THE WAIRARAPA STANDARD SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1876.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume 5, Issue 403, 26 February 1876, Page 2

THE WAIRARAPA STANDARD SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1876.

In the next session of our Colonial Parliament some machinery will have to be devised to take the place of the Provincial machinery which the Constitution Act brought into operation, and which it is now proposed shall be swept away altogether. Everybody admits that that machinery was at one time admirably adapted to attain the end for which it was designed; but some contend that this is not the case now. To discard the metaphor of machinery for the closer one of an animated organism, the question has yet to be decided whether it would not have been better to have facilitated the expulsion of dead tissue, and the growth of new organs than to have totally destroyed those vital forces which had been proved to be beneficial, and which it may be found extremely difficult to replace. We have always held that the Provincial system required remodelling to adapt it to the altered circumstances of the colony and the times; but the reformation of existinginstitutions is one thing, and their total abolition another. “The more,” says Mr Stephen, “we apply the scientific spirit to the investigation of social problems, the more we are struck with the essential continuity of history, and the impossibility of introducing spasmodic changes. The most trivial customs are found to be rooted in the conditions of primitive society. We cannot understand a single institution without tracing it back through generations. Early historians believed, like the early geologists, in catastrophes which obliterated the whole preceding order. The more such revolutions are studied, the more distinctly the limits of their influence appear. 4 Names have been changed more often than things. Even in the society which has been most thoroughly revolutionised the whole social framework in all its main outlines has remained unshaken by the superficial agitation.” It remains to be seen whether the abolition of the provincial form of government is not one of those spasmodic changes to which Mr Stephen refers; whether in changing the name we get rid of the thing the name signified; and whether the new machinery will not prove equally as defective as that which it is designed to replace.

We are aware that there are thinkers who look upon political machinery of any kind as a matter of no consequence; while there are others again who ate apt to over-estimate itbut for our part; we are disposed to think with Mr Stephen, in the article from which we have already quoted, thslj be absurd to Say t hat no change of machinery can btfvl importance, unless we attach a very narrow meaning to the word machinery. Some constitutional changes have been of importance, if anything has been of importance. Though the overthrow of an established Government, or the abolition of class privileges, seems, in one sense, a mere change of machinery, yet it will be admitted that such events have altered the character of nations, and have been frought with consequences of the highest importance to mankind. To those who are disposed to undervalue forms of government, and the influence of legislation on a people, we put this auestion —Did the Spartans originate ieir peculiar institutions, or was it their peculiar institutions which made the Spartans! There is more in forms of government than many modem thinkers pretend. Not as an end, but as a means to an end—wise administration, and the freedom and well being of the governed. Believing thus, we look upon the form of local govenment, which is to replace the provincial system, ae a matter or the first importance. We also consider that even now we should not willingly consent to the abolition of the Provincial Councils until we know by what other councils they will be replaced. We went to know what is tbs nature of the machinery it is

proposed to substitute for that which it u proposed to destroy. Provincial Executives with Provincial Councils have not given satisfaction; but the sooner Provincial Executives without Provincial Councils, and without responsibility of any Mud, are swept away, the better.