The Globe. MONDAY, MARCH 22, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 244, 22 March 1875, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, MARCH 22, 1875.

Those who wish to see the provinces abolished point with truth -to the logrolling and vote-purchasing which any Ministry wishing to retain its position is obliged to resort to, and blame the provincial system for all those evils. It is impossible to deny the truth of the statements made by the abolishionists. It is quite true that session after session Ministers have to purchase the support of the members of certain sections of the colony, by agreeing to spend money m their respective districts. This payment is made in two separate ways. It assumes either the form of a direct grant to some bankrupt province, to enable it to carry on, or it takes the shape of a railway constructed in the province out of colonial funds. "With respect to this latter evil, we would point out that the lame preißure would be

brought to bear on ministers, did no' province exist at all. Members from the same locality would still be able to sell their votes in return for special favours to their district. The inhabitants of Otago'for instance would be as largely interested in the construction of railways leading from Dunedin inland as they are at present, did the province cease to exist; and the same would be true of that part of the colony, whose natural outlet is Port Lyttelton, and at present known as the province of Canterbury. We cannot, therefore, see that the abolition of provincialism would abate in the smallest degree the system of log-rolling in regard to public works, from the evil consequences of which the colony greatly suffers. We have now to consider the other part of the question, the annual aid which the bankrupt provinces succeed in extorting out of the colonial purse. As far as we remember it has not been charged against those provinces that they have squandered the money thus obtained by them. It has been spent in education, gaols, police, hospitals, lunatic asylums, public works, &c, and in the payment of those departmental expenses necessary to the carrying out of those services. If provincialism is abolished, the people of the colony will still have to be educated; the police force will have to be maintained in a state of efficiency; our sick and poor will have to be attended to as now, the only difference being that the colony will have to pay for them directly, and their management will have to be placed in the hands of officers appointed by the Colonial Government instead of the provincial authorities. Their cost will not be reduced, and there will be greater danger of mismanagement and abuse from the absence of local, control. It may be said however that if provincialism were abolished, the cost of provincial councils would cease. Supposing that there were a small saving in this direction, which we will show presently is not at all likely to be the case, we think the small cost would be far more than counterbalanced by thegreater interest which theirsessionscreatein^thecomsomeiorm ~~oT local government must ' take their place, the working of which must cost something. Eesident Ministers with large salaries will increase in ment agents, responsible only to the Colonial Ministry, and therefore to a great extent beyond the reach of popular control, will be appointed in the chief centres of population. We will return to this subject in a future issue.