PROVINCIALISM.

Otago Witness, Issue 769, 25 August 1866, Page 1

PROVINCIALISM.

(From the Daily Times, August 22.)

There has been a growing tendency for some time pa9t to depreciate the value of Provincial Governments, and to claim for the Colonial Government advantages which it is assumed to possess above merely local Legislatures. It is not very clearly stated by any advocates ot the change in what the superiority is to consist. Perhaps they imagine this is not a necessary element in the 'consideration, and that it is sufficient to point out the smallness of Provincial, as compared with Colonial interests to prove that necessarily they will receive propoit onately intelligent attention. That s >me such idea pervades the minds of a section of the population, is undoubtedly true. It may not have assumed a very definite form in their minds, but it find expression in a variety of ways. Several time?, when the effect of Provincial immigration has been discussed in our column", and it has been pointed out, in illustration of its benefits, that the rapid advancement of the United States in wealth r,nd inflijpnee was owing to the continued stream of immigration that had been flowing thitherward for so many years,, correspondents have sneered at tho idea, and pointed out the insignificance of New Zealand,, when compared with that Empire of Democracy. Others have poiattd to the narrowness of the interests of the Provinces compared with the Colony, to shew that there i 3 a pettiness in the Provincial requirements that induces an expense in Provincial Legislation altogether disproportionate to them. It is very probable that it never struck these objectors, that not more than a hundred years ago, the United States had only about one fitteenth of their present population, although they had then been Colonies for upwards of one hundred and fifty years ; nor that the present general revenue of New Zealand, although a Colony of about thirty years' standing, is one-fifteenth of that of the United States some ten years ago.

Had these facts entered the minds of those objectors, they might have been led to reflect, that small as New Zealand is compared with America, when two hundred and fifty years are past, this infant Colony may have reached an importance in the world's history far exceeding that held even now by the United States ; and that, viewed in that light, the beginnings of a mighty Empire are worthy of the profoundest and most earnest effort of the highest and noblest minds, iv order that it? institutions shall be so free and just ag to foster progress, and encourage development, in wealth, influence, science, and art. Neither must it be forgotten that commercial and social measures that have been found to induce these results in other lands, so far as they are based upon sound economic principles, will most assuredly produce a like effect here. It is not the small Colony compared with the powerful Federation that is under consideration. It is what steps are likely to raise the small Colony into a rich, populous, and thriving State. A machinery now exists that appears eminently calculated to secure that object. While a central Government possesses advantages in organising and dispensing measures that are necessary for the Colony as a whole, Provincial Governments form an admirable means for simultaneously developing the resources of the component parts. It is no disadvantage to New Ztaland that separate and independent settlements have been founded at great distances from each other, completely round the coasts of the two Islands. Each of these has become a centre of trade and

population. Each has been the means of opening tip a vast area of country that ■would notyet have been even so much as explored had there been but one central settlement. Each has laid out its local revenue in terming communications with the interior, in bridging rivers', establishing ferries, tdearine the land and bringing it under the plough^ or putting it in pasture. Diffused, the populations have had room to spread, and only a short time will' be required, as tirr.e is reckoned in the life time of nations, under the Provincial system, to bring each Province into internal road communication with the rest. From the "world's experience, it has been found that sucH results do not follow so rapidly from less popular forms of Government. Vast undertakings may, and often are, entered ■upon by despotic princes for special purposes. Military roads may be made, or arsenals constructed, at vulnerable points ; these are, and ought to be, the care of a General Government ; but wherever social ■development has been rapid it has been where local self-Governmeiit has been instituted and encouraged, And this seems to be the dream even of those who advocate the abolition of Provincial rule, espe- ! -ciaily on the Goldfields. They ask for Mining Boards instead of Wardens, under the idea that local is better than central rule ; although with strange inconsistency they also ask to be placed under General ratber than Provincial Government. And although the minds of many have been turned towards Victoria as an illustration of certain benefits to be derived from adopting the Victorian system on the Goldfields, it does not appear to be remembered that the tendency in that Colony, for the last nine years, has been towards the diffusion, rather thau the centralisation of power, and that the best effects have resulted from the adoption of that principle. For years, it has been a fixed object in Victoria to develop the Municipal system, in order that the evils found to be inherent in centralisation of power might "be avoided : and had Victoria been possessed of a Provincial system, many difficulties that have obstructed the carrying out of this object would have been voided.

A favorite argument against Provincialism has hitherto been that the number of Provincial establishments necessarily increases the expense of Government a* a whole. The statement seems feasible, but it is doubtful. It is very easy to build up a theory, when the materials are not at hand to show its fallacy, and since the expense of the one system is known, and the other unknown, the assertion being capable of neither proof nor disproof, may possibly be true. There is every reason, however, to doubt it. The present crisis, traced to its first movements, has been the cons?quence of a systematic attempt at crushing the Provincial system, and appropriating part of the Provincial revenues to be deposed of at the will of the General Government. That some one or two Provinces might profit by such a change is quite possible, if the rest apathetically abandon the portion of the general revenue hitber'o considered their own, to be spent how and where the Central Government think fit. But if the Provinces are true to themselves, they wili aid their representatives in restraining the limits within which the General Government sha'l possess jurisdiction, and they will find safety, advantage, and development,' under Provinc'al Institutions.