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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3134, 14 July 1881, Page 2

To show what sort of local government this colony is in the enjoyment of we will give an every day example. We will suppose, for instance, that a licensed borough cabman having left hia horses unattended in the public thoroughfare, an information is laid, and a summons taken out against him by the Inspector of Nuisances. The action is taken under section 40, Part 8, of Bye-law No. 1, and is pu.-ely a municipal matter. The Inspector goes to a General Government office, and takes out a summons, to which he has to affix four shillings worth of General Government stamps. In due course the case is heard before a General Government officer in the person of a Resident Magistrate, or of General Government nominees in the persons of two Justices of the Pea.cc. The cabman having been found guilty is fined one shilling and costs. TJnder the Municipal Corporations Act the fine is due to the Corporation. The Clerk of the Court, however, ha 9to pay the one shilling and costs he has received from the cabman into the public account of the colony at the Bank of New Zealand. The Bank of New Zealand receives the money on behalf of the General Government, and transmits it to Wellington, for which a per centage is charged (one shilling per cent. ; if by telegraph two shillings per cent). At the end of several weeks—in the case of Napier it is usually two months — the Town Clerk receives notice from the General Government that the sum of five shillings, being the cabman's fine and costs, bas been paid to the Corporation account in the Union Bank of Australia. Nothing less round about would satisfy the conception of the Ministerial mind with regard to local government. Here is another example of the charming simplicity of the system ; The fees payable upon wholesale spirit licenses and publican's licenses have to be paid to the Collector of Customs, although they form a portion of the ordinary revenue of tbe borough or county in respect to which the license is taken out. The Collector of Customs issues the licenses and receives the money for them, and, as soon as convenient, pays the amount in a lump sum into the Corporation or County Council account. The Collector of Customs has no means of knowing the persons who should take out licenses; and the Town Clerk cannot possibly tell who has, or who has not, renewed his license until the returns are made up and sent in from the Customs department. So far as has yet been explained Major Atkinson does not propose to simplify the relations between local and general governments ; on the contrary, it is intended by tbe Ministerial measure to make local bodies more dependent upon the central government. It is decentralisation in the fullest sense of the word that the country demands, and nothing short of that will satisfy the people.