TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3136, 16 July 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1881.

Amidst a storm of cheers from the Opposition, Mr Sheehan, in the House last night, gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill to repeal tbe Abolition of Provinces Act. The cheers that greeted Mr Sheehan's notice will find an echo from one end of the colony to the other. Afte;' four years' trial of abolition the colonists are beginning to count the cost. If the abolition of Provincialism was to lead to economy in Government it has been a miserable failure. Let us see (says the Echo) what the returns of expenditure of counties show. We take round numbers, omitting shillings and pence. We find that for the year ending 31st March, 1880, the expenditure on public works by the Otago counties was £144,000 ; other expenditure, £33,000. Let ua see what the much abused Provincial Council expended. We find that for the year 1875-6 there was expended for roads and bridges £155,000, and the expenses of the Provincial Engineers' Department was £5853 12s 6d! The cost of the Provincial Council was £3868 lis lid, and of the Superintendent and Executive £5321 15s 9d. It has to be remembered that portions of these two latter items have to be charged against education, police, gaols, asylums, &<}., &c, now managed by the general Government. It will be seen from the figures we have given that no additional expenditure ou roads and bridgp.9 ha»i been made under tbe new regime. Ia case any one may say

that the Provincial expenditure for 1375-6 was large in view of abolition we will take the year 1874-5, and it was for roads and bridges £153,000 ! What do these figures show ? If they stood alone do they not prove two things ? First, the expenditure on roads and bridges has not increased ; second, that the cost of this expenditure-tint is, the cost of expending the sum on roads and bridges—has increased. The other expenditure of counties is £33,000 a year. We are understate? the expenditure when we say that the half of it represents expenditure on engineers and inspectors. The Provincial Government required only £5,800, whilst the counties need about treble that sum. Where then is the gain? But that is not all. Outlying districts (bat never paid before have now to pay rates. And the land fund is gone; aud General Governmental expenditure increased, and new taxes imposed, and no efficient local control over our own affairs. What did abolition do? It deprived us of a useful political educating machinery ; it injured individualism and provincial energy ; it has given us taxes; it has increased the cost of road making and bridge building; it made the colonists take less interest in politics; it has set one district to fight against another, and developed log rolling as a science ; and it ignored that first principle of growth that there must be specialisation of function. And what are its gains? Would the most ardent abolitionist please sum up the gains ? This return of county expenditure should help him. What the provinces expended is known, and what the counties have spent is also known. Would some one show us the financial gain ? What we lost politically, we have not yet realised ; but what we have lost in money, we may now begin to count. Will some leading abolitionist make a debtor and creditor account and strike a balance ? We would like to see this done. Some abolitionists are now discovering that paying the moneys to tbe Consolidated Fund, or to the treasurers of counties, does not, strange to say, increase the funds that were previously paid to provincial treasurers. And they have also now found out that the creation of counties does not create revenue. They have something more to discover before they realise the fatal step they took in 1875. They then inflicted an injury on the colony, of which it is still reaping the evil results. It is only when abolition is found out that some politicians begin to see what it meant. Is it not a pity that the people and their leaders were not in 1875 and 1876 more clear-sighted and more able to peep into the future ? However, we have now begun to count the cost of abolition, and we hope the auditing of the accounts will do us good.