The Ohinemuri Gazette AND UPPER THAMES WARDEN. SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1892.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume I, Issue 27, 18 June 1892, Page 4

The Ohinemuri Gazette AND UPPER THAMES WARDEN.

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1892.

"I willaroundunyarnish'd, tale'deliver. ,-V, —Othello; Act 1, Scene 3.

TttE success of a County Council is usually guaged—-not by its wisdom or economy in administration, or by its ability in dealing with contractors and workmen, or 'by its powers ; of retrenching to the utmost, ■> but rather by how much hard cash it can wrench from a grudging Government. Tlie success of a Government, too, is guaged m ./very great measure by its: ability in denying to local bodies and in r dividual districts as much assistance as it possibly can, without reference ajs

to whether the desired grant or subsidy is fair or necessary, or whether th» body or district has jr has not a fair claim ior the desideratum, or anything of the sort. Ministers for various, departmants pay casual and flying •visits through the country, for reasons best known to themselves, and hungry local bodies watch, lite the daughter of the horse leech, for their arrival, crying "Give, give." The Minister, usually with the faculty of bluff strongly developed, is pouncad, hawklike, upon, by the great empty-handed before he has time to oall for a whiskey and then the battle of bluff commences. The Hon. gentleman sits enthroned as though the earth was his, and the fullness thereof, while the leader off the deputation explains lucidly certain undeniable reasons - why the Government should erect a Court-house in his back yard, or that . a 25 mile prospecting 1 track should be immediately constructed from his particular one horse township. to Ultima Tkule. Sometimes things that - are leally requisite and expedient are asked for, bus it matters indeed very • little to'" the • Minister, whose only desire is to get away as quickly as he may. Then bounce and influence and party come in and the boon it ; granted or refused according to, those 1 matters, or the huuiour or caprice, of the Minister. No','doubt the pleasure obtained by a Minister, through cheap trips at. the expense of kis .bleoiligg country -is.-greatly destroyed by auch' harassing episodes,- and that he stands . „ as big a chance of. gettiriy unpopular as he does of catching thenmra popularis —-more especially if the Exchequer is somewhat dry. .. He doubtless crpong to himself the old Gaelic lullaby to the pestiferous local bodies.

-Heigh r>, what'lll do wi'.ye ; Flack's the life that I lead wi' ye, Mony o' ye", little to gie ye ; Heigho, what'lll'do wi'ye. ' • Sometimes, like Tennyson's Chancellor,

U«7 Id courteous words returns reply, But dallies with his golden chain, And, smiling, pats theques'ion by.' In any case his desire is to get through the country as cheaply as possible and to return joyously to his Cabinet, unlike the ordinary commercial traveller, with as few orders on hie sheet as 'he can get. Now this i 3 all highly immoral. County Councils, Road Board*, Town Boards and Borough Councils, throughout the Colony, are entitled to a share of the general revenue for Public Works- in proportion, to their fair requirements. And we say that that share should be obtained without having to go hat in hand, as some do, or £ghtable as others , do, to a Minister holding out the sceptre of patronage in the one case, or bluffable, in the other; and having .to wrestle with him as Jacob did with .the angel,, for what is fairly and equitably due. We think that ,ia each Province there should ,be a Provincial Engineer, paid by the Counties in proportion to their rateable value; who should be, the mediator between the Counties and the Government ic,Public Works matters, and whose duty it' should be to assist Counties with his advice as Engineer, and to examine, into, and report- to Government upon their requirements and deserts in regard to grants and subsidies. The' relations between Counties and Government are not at all equitable at present, the dispensing of Government money nowjgoing, like kissing, by favour, and being entirely a matter off patronage. x The system is simply a bad imitation of the most corrupt form of J Yankee pseudodemocracy;; that needy local bodies should be in the humiliating position they at present occupy, and we trust that legislation will shortly'be brought in, in this connection, which,* While 1 riot being quite Jso utterly'" Liberal" wiU be somewhat more* fair and eauitable.