The Evening Star. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2862, 22 April 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1872.

In little more than a week the Provincial Council will again meet. For what purpose I—a1 —a question more easily asked than answered. The present Ministry have had a hue time of it:

they have not been troubled with much workj siniply because they have had no money to spend) and we do not see that they are likely to be in a better plight next year. As a matter of com sg, there will be the usual departmental reports telling of the state of our institutions ; but what use is made of those reports 1 For our own parts, so far as our members of the Council are concerned, we cannot find that they are of any service to them. The reports seldom come under review in the House j they are laid on the table as a matter of form, and they are allowed to lie there. We do not say that the necessity for presenting a report is useless ; but the real benefit is influence upon the officers themselves. These annual statements remind them of their responsibilities, although they cannot make work for themselves if there is none to do. It is very certain that our Provincial organisation is not so perfect as it might be made. Year by year the Provinces are being relieved of administrative work. Step by step centralisation is proceeding. In some respects it has proved advantageous : in others we look upon it with suspicion. The drawbacks to Provincialism are that the Government is liable to yield too much to local clamors, and in order to avoid giving offence to one dictrict is apt to overlook the necessities of another. A further disadvantage is that in large public works, such as railways, to be extensively useful there must be unity of plan adapted to the Colony rather than to a district, and this cannot be secured by remitting the construction of them to the Provincial authorities. Their field of vision is too narrow. Immigration, too, should clearly be a Colonial rather than a Provincial affair, although had Provincial Governments fulfilled their duty in these respects, we do not doubt but they would have long continued under their sole control. But when they had the chance of doing the work they let it slip, and it is too late now to recall it. Yet there is much good work that might be done by our Provincial Government, if they will only take warning by their failures. Provincialism may yet become good organising machinery, and in nothing is society in New Zealand so deficient as in organisation. All industries seem left to chance. Gold-mining and flax-dressing need a special nurture. Without undue interference in private enterprise, the Provincial Government can give effectual aid to both. No one can read the accounts to hand from the country without feeling convinced of the richness of our quartz reefs and alluvial gold diggings. Yet what is done to develop an industry that a generation’s experience proves to be the most profitable, considering the capital invested, of any yet pursued 1 Literally nothing. One peculiarity of gold mining is that no amount of competition destroys its profits. It follows, therefore, that a Government may train a population to that pursuit without in the least degree interfering with the well-being of those engaged in it. Nay, more than this, the more they train men to scientific mining, the better it will be for all classes. But what has this government done in that direction 1 Nothing. Chinese, Hindoos, anybody, may come and work our goldfields, but not even an effort has been made to prepare an European population for the work. We have heard, indeed, that it is in contemplation to erect a crushing mill for testing stone containing metals. I hat is a step in the right direction; but there is much to learn beyond. The experience of every gold producing country is that miners, through ignorance, have wasted a vast amount of treasure that might have been saved had they known how to do their work, and it is in this that Provincialism may be useful. With regard to flax, we have frequently called attention to the terms on which the W"aste Land Board allows it to be cut. Permission to cut is raven, but without exclusive right on a given area. Such an arrangement clearly gives those engaged in its manufacture or cutting only an immediate interest in the crop. No care to preserve the plant is likely to be taken under the circumstances, What is sought by those who cut it is the greatest possible weight of leaves from the smallest possible space without regard to reproduction. Our Provincial Council has never- seriously turned attention to these subjects, although there has been occasional self-laudation of the yield of gold and increase of flax. Perhaps we should not expect too much from them, taking their general training and occupations into account. Their fault is, they will not learn. Those of them who are agriculturalists do not shine in their own field of labor, so we cannot expect them to be wiser in other industrial matters. But a great step would be gained if the Council could but conceive it possible to increase production by systematic and well-directed labor, and that local governments can be of great service by pointing out how this is to be gone aboiit. It is the acknow-

leclged ditty of the Government to provide means of education for children, but, if an adult is not acquainted with the means of getting a living for himself and family in a peculiar country, he is left to find it out as best he may, at great loss to himself, his family, and the community. This ought to be remedied.