TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3262, 17 August 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1881.

Ma Seddon. M.H.R., for Hokitika 4 speaking on the Crown and Native Land? Rating Bill, very aptly remarked that we have got too much government in New Zealand. We have something like eight hundred governing bodies in the colony. We have Road Boards, Eiver .Boards, Highway Boards, RiverConservato -H, Couuty Councils, Borough Council?, Waste Lands Boards, Boardd of Eduea- | tion, Cemetery Boards. Local Committees, ' Benevolent Societies, School Committees, Charitable Aid Boards-tbe litest— Reserves Coronmsioners, Cattle Buarde. Boards of Health and also Rabbit Boards. Giving some twenty local School Committees to each education district, the«e bring op the total to something like eig'it hundred governing bodies in the colony of New Zealand. Mr Stddon then asked : Are the inhabitants of New Zealand such a elaess that require to be thus specially provided for ? The answer must inevitably be " No." The cry from the country ia not so much that the system of local government ia defective; the cry is that there is too much government. The desire is not for that centralisation which the Colonial Treasurer speaks of. The people do not want to be governed from Wellington or from any of the large centres of population in the colony; they want one governing body in each district of the colony, with certain powers to govern the people of the district. But the governing body that ie wanted is not a County Council as at present constituted. Mr Pyke showed in the same debate the useleesness of County Councils. He said the County Councils, which are supposed to have takea upon themselves the whole ot the burdens formerly borne by Provincial Governments, find that their action is impeded in almost every direction by the severe circumscription of their powers as defined in the Counties Act; and they find their usefulness impaired by the unwise restriction of their functions. At present their powers and their functions are as restricted almost as those of a parish Board — perhaps more so. They can make roads, and they can build bridges ; they can erect pounds, and they can establish markets | and they can tax pedlars and hawkers—and the whole of "their powers and functions cease. If they exist in those districts which contain goldfields, their powers to belp the development of thnt industry, as it was Raided in the days when the Provincial Governments ruled over the country, are nil. It is quite true that the system of audit in this respect ia valueless. The only result of the Auditor disagreeing with any expenditure of a County Council is simply . that he puts a note at the bottom of bis report, and there the matter ends. But these County Councils really have no right or power to expend one farthing in aid of prospecting or for constructing sludge-channels or tail-races. These are not the only difficulties. They caD contribute to the support of hospitals, but they have no power over those institutions. Nor have they power to make by-laws for the regulation of local affairs in the districts over which they preside ; in fact, to put it briefly, tney are nothing better than Road Boards on a large scale. Mr Jones, the member for Waitaki, was quite right in saying that it would be impossible to adapt any one system of local government to the requirements of every portion of the colony. This fact only proves the necessity for granting legislative powers to districts, so that they may be placed in a position to manage their own affairs as their circumstance may require. One of the first steps should be to repeal the property-tax and bestow upon local bodies a share of the Land Fund upon some equitable and fixed basis. Thus local bodies would be placed in possession of the means whereby to administer their domestic affairs, the Legislature would be relieved of the necessity of legislating on matters of which it knows nothing and our central Government would be, purified and elevated. By these means public funds would be more economically and judiciously expended, and the enormous sums now devoted to the maintenance of ponderous departments would be diverted into channels of usefulness, instead of being used to interpose barriers to the obtainment of that beneficent legislation, both local and general, which for years has been demanded by the people.