MR. VOGEL AND THE PROVICIAL QUESTION.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1957, 13 November 1874, Page 2

MR. YOGEL AND THE PROVICIAL QUESTION.

[communicated.] When the people of a country are invited to effect a revolution, they have a right to learn first of all the necessity for the change ; they have further the right to know what future form of Government is to be submitted to them as a substitute for tha + which they are asked to relinquish. Nor is \t unreasonable that thwy should guage the value of the proposed change by those who propose it. In regard to the question now placed before the Colony bj> Mr "Vogel's resolutions, the judgment of the people may well be suspended. What is the history of these resolutions, and what relation did the mover of them bear to this constitutional question up to the eve of their being brought forward. It is fresh to the memory of everybody who has kept himself acquainted with the political events of the Co-ony, that the Fux-Vogel Ministry obtained power entirely and solely by moans of the Provincial ticket. Of all the most prorounced of the supporters of Provincial institutions, Mr Fox stands preeminent, and hardly second to him was his then lieutenant, Mr Vocrel. Mr Fox marked his renewal of office by a declaration of the most profound loyalty to the Provinces. To him, Provincial institutions were the salt of the earth. True ; they had suffered by the encroachments of the General Government unoer the regime of Mr Stafford, but all this state of things was to be altered — the most genial .portion of the duties of the Colonial Ministry was to act in loco parentis to the Provinces. So much for Mr Fox. Mr Yogel was more positive, and it is impossible to doubt that in 1869, and up to the very eve of his celebrated Abolition of Provinces resolutions, his opinions were the outcome of strong personal convictions. Who can forget his celebrated, but rather inapplicable comparison of that artistic picture of the Christian martyr, whose body, although floating dead on the surface of the water, was crowned by an aureole of glory, with the case of the Provinces, threatened as they were by onslaughts in various directions. It is true that the experience of a few years may induce persona to change their opinions entirely, and we could have quite understood if Mr Yogel had been frank enough to tell Parliament when it was summoned that he thought that the progress of the Colony was being retarded through the existence of Provincial Governments. The Premier told the House when his resolutions were under discussion that for a long time the Government had been incommoded by having to look after the interests of the Provinces ; — that he had been compelled to finance not only for the General Government but also for the Provinces, and that he could no longer remain under such a double responsibility. No doubt most of those who heard him recognised the difficulties of his position, but who was it 'hat made this position? No one but the Premier himself, and that he did not think it unduly onerous may be discovered from his financial statement last session. There was at that time just as much reason for complaining of the complication as at the time when he told the House that he could not finance for the Provinces and for the Colony also. A reference to the financial statement may be useful in influencing peoples minds as to the genuineness of the Premier's subsequent action. In respect of those Provinces which required aid from the Colony, what did Mr Yogel say ? : — The case of the provinces is not, however, doalt with by merely exceptional advances for public works. There are three provinces which labor und°r the great disadvantage of contributing largely to the colonial revenue without eDjoying an adequate provincial revenue for local purposes. The provinces which enjoy large revenues feel no difficulty in contributing to the colonial revenue ; for whilst they make the contributions, they enjoy the local expenditure out of their own revenue. But the case of some provinces is simply constant contribution — a constant disheartening tendency to the result so familiarly explained by the slaughter of the bird which lays the golden eggs. As a meie matter of policy, it is wise, in the midst of the inu merae increase of the colonial reveuue, to specially remember some of the provinces which contribute it, and which are at present at a great disadvantage as compared with other 3. It i 3 not wise to let parts of the colony languish under a sense of wrong — to allow them to feel they are still becalmed whilst the favoring breeze removes from their sight the vessels ori^nally becalmed with them. The condition of the three provinces of Auckland, Westland, and Nelson, as compared wfth the other provinces, is lamentable, and requiries assistance from the surplus of the consolidated revenue. Auckland's case is by far the worst. It will take the province some years to work itself round, and to enjoy the future which I firmly believe is still before it. Westland deserves much sympathy. Weighted with a great public debt, its Government, eagerly anxijus to develop it, find themselves hampered in every direction. Westland has proved a mine of wealth to the colony. It is folly to desert it. The west coast of Nelson is somewhat similarly placed : Nelson will, however, n w have the means, as it appears its rulers have the inclination to use those means, to become a prosperous province. These considerations impel as to recommend that out of the year's surplus a special allowance, in addition to that already provided by the scale of capitation allowances, be made to Auckland, Westland, and Nelson, of £25,000 to the first, £10,000 to the second, and £5000 to the third. When honorable members study the whole of the circumstances, they will not, I think, grudge the proposed aid. Now, if the mind of the Colonial Trea- - surer had been for some time' exercised as to the desirability of abolishing the Provinces — or at any rate of putting an end to Colonial contributions in their aid — is it likely that he could have made in the deliberate form of a Budget speech the remarKs we have quoted ? Another quotation from the same speech will not be out of place — particularly if it is taken in connection with the words put into the Governor's mouth at the opening of the session and re-echoed in the reply : — "The urgent demand upon their administrative attention consequent on the rapid progress of the Colony, and the many matters ' to which that progress makes prompt attention desirable, lead my advisers to think it expedient not to invite legislation upon questions which do not press for immediate sobtion ;" Mr Yogel said, iv his Financial Statement, "lh these proposals" (the proposals for aiding certain Provinces), ' ' we have been strictly guided by the consideration of what the Colony can afford,, and of what it is for the benefit of the Colony shall oe done. We have no feelings of partiality for any

Province or Provinces. We look around the Colony and see what is required, and endeavor to meet the wants which, if met, will enable the Provinces assisted to put forth their strength to settle population and to increase the general revenue." And yet the Premier had the courage to tell the House that the question of the abolition of the Provinces would never have been brought forward had not the Ministry been fully convinced of the necessity of such a course. Who in the world can credit the honesty of the following statement taken in relation to what had fallen from theisame lips only a few short weeks before—" But I felt that the change we are how proposing to make was one the Country imperatively requires. " If the Country!" imperatively required " a revolutionary change in August, surely the Ministry could not be justified in saying in July that there were no important questions pressing for a solution. There was not a particle of honesty in the Premier's resolutions, except that having found that he would need a cry to go to the country upon he selected this. But this important question is damaged by the hands it is in. There can be no confidence in any measure for an improved system of , local government contrived by those whose hearts are no further iv it than will help to maintain them in their political supremacy. We just remember that Mr Yogel in 1873, in referring to the political circumsvances of New Zealand, remarked in his financial statement — " Even in the United Kingdom, thoughtful men begin to see the necessity of a system of government intermediate between the central and the purely municipal ; or, in other words, of strengthening the system of county government. In the colonies, I think, the want of provinces has shown itself, and to supply it road districts are becoming powerful by some such process as that by which, according to Darwin, man has developed from a lower type. .Road Boards, by the process of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, develop into shires, and shires may develop, indeed are developing into provinces." It is not a little instructive to compare the utterances of the Premier when deliberately expressed, and evidently the result of honest conviction, with those which were merely the outcome of pique occasioned by the emasculation of one of his pet measures — the Forests Bill.