THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2168, 15 December 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1875.

To-MOBROW the burgesses will be required for the first time to elect a Mayor. There are two candidates for the office, both well known men. One has twice been chosen to fill the office, and now seeks re-election; On former occasions Mr Davies was called to the office by the unanimous consent of his brother councillors. The voting power was limited, and so was the choice of candidates; but now this is changed. Candidates for the office of Mayor need not necessarily be councillors, and instead of the election depending upon the will of councillors it is relegated to the burgesses. Though twice chosen by councillors, Mr Davies now seeks election at the hands of the ratepayers, and if he should be elected there is no doubt that his success will be recognised by him as a great compliment—a formal endorsement of his actions in the ptst. The other candidate—Mr J. E. Macdonald — who aspires to the office is not less well known than Mr Davies. Though comparatively a novice in public affairs, Mr Macdonald has qualifications for the office which he seeks, and it will rest with the burgesses to say whether they are such as to warrant them in elevating him at one effort to the highest office in our local administrative body. Each burgess should be quite capable of forming his own opinion on this point and others which influence most men in arriving at a conclusion as to the person whom they intend voting for, but if there should be any dubitative regarding the question and unable to come to a decision, we don't mind stretching a point to put them right. We hope that at the next annual election of Mayor the office will be an object of ambition with the best and ablest men in our midst.

In the address which he delivered to his constituents at Port Chalmers, speaking to them as their representative on Monday evening last, and in a pamphlet which aa Superintendent of the Province he has recently published for the benefit of the people of Otago, Mr Macandrew makes it quite plain that in his ardent yearning for the continuance of that form of provincialistic government of which he is the head and chief in Otago, he is influenced not so much by any • considerations of the well-being of New Zealand as a' colony, as for the private interests of Ofcago of which, as we have said, he is the directing head.

Hence in looking at the two questions of centralism and provincialism Mr Macandrew docs not scruple to avow, or at least allow, that both a General Government and a Provincial Government arc not required at the same time, but at the same time does not hesitate to advocate the abolition of tho central form—if one is to be abolished — rather than the provincial form; not because the latter is more suited to the requirements of the colony at large, but because under it, according to the ideas entertained by Mr Macandrew, Otagc— which to him is New Zealand, if not the world—will rise to greater eminence and wealth. That the Province of Otago will so rise Mr Macandrow considers certain. Already, according to his statement, Otago out of thirty-two British colonies, is as high as fourth in respect of public revenue and extent of commerce; and the only thing which has prevented its rising to a still higher point of importance, and retarded its further progress, has been the " abstraction of its revenue " by the colony, and the action of the Colonial Legislature, by which the province has been deprived of the power of carrying on immigration and public works on its own account. Mr Macandrew does not consider the actions of the other parts of the colony which have enabled Otago to keep in peace and- quietness the land its children have settled on, and the fund which he considers is being so unjustly filched from them. He does not consider the advantages which Otago has derived from free communication and free trade with the rest of the colony, or any of the thousand-and-one minor influences which have beneficially affected Otago interests, but contents himself with asserting, " Here we are, a prosporous community, wonderfully so considering that Otago a quarter of a century ago was an unpeopled wilderness, and if we had been a separate province instead of part and parcel of a colony we should have been more prosperous and wealthy still." Mr Macandrew says that the Abolition Bill, if brought into operation will be disastrous to the interests—not of the colony—but of " this Province." Now it is quite right that Mr Macandrew should look after the interests of Otago, but on every ground of public expediency it behoves the legislature to look after the interests—not of this Province —but of the colony. And Mr Macandrew neither in his speech or pamphlet brings forward any argument to prove that Abolition will be in any way prejudicial, or anything other than beneficial to the welfare of the colony at large. That it will be even "disastrous to'Otago" Mr Macandrew does not show very plainly, contenting himself, in fact, with two arguments or rather statements that it will be so. Mr Macandrew says, you will lose both the land fund, and " more detrimental still " the Provincial Council. The first of these " losses " is rather injurious to what is evidently Mr Macandrew's conviction that the provinces, or at least Otago, are being unjustly defrauded of their rights. And it is jo for this reason. Mr Macdonald complains of the loss of the territorial revenue, or land fund, and yet himself asserts that it is " de jure colonial revenue although it has been hitherto de facto the revenue of 4he Province," and has been appropriated by the Provincial Council towards roads, and bridges, education purposes and the like. If this is the case, surely it is a reason, and a strong one too, for the abolition of the provinces which enjoy de facto what de jure belongs to the colony, and the only fair deduction to be made from Mr Macandrew's argument is, not that the Province of Otago ought not to be abplished now, but that it ought to have been abolished long before. This also does much to cut away the ground of Mr Macandrew's second would-be argument for the maintenance of Provincialism; viz., the loss supposed to be inflicted by the abolition of Provincial Councils. Now what were the Provincial Councils for? Were they not in a great measure for the direction of that land fund which Mr Macandrew acknowledges is of right the property not of the province but of the colony ? If the land fund be of right the property of the colony, which it by right ought to have, one of the principal functions of the Provincial Council is taken away from them, and why should they longer be allowed to remain at an expense—according to Mr Macandrew—of £32,000 a year, if they have either no duties to discharge, or at the best only such duties as can be discharged by others (at least) quite as well ? Mr Macandrew gives as his ideas of what should be — seeing that the people will have something different from Provincialism as it now exists—three things : firs', that the colony should be divided into two islands independent of each other ; second, that there should be a General Assembly (we presume of members of the two islands) with powers and functions distinctly defined, and limited to questions purely federal; thirdly, that in all other points not so defined the Provincial Legislature shall have supreme constituent powers; that is, that things being complex enough now, Mr Macandrew could add to their complexity by making two colonies instead of one, and, by further subdividing these into as many provinces as may be agreed upon, with supreme powers on all subjects not defined in a certain way, make "confusion worse confounded."