The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1868.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 425, 10 December 1868, Page 2

The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1868.

-Both in a political and a social point of view, one of the anomalies of the condition of the population of the "West Coast is the wide distinction between the forms of government under which different sections of that population live. By government we mean, ofcourse, the mechanism employedin the imposition of taxation and in the execution of its primary objects. South of the river Grey we find an active public spirit educed by the existence ■ 0.1 the spot of a form of government more or less adapted to the exigencies of the time and the situation. North of the Grey, on the other hand, there exists the most complete political apathy—an apathy which is not only apparent by contrast with the state of Feeling existing in "Westlaud, but an apathy real and absolute. By some of the leading representatives of the JN'elson Provincial Government, including the Superintendent himself, this undesirable state of feeling has been accepted as a compliment to their good government, and as an indication that -other and better institutions are neither i

sought nor required. There is not needed, however, any very active search beneath the surface to discover that the flattering unction which the Superintendent and others thus lay to their official souls is founded on a fallacy. There may be apathy, but there is not contentment. And the apathy itself probably arises from the feeling that, in choosing between a County Council and the present Provincial form of Government, there is only a choice of evils. There is an impression that freedom from the latter would only be avoiding Scylla, while an adoption of the former would be an invitation of the dangers of Charybdis. The direction in which any public feeling runs —if the public feeling can at all be described as having acquired such an amount of activity—is in the direction of a compromise. It is in this compromising spirit that municipal institutions for the towns have been talked of, and it is in the same spirit that such really useful, but legally valueless, bodies as Progress Committees have been invented and appointed. But these are felt to be, at the best, a bad compromise ; and something which will secure more of the semblance, if not of the reality, of local self-government, is sought after. People might be content if they had even such insignificant institutions as Eoad Boards, the formation of which, in Westland, seems only to be secondary in importance to the constitution of the County Council. Such humble institutions do exist, we believe, in other parts of the Province, and those who have lived in other and better provinces of New Zealand well know of what service such bodies have been in the development of districts, and in the preservation of public interest in the common estate. It has been left to the province of Otago —the province in which the necessity was, perhaps, least urgent—to place these bodies on a sound and permanent footing. Hitherto they have had an ample, although not an altogether secured endowment from the Government, but by special Act, introduced at the instigation of members of the Provincial Government, they have now secured to them a permanent endowment, and are placed in the position of proving to the country of great and general service. The Bill by which this system of local self-government was secured, was introduced late in the session, and was passed without much discussion or a very wide distribution of a knowledge of its objects and intentions :w_, j.\ o—,'prtunnii another column, as a source of information for those who may consider that a measure •somewhat similar might, with benefit, be put in force in such parts of the country as this portion of the Province of Nelson. It is possible, in any adoption of such a measure for the South-West Goldfields of Nelson, that the basis of endowment might require to be different, and how far different might well form the subject of local discussion, either through the medium of the Press or of Progress Committees. As to the value of such an Act as a whole, without regard to its details, we cannot do better than quote what, in the opinion of Mr Julius Yogel, the Otago Act is calculated to do for that Province. At a recent meeting in the Princess Theatre, Duncdin, Mr Yogel said : "The Upper House threw out the Road Boards Bill; but a Bill was passed specially for Otago, embodying propositions which Mr Bell, Mr Eeid, and myself had taken great pains in shaping out—propositions which confer upon Local Eoad Boards a permanent endowment, and which give to the Eoad Districts a career which, if they wisely use it, promises to open out the Province of Otago from one end to the other, and which will place it—if other Provinces do not take a similar course—far ahead of them in the history of New Zealand. The Eoad Boards have now a permanent endowment under that special Act, and I say that, if wisely used, it will give to Otago the fullest measure of local government which it is desiiable it should receive, and which is consistent with the maintenance of the institutions under which we live—institutions which we are bound to maintain, until the people of New Zealand have expressed an opinion contrary to their maintenance."