The Evening Star FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2605, 23 June 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1871.

The unanimity of the Provincia Council on most subjects is most refreshing. Instead of that fierce war of words that used to mark the course of debates of the last Council, we have a little amicable sparring, just in a kindly way, after which the motions pass pro or con, are recorded in the minutes of Council, and most of them consigned to oblivion. We do not see, however, that any great amount of work has yet been got through. The debates thus far have been mainly on theoretical subjects, or on proposals that must be ultimately decided by the General Government. Although, therefore, there may be those who entertain opinions adverse to the majority of the Council, they feel that it is but waste of time to do more than express their dissent without throwing impediments in the way of the progress of the session. We hardly know, in fact, whether there is an opposition or not. Yesterday there was rather a warm debate on the Sabbatarian question : another ou education. The,day before, the question of centralism and provincialism cropped up, when, to all appeai-ance, yeiy few of the members had much to say in favor of the latter. All these abstractions serve to amuse the Council, pending the coming financial statement ; which, from the forebodings of the Provincial Secretary, promises to offer very lean pickings for the Council to dispute about. It seems very evident that so far as legislation is concerned, a conviction is gradually growing up that it is passing from the sphere of the Provincial Council, and that in the development of the Colony unity of system must ultimately supersede the diversity of law resulting from division into Provinces, This has been the course indicated by the events of the last few years. When the Provincial loans were consolidated into a Colonial loan the doom of Provincialism was sealed. It was an acknowledgment of the advantage of unity; and gradually, since that time, it has been proved that the Colony is regarded from without with greater favor than any section of it, however much in advance of the rest in local and material development. It may not be very flattering to a province like Otago that it commands hardly more respect on the Stock Exchange in London than Nelson or Marlborough or Wellington ; but stockbrokers at Horae are not quite so well up in Colonial geography as we are, and very possibly have an idea that Otago is surrounded by a number of Hau haus, who at a signal from Te Kooti would eat up the white men and women and burn their houses. What, therefore, the Province could not command the General Government obtained without difficulty. Otago’s best efforts could not procure the means for constructing the Clutba railway. The General Government obtained the money almost without an effort. Neither would it appear that the people of the Province are actually the best judges of what is for its benefit. It really mattered very little during the late discussion what were the ideas of the various members as to the direction lines of railway should take or where they thought the termini should be. It was natural that the people of Oamaru should ask one thing and those of Waikouaiti another. One unscientific man may indulge in a fancy equally with another, and express the wishes of his constituents in regard to the district he represents; but to suppose for a moment that Waikouaiti or Oamaru can ever supersede places with natural harbors like Moeraki or Port Chalmers, is so manifest an absurdity that it is not worth the trouble of serious argument to prove it. It would have been quite a different matter had the ultimate decision retted with the Provincial Council. Than the folly of each project must have been jhovrn. It would have been neces*

sary to have pointed out the heavy cost at which alone these schemes could be made useful and the disadvantages to the Province of too wide a dispersion of commercial machinery. But since the decision must at length rest with the General Government, and must be based on widely different principles from .the little log-rollings of the Provincial Council; and, moreover, since it may be years before any action is taken in regard to these suggested lines, the question may be safety allowed to pass and develop itself in the course that settlement and commerce indicate. Meantime these meagre results have cost the Province at least one thousand pounds in honorarium alone —besides the expense of printing, labor of clerks in supplying a vast variety of returns, and other outlay. How much more is to be spent before the curtain drops on this legislative farce 1