The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 2, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2179, 2 May 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 2, 1870.

The Provincial Council is called upon this session to extend the municipal system, which on a small scale has been found to answer so well wherever it has been adopted. The Australasian Colonies start on their career as nations with wonderful advantages. Instead of having to win their liberties by force, they can look back to the working of institutions by which liberty has been won and progress made in other lands. They can weigh them well, adapt them to their own condition, reject what has been found faulty in them, and, as it were, in their very infancy as nations, start with the strength of manhood. That which is imperatively required, in our present stage of development, is machinery for opening up the country. The most accessible parts are already occupied. Rural towns have sprung up, and connect them. Exception may very justly be taken to the road engineering on many lines of road. This department of colonial work has not escaped the general vice of log-rolling. But, however expensive they may be to work, they answer their end indifferently well. We certainly do not see why the best class of roads, railroads, could not be put under something of the same system of formation and maintenance as common roads. At present our modes of conveyance are not adapted to them, and it is a question the public are not prepared to entertain. No doubt there was a time when it was as great an undertaking to make a road as it is to make a railroad, and in a few years the wonder will be that road districts wasted so much money on inferior machinery, when they might, for far less outlay, on an average of years, have obtained the superior. In the meantime what is now sought is to create road districts with larger powers than District Road Boards at present possess, and to confer upon them Municipal powers. To this end a Bill has been introduced into the Provincial Council, to be called the “ Road Boards Ordinance, 1870.” The preamble sets forth that “it is expe- “ dient to provide for the establishment “ of road districts, and for giving ex- “ tended powers to road boards, and “ generally to provide for the construc- “ tion and maintenance of roads and « other public works in districts with- “ out the limits of municipalities and “ boroughs in the Province of Otago.” It will be truly inferred from this that it is proposed to place not only roads but bridges and ferries under local control, so that henceforth the inhabitants of the various districts may be enabled to effect such improvements as will add to the value of the property within the district. The Bill for this purpose is a very long one, but as it embodies most of the provisions of the Municipal Acts the task of going through it will not be so onerous as might be supposed. It is to be hoped that the inoonsistencies and ambiguities that crept into and disfigured those Acts have been avoided. At any rate, as clause by clause the Bill passes through Committe—for we presume it will reach the sifting pi’ocess—it is the fault of the members of the Provincial Council if they fail to detect them. The chief difficulty hitherto experienced has been the passing of some clause introduced by a member, that, unperceivcd, renders some previous

provision unworkable or a dead letter. This is exceedingly likely to take place in an Ordinance of two hundred and forty-nine clauses and sixteen schedules, of which the Bill consists. We shall not trouble our readers with an analysis of this elaborate legal compilation, for however interested they may be in the result, the labor of going through it would be too great. So far as we have been able to examine it, there is everything favorable to the adoption of the principle of the Bill. We have already stated the object. In order to attain it, it has been found convenient to divide the Bill into two parts. The first part deals with general principles. The second is devoted more especially to details. The first part provides for the constitution of road districts, the number of members of the Board, their “ capacity, &c.,” retirement and vacancies, distinct voters and their rights, elections, mode of election and privileges of the Chairman of the Board, proceedings of the Board, contracts, officers, bye-laws, ordinary revenue and district fund, what shall be rateable property, making of rates and valuations, maintainance of roads, bridges, and other public works, tolls, letting tolls, and applications, co-operation of Boards and fines to be paid to the district fund. The second part relates to the mode of conducting the business of Boards, and confers upon them borrowing powers. Not the least advantage proposed to be derived is the the introduction of cooperative machinery, by which, not only can Road District Board’s agree upon a common plan, but they will be empowered to make arrangements with authorities in other Provinces, so that the construction of roads may not only be for local but Colonial advantage. We do not desire to be thought chimerical, but we really think there could be no harm in providing thajfc, if a general arrangement could be entered into by -which the owners of property in a chain of road districts, desired to make tram roads or railroads instead of macadamised roads, they should be empowered to do so.