THE BOUNDARY QUESTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1003, 18 February 1871, Page 1

THE BOUNDARY QUESTION.

Whekt Mr Dillon Bell favoured the electors of Mataura with his opinion on the Southland < Boundary Question ' the other evening, he is reported to have declared that ' the General Government utterly opposed the principle of political responsibility in connection with the Waste Land Boards.' As a member of the present Administration we presume that he felt at liberty to speak for bis colleagues as well as for imnself, If so, tee may be a sense

lin which it is true that the General Government is * utterly opposed ' to this or that in connection with Waste Land Boards and the manner in which they conduct their business. But if by this oracular utterance Mr Bell intended to say that the policy of the Colonial Government and Legislature has systematically been to discountenance the concentration of power over the "Waste Lands in the hands of the responsible Executives of those provinces which are governed like our own, he made — as he is too much in the habit of doing — a very hasty speech. There is nothing in the series of laws which the Assembly has passed in regard to the management of waste lands throughout the colony to warrant any such statement, unless the provision in the Westland Waste Lands Act, that the members of the Board in that County shall be appointed directly by the Governor, be claimed as such. The constitution of Westland is, however, peculiar to itself, and everywhere else in New Zealand the Provincial Governments have throughout been allowed to appoint all the members of Waste Land Boards, except the Chief Commissioners, who are, by the necessities of the case, General Government officers. This being so, it matters little what the opinions of individual Ministers may be, or what the leaning of a whole Cabinet. The law leaves it to the provinces to decide for themselves who are the proper persons to whom to confide the administration of their Land laws. As we pointed out when we first referred to this subject, it has been the practice for a long time past in Otago to render the Waste Land Board of the province as nearly as possible identical with the responsible Executive of the day. For this there are the soundest reasons, and it is highly improbable that, so long as the province possesses a constitutional Government of its own, public opinion here will permit any change in this policy. Mr Bell, addressing an exciteable Tnvercargill audience, seems to have found it convenient to ignore the fact that this 'boundary question 5 is not one in which the people of Southland generally have any interest. They are not affected personally by the * position assumed by the Otago Executive.' It is the people of a portion of the late province of Otago, over whom the Waste Land Board sitting at Invercargill has been refused jurisdiction. These individuals are an integral part of that community which has adopted the habit of trusting the management of their Waste Lands only to the Executive of the day. It was mere clap-trap to tell his Invercargill audience, as Mr Bell did, that he bad no doubt the Assembly would over-ride the action lately taken by the United Provincial Council of this province. Unless it can be shown that the people whose interests will be affected by it desire the proposed change — and up to the present time the evidence is all the other way — it is utterly improbable that the Supreme Legislature of the colony will interfere. Mr Bell's statement may be looked at from another point of view. How can the policy of any Government remove from a Waste Land Board, however constituted, its 'political responsibility 1 ?' Are we seriously called upon to believe that the questions left to the decision of these Boards are non-political in their character ? How can any public business be non-political? It is an abuse of terms to make any such statement. The Waste Land Act of this province defines the duties of the Board as follows : — ' All business connected with the sale, letting, disposal, and occupation of waste lands shall be transacted by the Board, subject, however, to the provision of the 14th sectionof this Act; and every act ; matter, or thingdone by the Chief Commissioner shall be subject to revision by the Board, and the Board shall be empowered to disallow any such act, matter, or thing.' The fourteenth section of the Act, by a reference to which this definition of the Board's duties and powers is qualified, runs thus : — ' All the routine business relating to the letting, purchasing, disposal, or occupation of waste lands shall be transacted by the (Jhief Commissioner,' But that

this enactment may in no way limit the powers and responsibilities of the Board these words are added : ' Subject to such instructions as may be given by the Board in that behalf.' No one could talk of a Board charged with such duties and possessing such powers as these, as having no political responsibility, unless he adopted the too common notion that what we call party questions are alone worthy of the name of politics. Indeed, when we remember how intimately connected with the most important local party questions of every new country is the administration of its waste lands, can we allow that even on this limited definition of the word politics, a Waste Land Board has no political responsibilities 1 If it could be so anywhere, certainly it is not in Otago that it is, or is likely to be, possible. We are very sorry to see a gentleman in Mr Bell's position jumping- to conclusions on a question like this as soon as he has landed in the province, and fostering by careless words the only germ of disunion which has yet made its appearance in the newly united communities, to both of which he may be said to belong. A little enquiry would have convinced him that there are two sides to this question, as to every other. The mere fact that the representatives of Southland in the late United Council were themselves equally divided on this subject should have withheld him from dogmatising upon it in the spirit of first impressions gathered from a party whose self importance has been wounded by the c position assumed by the Otago Executive.' "We fancy, too, that a little enquiry would have satisfied him that there is an equal division of opinion amongst the electors of the Mataura district, and that his hasty talk will not help him at the poll, however pleasing it may have been to tbe majority of the audience he happened to be addressing.