PROVINCIALISM IN DANGER.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 314, 12 October 1865, Page 1

PROVINCIALISM IN DANGER.

[From tlie Lyttelton Times, September 23.] The news from lime to time from Wellington, tends to impress upon the public mind that there is a growing feeling amonor the members of the Legislature of all parties and opinions in favor of the abolition of existing Provincial institutions. Whether that feelis cordially responded to or not out of doors, and especially by the people of Canterbury’ is an exceedingly doubtful question. To us it seems that, to give up our Provincial Legislature for the sake ef the consolidation of the colony, would be to surrender valuable political rights for a very shadowy benefit. At present we practically govern ourselves, and administer our own revenues with a freedom from external control enjoyed by few communities. Any man of average intelligence can, if he chooses, exercise a perceptible influence in the affairs

of his own province, and to this fact we are indebted for the services of many men who would otherwise keep aloof from public matabolished, such men would lose their influence and sink into the masses. In the Provincial Councils every class may be said to be represented ; sheep-farmers, agriculturists lawyers, merchants, and tradesmen compose the great bulk of the members. The sittings of the Provincial Council are not so long nor the place of session so distant that any difficulty exists in finding suitable men to be returned. In the General Assembly, on the other hand, we have to he thankful for such members as we can get, and the consequence is that, with the exception of a stray editor or two, and a few lawyers aiming at the Attorney-Generalship, the majority of the members are persons whose ordinary business is of such a nature that it can be left for some time without their personal superintendence. Hence, in this province at least, the representation is in the hands of one class—the sheep-farmers. There is no reason to believe that this would be otherwise if the provincial legislatures were abolished, and consequently, the first effect of their abolition in Canterbury would be a direct transfer of the whole of the governing power into the hands of this one class.

We must not lose sight of the fact that already men are found to get up in the House and to insinuate that the land fund belongs to the colony and not to the provinces, and on the abolition of the provinces our neighbours would gladly assist in despoiling us of what we have always considered as our own. "Whatever, too, of our land fund remained, would be administered, not by us or under our control, but by a few irresponsible gentlemen sitting up at the Government buildings and holding their appointments; not from a Superintendent elected by the people, but from the Governor and bis Ministers.

If the provinces are to go, farewell railroads and great public works, and welcome bureaucracy and red tape. All public departments would be managed as badly as the Electric Telegraph Department is now, and for the same reason —the want of local con* trol. In the place of the small amount of log-rolling which takes place in the Provincial Council, in every session of the General Assembly the revenue available for public works would be scrambled and fought for between the different parts of the colony. The result would be, that nobody would bu satisfied, and that we should be governed far more expensively and inefficiently than at present. People may sneer at the Provincial Councils, but a few blunders and vagaries are excusable, and certainly our desire for an imaginary uuity of legislation is far too feeble to tempt us to imitate that kind of democracy fashionable in France and America by destroying local self-government and commencing a new era of centralization.