TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3236, 14 November 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1881.

To those who are acquainted with Mr Oγmoncl's style of address, to those who only heard him for the first time on Friday night at Wdipawa, it can be no matter of surprise that when he risen in the House to speak from the lobbies and ante-rooms the members crowd in to hear him. And yet Mr Ormond is by no means a polished speaker; as an orator he is not to be compared with a dozen men who might be mentioned but who carry no weight whatever in or out of Parliament. He is very far from being afflicted with " exuberance of verbosity;" he seldom speaks, and, when he does, language certainly does not flow from his lips like oil out of a bottle. There are some men who can talk more easily against time than they can sensibly for ten minutes; Mr Rees has humorously boasted that he has talked for twenty hours at a stretch. The late Parliament contained many interminable talkers, men who seemed to be laboring under the idea that their mission in the House was to talk, and not to think and to work. These are the men who empty the benches as soon as they rise to speak, whereas men of Mr Ormond's stamp are they who fill the House with eager listener?. The vast difference between "gas" and solid material is quickly discerned in. an assemblage like that of the House of Eepr sentatives, and no one will deny that, however much Mr Orraond may fall short of honeyed words, his speeches are fall of matter for deep reflection. There is also the additional charm in his speeches of earnestness ; he never fails to convince his hearers that the subjects upon which he touches have been well thought out, and a conviction arrived at, and, as a rule, he impresses the truth of his own conviction upon his audience. In his address on Friday the views that he expressed on the question of local government must have commended themselves to everyone. Mr Orraond said that the only system of local government now in force in the country was that of County Councils and Road Boards. The objection to the double system was that the road work was carried on by two bodies, both with taxing powers, and often clashing with each other. He saw no reason why the boundaries of Road Boards should not be extended so as to be coterminus with the Ridings of the Counties, in which case the County Councils might cease to exist, all their functions being vested in the Road Boards. He failed to see the necessity of the two bodies. Road Boards could mauage their own affairs, raise taxes, and spend their own money to quite as great advantage as County Councils. At present there were various bodies which under the existing " nolocal" government system performed various functions. Some of those bodies were wholly nominee, some wholly elective, and some partly elective. There were Education Boards, Charitable Aid Boards, Waste Lands Boards, and other Boards. The whole ot their duties, Mr Ormond maintained, could be carried out by one body, having jurisdiction over areas which might for convenience be made equal to the provincial districts. What Mr Ormond contended for 'was " local control over purely local affairs." This is what the country has not got, and never can be said to have so long as the central government possesses the right to nominate the members of local boards. Boroughs and Counties alike suffer by a system such as at present exists, and it is to men of Mr Ormond's stamp that we must look for bringing about an alteration.