The Evening Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3611, 18 September 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1874

That Auckland should be up in arms at the prospect of Provincial Governments being abolished in the .North Island is very natural, if not rational. If inquiry were made why such strong objection should be manifested to the change, it would be difficult to give a satisfactory reason. Provincialism has not done much to forward the interests of Auckland. That Province has parted with its lands for a trifle, without adding materially to its population j without opening up the country by means of roads or railroads; without instituting wellappointed gaols, asylums, and hospitals ; without securing an efficient police; and without educating the people. Whatever has been done in those directions has been mainly effected by the General Government at Colonial expense. If the Province has been called upon to pay the most trifling tax for its own benefit, it has resisted ; and its trifling revenues have been frittered away in very inefficiently appropriating the money so liberally voted on its behalf, by the General Assembly. Nor is Auckland singular in this respect. The majority of the Provinces of the Colony are pretty much in a similar plight. The only two that can be truly said to have fulfilled their duties are Canterbury and Otago. Although the barren results of the system, so far as the North is coucerued, have been shown time after time during the last ten years, they have never been so thoroughly exposed as during the last session of the Assembly. We do not think that the worst is known : probably that is a thing of the past. Could the whole of the secrets be unravelled that led to the wars through which the Colony has passed, in all probability many would be found intimately connected with Provincialism in the North. Some five or six years ago we published an analysis of the General Government employes in the North Island and showed that one in four of the male adult population was directly interested in perpetuating hostilities. And when it is considered that family interests are so interwoven that the prospects of brothers, cousins, uncles, sons, and nephews, with their wives, sisters, and relatives, leaving mere friends out of the question, are sympathised with and supported, no mutter who suffers, it is not too much to say the population of that island looked to spending the money of the South not only for their own immediate benefit, but with the prospective notion that ultimately their own property would be immensely enhanced in value by the outlay. Since then, Provincialism neither festered peace, nor, when it came, secured the objects for which that form of Government was instituted; since Northern Provincialism has ever been grasping at Southern revenues, land and ordinary, it seems very strange that we in the South should be called upon by any one to defend it. It has proved an expensive form of

government there, and has been continually drawing from this island funds that should have been expended here. Are we so rich in Otago that we can afford to squander our money in paying the Provincial officials of the North? We cannot raise funds for the prosecution of one of the most pressing works projected—the deepening of the harbor. Or, has the North ever displayed such sympathy with the Middle Island, and with Otago in particular, as to justify a movement in favor of retaining what has proved a useless if not a mischievous institution? If Provincialism in the North has been influential, its power has been exerted in opposition to the General Government, unless on condition of receiving money considerations amounting to bribes; but which had to be conceded in order to any business whatever being got through. Time after time the members for Otago have formed unions for what appeared to be common purposes with the Auckland members in the Assembly, who as invariably showed their conscientiousness by using our representatives as a stepping stone to their own ends. Those gained, they always left Otago in the lurch. There were unmistakeable symptoms that they had designs upon the land fund of the South. Speeches of public men, articles in the various journals pointed in that direction. The Compact of 1856 was denounced, and an agitation was set on foot to make Southern Land Revenue, Colonial. It is bad enough to witness the Customs Revenue received here spent in bolstering up bankrupt Provinces, when it is certain that we could make so good use of it and they will do so little with it. But for us in the South to oppose the abolition of Provincialism in the North Island is little better than suicide. We are told that in revenge they will never rest until Provincialism is abolished in this island. This is the bugbear held up to frighten us, and if we allow ourselves to be terrified by it we shall deserve what will inevitably follow. If Northern Provincialism is maintained, our land revenue will pass from us. If Provincialism is to continue with us, we must be united. Otago and Canterbury, together, can secure themselves. But if for party purposes a few secede and try to work out a course for themselves they will not only inevitably fail in their object, but hasten the downfall of Provincialism throughout the Colony.