CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2693, 4 October 1871, Page 3

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM.

A public, meeting was held in Canterbury a few days ago to consider the above question. One of the speakers was Dr Turnbull, who made the following observations, which arc worthy of perusal:— It is a curious fact, said the Doctor, that the cry against the Provinces began and was continued during the commercial depression of the past six years. They arc made the scapegoat for the evils incident to a nation in a state of poverty. Men who desire to concentrate power iu a Central Government have cunningly fostered the idea, and they have partially made it true by a system of unjust central legislation. They have gradually, by legislating upon all manner of social concerns, mace it difficult for provinces to legislate at all. They have brought provinces into contempt. Hence wo are reduced to ask, whatever powers of legislation shall be granted, that these powers shall he well defined and independent. While believing in the provinces, I seem to see that it is impossible that the regard and respect in which the provinces were formerly held can be brought back, and I am reluctantly compelled to advocate that the provinces of this island shall be merged m one large province. Again I say that it would be absurd to run the same risk of the Island legislature being brought into contempt by the gradual absorption of its powers by a central government, and some means other than the Attorney-General would require to be devised to decide upon constitutional questions 'ibis Island Legislature would, the resolution goes on to say, have the sole power of controlling and conducting within the island the departments of land, works, and immigration. It is unnecessary for me to speak to a Canterbury audience of the capa bditv of a provincial legislature, dealing in waste lands. We have a system for the disposal of the waste lands, equalled I may say bv that of no other country ; while upon the question of land, it must be perfectly clear to every one of us, it is not our political privileges which alone are about to be absorbed but it is the revenue delivable from our lands, that is manifestly aimed at. This revenue, the result of the wise and farseciog provincial legislatures, and not of any central Government, is about to be merged in the general measure of the colony. This, in a great measure, is what we have to contend for However much it may he bidden, it seems unquestionable that the great proportion of our land will be taken for General Government purposes. The contractors must have land. The immigrants, also, will doubtlessly be given land upon some or no terms; ami > win re will all this land come from, except from Otago and Canterbury ? It is astonishing to us how people view with indifference the encroachments threatened. We are perpetually told, also, that public works can be better conducted by a Central Government. We are not likely to believe this assertion so long as we can show our magnificent roads, both in Otago and Canterbury, and have our Lyttelton and Christchurch railway, so long as we can show that we can make a railway such as the Northern at L 4200 per mile, including stations and fencing ; so long as the West Coast Road can shew what our engineering skill can do, I am firmly of opinion that public works can be best conducted by the provinces ; that the management of great public works by local legislatures is a grand means of giving the people £a spirit of X’eliance vmon their own power and capability ; a reliance which in times of difficulty and danger to the country would be found of inestimable advantage. 'ihe resolution concludes with the opinion that a Federal Government should be established, limited to legislation for controul, and over Federal concerns. It is impossible for me to indicate all the advantages which would accrue to the colony by the works of the central power being confined to its great interest alone. 1 may state that those inteiests aie—Customs duties, civil and criminal courts, postal and telegraph departments, bankruptcy, regulating marriages, regulating the course of inheritance, external and internal defence, intercourse of the colony with other colonies and countries. To auy impartial mind it must seem evident that a Central General Government oqght to be ipost tltai;kful thus Vo be able to coyote‘{ls yhole time and energies Id’tbose great questions, unhampered by fbe smaller details of national life. To my mind it augurs ill for the greatness of our legislators when th y insist upon regulating daily work qf the people, when they take td themselves pur roads, pur fences, our police, our charities, our schools; when they insist upon applying a general Lw po thp whfile polony; and compelling districts, however dissimilar, to accommodate themselves to that general law, instead of allowing the people of each province to grow up iuto a land foy themselves, natural to their position and cncumstauces. It has been urged that this idea of separation is iuoppqrtune, but |;o my npiid the testerjuinatron of the General Government to grasp the whole legislation and revenues of the cqlouy is premature. It is pot impossibly that difficulties may arise in this island, sufficient to abstract the intellect and time of Government to the total exclusion of social questions, and why should the North Island suffer? it is more than possi' le that difficulties, Native or otherwise, might rise up in the North Island, and be the occasion of equal hurt to the social welfare of this island. I ask what progress would our public works and immigration have made during the great Native troubles if it had not been for the existence of the Provincial Governments ? Seeing it must be a practical desideratum to good government so to airange government the‘smallest pOrtiqn possible 'shall'suffer from any marked national disturbance— that the social progress of the colony should proceed; whatever it as a nation may be passing through, wo cannot concede the evil position into which the central government is about to place itself. It is about to absorb au enormous patronage. It is about to collect into its own hands a power which was capable of being used with the most disastrous results. The least of power may ho sufficient for the actual rulers, but that wish for power must make them use numbers obedient to their interests. The enormous patronage they are about to assrune sviil create a class *oi political adventurers prepared to swear Obedience to' the poVvers that be. ' This, coupled with the difficulty of arriving at the sort of government, will shut out-independent men, and we will have a style of Government tynly appalling to epuielxiplafce. However intdrpating ttys fierce paity struggles may be to the Assembly, it heed not be supposed that the country at large view those struggles with a favourable eve They might be beneficial to a certain extent, but this eternal struggle for office is too palpably injurious to the best interests ot

tb e nation to permit independent men to think them other than an injury. lam of opinion that the country at large would he better pleased if the Ministers were rendered independent of the votes of members so far as their tenure of office goes, by being elected to the office for a term of years. For myself, I cannot sae a grander position for a Government to occupy, than to have its whole time and ability devoted to the elaboration .and carrying out of their schemes for the nation ; of standing with calmness and dignity of an assembly whose every concern is of world-wide interest ; of determining its financial position in the money-markets of Europe ; of sustaining its position as a not unimportant member of the British Empire ; of regulating its intercom se with other countries, and especially with the Australian cojonies; of regulating those laws which arc of universal interest, whether they belong to civil or criminal law, the laws affecting bankruptcy or inheritance, or those great departments which influence so much their commerce, the postal and telegraphic communications ; the vital questions of external or internal defence. ti'bcse are subjects which independent men of intellect may fitly deal with, without that admixture of paltry squabbles which cannot be seemly in the Parliament of a nation, but which arise if petty suhjebta are to be discussed on the floor of the House. When I see, however, the Parliament of a nation, with all its work before it, of building up public spirit, selfreliance, and indomitable perseverance _in the people, assuming to itself the legislating for our drainage, public-houses, and charities, then I can only see a field from which inde* pendent men will shrink with disgust, and the field bo left open to the ignorant and political adventurer. Let the General Government think of these things, and, while they do so, also bear in mind that while they thus bind together Hwo islands so dissimilar in thoughts and interests, that they do not lay the foundations of perpetual enmity and severance, rather than perpetual union and good feeling. Let them give to each island while they may do so peaceably, a separate legislature (for social concerns, and |lct them guard jealously its purely national interests, and they will command the hearty support of the people, and secure the respect of the world.