The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3885, 6 August 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1875.

Mr Stout likes conferences with his constituents. He never shrinks from facing them, and always contrives to tell them something worth listening to. To-night, no doubt, his theme Avill be the proposed Provincial Abolition Bill. We expect he will show this up, out it to shreds, prove conclusively in his own peculiar style its incompleteness, and that its provisions cannot be carried out. He will, in all probability, point out the absurdity of appropriating land revenue to landless Provinces, and ask how the interest and sinking funds of loan debts and liabilities chargeable against them are to be paid, When there is no land fund to meet them , and he will, no doubt, point out other difficulties connected with immigration, public works, and charitable _ institutions in such Provincial districts. He would be a bold man to say that these liabilities can be paid out of nothing. The position of the landless Provinces in that respect will not be materially altered. For years past they have been unable to meet their and have been dependent on the General Government that has had to provide funds for their needs, but has not had the supervision of spending them. The Provincial Governments of the lackland Provinces have proved blocks and hindrances to their equitable distribution, which it is highly desirable should be removed, To base an argument for the retention of Provincialism on the success of Otago and Canterbury, which no doubt Mr Stout will do, is to raise

a mere accident to the dignity of a rule. With a different Superintendent during the past eight years Otago would have been comparatively stagnant. He has had to wage constant warfare upon an anti-progressive party, and strangely enough, forgetting the battles he has had to fight with them, has formed an unnatural alliance with their leader. No doubt Mr Stout, too, will enlarge upon the vast patronage thrown into the hands of the General Government, and will prove to his own satisfaction that this is dangerous to the welfare of the realm. It may be that the present Executive is exceptional in its liberality, but judging by the favors conferred on the Evening Star as compared with the Opposition journals, we arrive at the conviction that it is more profitable to oppose than to support the GoveruMr Stout’s ingenuity will not tail him in picking any number of holes in the proposed measures ; it is not, therefore, for us to help him but respectfully to wait the exposition of his views.