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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3233, 10 November 1881, Page 2

In reference to a return to provincialism, modified or otherwise, Mr Sydney Johnston ventured to say at bis meeting on Monday, that the Waipawa settlers had no desire to alter tbe existing system. And he asked those who remembered how the district had been treated under the Provincial Government, whether they would wish to return to provincialism ? The majority of those present, probably, did not remember the days to which Mr Johnston referred, but those who did must have been astonished at the audacity of the question. The question of course implied tbat Waipawa had been treated unfairly by the. Provincial Government, that it had been neglected, and that nothing like the money raised within it bad beenexpended in s the openiug up of the country. That is what Mr Johnston would have had new-comers believe, although he is well enough aware that there is not a shadow of foundation for any such belief. The fact is that Waipawa received everything it hostesses under provincialism, and has bad nothing since. It is the one great complaint against the old provincial administration that it favored certain districts to the neglect of others, and the Waipawa district was the one in this province that benefited under this, apparently, unjust distribution of the -public" funds. -We say " apparently unjust" because a little reflection shows that the expenditure in that direction was only fair and equitable. The country that is now included in the County of Waipawa was in the days of provincialism the great producing district of the province, besides which it contributed by far the largest proportion of the land revenue and sheep assessment. In the time that we speak of the moat of the county of Hawke's Bay was native land, and to the north of Napier there were very few settlers.' In order to open up the rich Crown lands to the south of the province it was necessary to. construct the Havelock-Waipawa road via Te Aute, and tbe Middle road to Waipawa via Patangata. For the greater part of their length these highways went through native lands, and the then opponents of provincialism were never weary of pointing the finger of scorn at the Te Aute road. Id spite, however, of all that was said to the contrary, that road was, and would be now if it were not for the railway, the great artery of the province, •without which the cost of carriage would have seriously crippled the enterprise and industry of the Bettlers. Again, it was under provincialism that the road was made through the Seventy-mile-Bush, and the settlements of Norsewood, Danevirk, Ormondville, and Woodville established. It was provincialism that made the roads, opened up the country, induced settlement, and raised the colony to a position that enabled it borrow millions of money for the construction of public works and for immigration. It was centralism that squandered the loans, destroyed the Constitution, and gave tbe colony the county system, a system that has done nothing and which can do nothing for the promotion of settlement, or for the enhancement of the progress or wealth of the country.