die soon, is admitted by all but a very small section of the community, but we should like to see it die more gracefully than it appears to be doing, at all events in Auckland and Wellington. _____