DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, SEPT. 11.

Otago Witness, Issue 1241, 11 September 1875, Page 13

DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, SEPT. 11.

No one really believes that the substitution of one central Government for Provincial rule will have the cftect of making the wheels of State run more smoothly. By a very curiously complex movement, the attention of the public has been diverted from the main issue, and directed towards a variety of minute points, in themselves unimportant, but which receive a fictitious value from being involved in matters of serious moment. The measures brought forward by the present Ministry are professedly founded upon the discontent of the electors with Provincialism. The little pettifogging ways of our Councils, the wretched little jobs that they have perpetrated, the way in which they have wasted their time, their silly fashion of aping Parliamentary proceedings, all these things are arrayed against them with much force, and considerable directness. The defence is very weak : ib mu&t be allowed that Provincial rule lias shown itself wanting in many particular.-. We are not concerned to fighb its battles, it is neither one thing or another — neither special nor general functions are thoroughly well discharged by it. Let it die. There will not be many mourners at its grave : a few mercenary tears, a little hired woe, and we shall "Bury our dead out of our sight "with but little regret. But what then ? What is to take its place? Under the present proposals, we are asked to assume that all sense and wisdom lie in the chosen few who govern, and that the electors — the public — have only to submit to their judgment to be happy. Consequent upon the remarkable fact of their being continued so long in power, the Ministry have conceived a notion that they are infallible — that they have a kind of divine right to rule., and that the governed will show their wisdom just as they submit.

My children, they say, trust to your fathers j think how much we love you ; remember all we have done for you, and show your sense of our goodness by not asking questions; simply accepting the new Constitution we provide for you. The proposition is inconsequent.

We are reminded of the old story of the illogically-tninded friend who discoursed at some length to an intending suicide about the horrors of death. He described to him the laying out and washing, the hired fingering, the undertaker's dismal paraphernalia, the decay consequent upon decease, and concluded with an earnest interjection : "Don't, don't, don't hang yourself; if you must die, take poison — strychnine is speedy — take a good dose." Messrs Pollen, Reynolds, and Company are proceeding after the same fashion. They describe, with appalling minuteness, the consequences of that Provincial death which brings in its train contractors, Superintendents, jobbers, and all manner of worms and corruption. The horrors of the details confirmed all listeners — and just when the patient fancies fhafc such a fate as this he cannot endure, the counsellor steps in with an offer of speedy decease, a releiwe from woes by means of the small phial labelled Centralism. We answer thafc you have so effectually frightened us with your descriptions that we want A good" long think over the matter before we try suicide at all. It may be granted that already our feet are gouty, wo have necrosis of tho bone of the leg, rheumatism in our fingers, and neuralgia in our head, but all the same, we do not care to breakfast upon aconite, or sup on laudanum. We w$ with $« Prinze of Pcnmstylf;

Who would these fardels bear To grunt and siveat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death

Puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have I nan fly to others that we know not of? In plain English, the Abolition Bill as proposed substitutes a grinding tyranny, a centralism of the most offensive kind, for a corrupt and useless, a weak and meddlesome, Provincialism. The country will have none of it ■ that is new quite certain. The essay has been fairly and boldly essayed, but not all the disgust that has grown up against the Provinces and their Councils will sweeten such a pill as this precious Bill. For, after all, what we want is better men to work our institutions rather than a remodelling of our institutions. Is it likely that we shall get them in the Assembly? As a matter of fact, we believe that our Otago Provincial Council would compare very favourably with the Assembly as regards its personnel. Messrs Pyke, Shepherd, Mervyn, and that lot, are good enough, it seems, for the Assembly, and no more. We would sooner be ruled by Messrs Armstrong, M'Keli.ar, trHEEN, and honest men like them, than by men like Reynolds and Wales. We see little hope of improvement in merely changing tho venue. What we want is local selfgovernment, so that each district should rule itself and spend its own revenue within its own area. Multiply the centres and specialize the functions.