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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3242, 21 November 1881, Page 2

The Premier addressed his constituents on Saturday night and received an unanimous vote of confidence. In reference to local govern-nent he said the system of government for towns was satisfactory, and it had been advantageously extended by the Act to create Town Boards for the smaller towns and suburban districts. For rural districts the improvements should be in the direction of givinp elasticity to the system of County Councils and Road Boards, so that the people themselves might choose under which form they would have their local affairs administered. To this might be added another improvement, the necessity for which was recognised by the Government. He meant that there should be delegated to local bodies many of those powers which were originally and rightly given to Superintendents of Provinces, but which, when abolition took place, were vested in the Government. The Government had no desire whatever that such powers should be ' centralised in Wellington,' as it was phrased, but they had not as yet had a reasonable opportunity for dealing with the subject. Money was the great want of the local bodies, especially where important difficult road works were necessary. The Government meant to propose that where Crown or native lands required roads there should be power to rate those lands. As to main roads, they would propose, first, that if a district raised by rate one-fourth the cost of a main road the other threefourths should be given by the State ; and, second, that for district roads money should be lent to the local bodies and be repayable to the State by instalments extending over 12 years.