The Globe. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1875.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 385, 6 September 1875, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1875.

In a former article we endeavoured to show the fallacy of the argument so strongly insisted on by some speakers, that the destruction of provincialism will lead to an inlringraent of the rights and liberties of the people of the colony. The next point raised is that the proposals of the Government are intended to hide a deficit, and are aimed at the seizure of the land fund of the colony. It is not our intention to enter into a discussion of the financial prospect of the colony in this article. It is enough to say that the financial statement of the Treasurer, gives no indication whatever of difficulties ahead. He starts the present year with a good surplus, and shows that at the end of the current one there was every prospect of a surplus again. But on this question we do not intend to enter. We wish to point out that, if anything, the land fund is safer under the Government proposals than it is under existing circumstances. It is proposed to secure that fund by enactment to the various Provincial districts in which it is raised. Nay more, the Government have announced that they are willing to go even further. They are prepared to bring in a Bill to divide the various Provincial districts, in which Boards f Works elected by the people, will be

appointed, and to which the balance of the landfuud, after the usual charges, shall be appropriated, Buch a proposal does not look very like a desire on the part of the Government, to seize upon the land fund of the Provinces. It gives to the proposed Boards of Works, full control over the expenditure of their local funds, and answers most completely the argument of those who hold that it would be dangerous for the Assembly to have the power of appropriating that fund. The districts will have as complete control over those funds as the Provincial Councils now have. It will be paid to them in a round sum, to be dealt with as they see fit. In making this announcement the Government have displayed a breadth of statesmanship highly creditable to them. They have completely cut the ground from under the feet of many of their opponents, and they may justly claim the support of those members of the Opposition who represent Southern constituencies. Their great objection to the Government measures has been removed. All the advantages claimed for Provincialism are offered to them, shorn of its many and glaring evils. It also answers most completely and triumphantly the third and last charge against the Government measures, that they are a sham. Nearly all those who have opposed the Government on this question have admitted that Provincialism, as it at present exists, is unsuited to the requirements of the colony, and that a change of some sort is inevitable ; and that it must be in the direction of a reduction of their powers. Their legislative functions have practically ceased, and no one is bold enough to say that they ought to be restored again. Their expensive and extravagant machinery is admitted to be an intolerable burden upon the people of the colony ; but then it is held by their supporters, that through their means control over our local funds is secured. The Government now propose to give the same control as provincialism possessed, by means of elected boards of works, and road boards, and thus secure to the people the most absolute local control of their local revenue. 3 hey also offer to free the colony from the admitted evils of Provincialism evils which their most violent opponents admit. We therefore fail to see in what sense such measures can be pronounced a sham. If the word has any application whatever to the proposals of the two parties into which the House is at present divided, it applies with far greater force to the shadowy scheme of the Opposition, which consists of vague promises, and indefinite proposals, which they dare not submit to the test of practical examination and disscussion.