SPECIAL ARTICLE.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20488, 5 March 1932, Page 14

SPECIAL ARTICLE.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: A S4C *|||J

;.= rECIAXLY TTRITTES TOE THS TSISS.; [By L. C. Webb, M.A.] 11.

Any system of local government, however contused and inefficient it, may appear on tlie surface, is entitled to the benefit of the assumption that it has been created in response to social needs. To test the validity of this assumption, and to determine whether the social needs that may have justified the system still exist, it is necessary to know something of its history. A study of the development of local government in New Zealand will show that many of its worst features are not the result of any deliberate policy, but are the accidental results of careless legislation or of legislation not based on a survey of the facts. Provincial Local Government.

The history of local government in New Zealand falls naturally into two periods, with the abolition of the Provinces in 1874 as a dividing line/ Between 1853 and 1874, each Province set up its own system of local government, and although at first there was wide variation in these systems, in the end thav conformed roughly to one pattern. In Canterbury, for instance, the need was early felt for local bodies ■which would undertake road construction and repair, and the members of ths Provincial Council, with recent English road legislation fresh in their minds, divided Canterbury into road districts in each of which a "Waywarden" was to be elected by the ratepayers, who were to have from one to five votes according to the area of their property. The "Waywarden's" term of office was a year; he was to collect rates, arrange for the construction of roads under the general supervision of the Provincial Engineer, and keep the accounts of his district. The amount of the rate was to be fixed at a meeting of- the whole body of ratepayers. The system was an interesting attempt to copy the direct democracy of the English parishes, but it was not suited to conditions in the colony; the work of creating a road system where none, had previously existed was too great to be placed on the shoulders of unpaid elective officials. Apart from its inherent defects, however, the first Road Ordinance was ineffective.because it put on the inhabitants in each district the onus of bringing the Act into operation, and as they were already taxed by the Provincial and the . Central they re jested the invitation to taix themselves again. A similar fate befell the Provincial Council's attempt to foster municipal government. In 1859 an Ordinance was passed empowering the Superintendent to constitute any town of not less than 200 inhabitants a municipal district on the petition of the householders. But the inhabitants of the towns were as reluctant as the country inhabitants had been to incur another set of taxes. . , Consequences.

This absence of municipal government had serious consequences in the rapidly growing towns of the colony. The state of Lyttelton and Christchurch in 1861 is thus described by a local newspaper: "Heaps of festering garbage, pigstyes, reeking cesspools, and the usual results of a total want of drainage, obtrude themselves upon the senses wherever a few houses are clustered thickly together j while the main streets, rivers, and harbours have long been used as . receptacles for the filth o£ those who prefer having it removed from their immediate presence. Disease, the natural result of the want of all provision for enforcing the ordinary regulations requisite for the preservation of health in towns has increased in a greater ratio than the increase in population." In the same year the Superintendent, Mr Moorhouse, told the townspeople of the Province, bluntly that,"their choice of alternatives would be very shortly limited to' taxation or typhus fever." There was, in fact, an outr break of typhus in and the Provincial Council found' the courage to force municipal government on ■ the townspeople. .There was even greater delay in setting up an effective, system of rural local government. In 1864 the Provincial Engineer,; in the course of a report to the Superintendent, stated: " It is proper to observe that, with the grpwing prosperity of the Province, the "work of the Department has far outgrown the machinery employed for its execution, and that the time has arrived when it is necessary . . . to introduce a system of local management which shall relieve the Government of a great deal of routine work which can be much better done by district boards than by a central executive sitting in Christchurch." In the' following year the Provincial Council passed an Ordinance compelling the establishment of road boards in 26 districts, the ratepayers to have one to five v.otes in proportion to the property held. Most - of the other Provinces had already'passed similar legislation, and a enquiry at the time of the Abolition Act showed that there were in New Zealand 314 such boards, as well as 19 incorporated towns.

turn its attention tn local government. which the Provinces wergjj j-i I money allotted to works had long been a plaint, and it was f4£crease in the cxpenditu& head must be preceded byja jgjjß tn6 country's admi The Government's plan local government to some the hands of the Provm«;., end to compel these Conn L fa® ever a fixed proportion oj Jaj enue to local bodies. , <■ other grounds. The' k gislative powers a I Provincial Councils clearly defined, and""': of some of the OrdmancestlrmtiiS municipalities and their powers was create effective local areas. "We have sity for some general m^||||B the Hon. John Hall in Representatives on " They are provided nance which was extraiig]Vtfn9H! drawn up and is as tajtuiiraßß Provincial Legislature authorities of that Ptnt-Tn^a^Hß to this Legislature . powers in the session ■: Of powers were granted; sion of 1866 they fdinid^^m|* to come for further* remedy this state of nient brought in a BiH^Swj^K English Municipal CorpomßSlK 1835, to establish a code throughout unwise timidity, ment gave thn the option of adopting or not as they j passed without mmii a different fate 1 attempt to set up i Bill, as it was called, replacing of the ™ miles and a ister, Bill-to fill in flife gaps' istrative system* Ifcft the Provinces. Tbe Bill, the election l-atepaveisi-wlio ■ to three votes in assessment, * toad x&'.twgdHHH country was ■lt is impossible to res&SBHHH that the Bill w»8it was a product of sidered attempt to the, situation, and had'vague and of what its, effeiits'-^^M^^BB liimsplf announced r;|anMßH| object will be to secj^'JjjflH^BH the road boards but he was also 1 would be undesirablelß^^^HH be imposed wi thin within the same imposed by inserted a clause of the measure in dent on the, will. The most Bill was that of the Mr William of " there is no and there is" that 1 General fjid the counties ,wJßc| nHHH country in inextrieaW? believe the machinery'! far more H||l present exists, andSw* XjHHH than such a adopted for the General and The Counties basis of our government, and almost all v of the The permissive "had predicted, boards and the hopelessly entangled. of 1876, in the " threw the and told them to ac^^HjjH cf the Act were. fixed revenue. ■ leayingi!«|aj|BM apply. to Parliament cut of the Public .Wo^^HH need arose. The resnlC^^^^fflß districts able to exe?t ence in WeUingtoHjf^WHfflß money, and that , which had been sucl?>M^MH* feature of the Prow®^^^fflß