The Globe. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1876.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 628, 23 June 1876, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1876.

The necessity of continuing Provincialism in order to protect our land fund, has been stoutly insisted on by the leading provincialists of the Middle Island. We have been warned that if we once touch the provinces, we remove tho great bulwark which protects it against the “sacrilegious hands of a greedy Central Government, Abolish them, and as a necessary consequence, the land fund must also disappear. By the compact of 1856 this revenue is payable to the provinces, and if those institutions are destroyed, one of the parties to the contract has ceased to exist, and therefore the agreement is at an end. Those who use this argument seem to shut their eyes to the fact that the same power which secured the land fund to the provinces in 1856, can give it to those local bodies which take their place, and that the compact in the latter case is just as binding as in the former. The existence of the provinces does not in any way secure to us our land fund, inasmuch as the Assembly has the power, the moment a party springs up in the House strong enough to do so, to declare that it shall become colonial revenue. All this has been pointed out over and over again. But the land fund in danger was too good an election cry to be abandoned at the bidding of common sense. During the recent contests it was reinstated with parrot-like persistency; and the ultra-provincialists were never tired of warning us of the ruin impending the moment abolition was an accomplished fact. The cry, however, did not produce the effect expected. In Canterbury, at any rate, the constituencies almost unanimously declared in favour of abolition, notwithstanding the alarming consequences which were to follow. The result appears to have awakened in the minds of our provincialist friends a sense of the weakness of their former argument. It is now discovered that “ whether “ the provinces exist or not, the “ essence of the compact (that is, the “ compact of 1856) remains.” “ The “ land fund for the district” is the new way of putting it. This is the great principle which must be fought for now. It lies at the root of all colonisation, and is essential to the progress of the colony. All this is given forth with an air of profound wisdom, as if it had only been uttered for the first time. It is true that the principles here laid down are embodied in the Abolition Bill, and have formed the stock arguments of the Abolitionists ever since the question was raised This fact appears to be unknown to our new converts, who thus have enjoyed all the keen delight of a fresh discovery. We are glad that this result has at length been arrived at, and that our friends have managed to extricate themselves from the awkward dilemma in which they found themselves placed regarding the relation of the provinces to the land fund.