The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3020, 1 March 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1881.

The constitution of Waste Lands Boards has recently formed the subject of the leading articles of several of our contemporaries, and some of them are of opinion that the Boards should be composed of members partly nominated by the Ministry of the day and partly elected by the people. Others of our contemporaries think that these Boards should be constituted on something like the same principle as Hospital and Harbor Boards — that is to say the members partly nominated by the Government, partly elected by the County Councils, aud partly elected by the people. For ourselves we see no reason why there should be Waste Lands Boards at all. In the days that have passed away, when the provinces were governed by a Superintendent and a Council, the necessity for a Waste Lands Board was not apparent. In this province ot Hawke's Bay, at all events, a Commissioner of Crown Lands and a Receiver of Crown Lands Revenue did the work which it is now deemed necessary must be performed by a Board. Since the abolition of the provinces Boards have sprung up like mushrooms all over tbe country, vastly adding to the cumbrousness of the governing machinery, and greatly increasing the cost of local government. Under provincialism the Commissioner of Crown Lands was a personally responsible officer appointed by the General Government, but placed under the instructions of the Superintendent and his Council. It rested with the Superintendent and Council to determine when and what lands should be thrown open for sale, and at what prices they should be offered to the public. The proceeds of the lands sales being the principal source of income of the province the administration of the public estate was regulated so as best to meet the demands of settlement and of revenue. As the lands were made available for settlement by the opening up of the country by road 3, or through the applications of intending buyers, so were they thrown open for sale. We have no hesitation in saying that under the system as now inaugurated the early settlement of the country could not have been accomplished. But in the early days the alienation of the public estate and of settlement went hand in hand guided by a governing body, the interest of which was to promote both, and in their promotion to benefit the colony at large. It is not so now. The self-sustaining copfidence, the pride, and the interest of the several parts of the colony were most effectually destroyed when provincialism was abolished. There is now no race for supremacy between the several provinces, nothing to impel the best settlers in each to take a leading part in the affairs of their own district. The governing powers

of each province Lave been split up and divided amongst a number of insignificant Boards and potty Councils, that have no money, no influence, and no dignity. In tb_p p'aoft cr otic governing body •.-. j h_ve AiuP':;i-i i.[ CouQcils, Ccuuty Councils, Harbor Bca-d?, Hospital Boards, and Road iioar...., ail dependeut for their existence upc_ charily, upon local taxation, and Govcrn.r.ent .subsidies, end in spite of which all heavily in debt, and all powerless for any permanently good or useful purpose. What appears to us as being urgently required is a return to a simpler form of government. It is aot so much a question as to how all these impoverished and head-over-ears-in-debt Boards should be constituted as it is how they can best be swept away altogether. As to the Waste Lands Boards, now that the pick of the country has been alienated from the Crown, their functions are so nearly at an end that no one Deed trouble himself much about them. The work that the members have to do is certainly not worth paying for, nor is the work of such a character but that the Commissioner could not perform it infinately better and more expeditiously than being hampered by the so-called deliberations of a Board. Local government, as we know it, is a costly blunder, as will be seen by the following table showing how large a proportion of local revenue is absorbed in the cost of administration : — Revenue Salaries Otherexp. £ £ £ Counties ... 575,524 29,012 31,669 Boroughs ... 392,089 37,546 191,903 Road & Local Boards ... 334,118 23,206 43,979 River Boards 14,460 1,524 1,616

£1,251,191 £91,288 £269,167 The salaries and other incidental expenses for the year, it will thus be seen, amounted to no less a sum than £360.455, or very nearly 30 per cent, of the gross revenue of the Local Governing bodies.