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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3872, 14 December 1883, Page 2

One of the last Parliamentary papers to hand is a return .showing the amount of sheep rate collected in the .several provincial districts during the year ending March 31st last, and the approximate cost of inspection of sheep during the same period. From this we learn that the total amount of sheep rate collected was £13,575, and the cost of inspection £12,113. Hawke's Bay contributes £2200, and entails an expenditure of £990, thus leaving a "profit " of £1.210 ; Auckland shows a loss of £CG3, the rate amounting to £762, and the expenses to £1425. There is also a loss of £30.) at Wellington, and of £230 at Taranaki, where the rate amounts to £20, and the expenditure to £250. Nelson shows a loss of £13G, and Marlborough of £80. Canterbury luis a sheep rate of £3707, and nn expenditure of £1700, leaving , a profit of over £2000, and Otago also has a margin of over £1000 on the right side. In "Wcstland sheep inspection costs £300, and the rate amounts to £3. In addition to district inspectors and assistant inspectors, there is an official with the imposing title of "Superintending Inspector for the whole Colony," for holding which he receives £400 a year, and £1050 are lumped down under the convenient heading of contingencies. These items succeed in bringing up the expenses to within £1-162 of the receipts. Before Abolition, before the days of Centralism, shamele.s, Government patronage, waste and extravagance, the colony did very well without a Superintending Inspector, and the sheep rates, in this district at all events, were expended for the benefit of the flockowners. Under the blessed delights of '' real local government that we now enjoy the £1210 surplus of sheep rates from this district goes to pay the salaries of men employed in other parts of the colony. A month or two ago the Rabbit Prevention Committee applied to the Government for a subsidy upon the voluntary sheep-rate that had been paid by the siieep-farmers for the purpose of keeping rabbits out of the district. Tho Committee suggested that, as for many years past tho annual sheep vatc largely exceeded the administrative cost of the department, Ha wkc'a Bay might consider it had a claim on tho Government. The reply was admirably characteristic of Centralism : Hawlce's Bay had no claim ; tho sheep rate collected over tho whole colony becamo one fund, and was dealt with as such, and no assistance out of that fund could bo given for tho prevention of tho rabbit plague,

even though that plague destroyed every sheep on which a rate was paid in Hawke's Bay. The answer was not of course c couched in that language, but, its purport ' was the same What was most desired to be clearly understood was tho stupendously important fact that thero was a "Department in existence at Welliugton which had to bo maintained, and that sheep were made for this department and not the department for the sheep. And between this time and the next general elections it cannot be too well understood that this principle underlies tho whole system of centralism—that in order to obtain real local government the taxpayers must regard themselves as living and paying for the maintenance of Departments, and that departments have been called into being and exist for tho sake of Ministerial

patronage