BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

Evening Star, Issue 2867, 27 April 1872, Page 2

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

(from oreville’s telegram company, keuter’s agents.) Naseby, April 27, Messrs Mervyn and Armstrong addressed the electors last night in the Alasonic Hall, which was well tilled. Votes of confidence were unanimously passed. Christchurch, April 26. The Provincial Council was opened to-day. The --uperintendent, in bis speech, said that the land sales since the Ist of October last amounted to L-10.000. The new Education Ordinance had given a great impetus to education, and eighteen now educational districts had been formed since September. The cost of the Northern Railway had slightly exceeded L4OOD per mile, exclusive of°the cost of the land. This economy showed the benefit of loeal management of large works. The central administration of such works would be likely to prove a costly experiment; and the appointment of a Resident Minister for the Middle Island was practically an admission that it was impossible to administer public works and immigration in the Middle Island from Wellington. The taxpayers would not long submit to unnecessary complication, and the appointment of a Resident Minister for the Middle Island was either preliminary to the adoption of a separate system of finance and administration for each island, or to a change in the position of the Provinces. If the latter, the change must soon take the form cither of the definition of the powers ot the Provinces, and the utilisation of them as , agents in promoting colonisation and public works, or of their entire abolition.