THE PROPOSED MUNICIPALITIES BILL.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 485, 17 June 1867, Page 2

THE PROPOSED MUNICIPALITIES BILL.

pfanganui Times, June B,j

Tina Bill, wo are told, has been drawn up> by the Attorney-General, with the cooperative counsel of Messrs Stafford, Richtnond, and others. It does not appear that the Ministry intend to stake their official existence upon it. The provisions of the Bill are said to be permissive, not obligatory. Any of the smaller provinces that may, by petition, express a desire of a ma* jority of the electors to abandon Provia* cialism and be placed under the control of' General Government, will be permitted to do so. We think that Bill as now completed should be printed and published in the Government Gazette, that the country may bo able to form an opinion of its provisions in detail and as a whole. Such publicity would be an unusual course in this colony, but not an unprecedented on#When a Bill so largely affecting, as we bo' lieve it will do, the leading provisions of the Constiution Act, is proposed to becom# law, the people should have some lime to consider it. The propo-ed measures may be for tbo benefit of the colony at large, or they may be such as to concentrate in th# Central Government an irresponsible and despotic power of the most dangerous kind. Mr Stafford’s every movement leads in that direction, and the House of Representatives must narrowly watch, and carefully analyse every sentence in the Bill having that tendency. Tiie establishment sf Municipal Institutions with sweeping powers of local taxation, but without any fixed proportion of the public revenue secured to them under the Bill, would leave them completely at the mercy of the Ministry of the day. Should the Bill secure to Municipalities e full equivalent from the Cus' toms or General Revenue of the colony to subsidise all monies raised by them from local taxation, they would, at least, hava something permanent to depend upon. '‘Local self-government’ is a high-sounding fh-ctioneerintr, phrase, but if by tnat we are to have no more than sweeping powers of local taxation the less of it we hava tha better. We shall aaxiously await the «p-. pearauce of the Bill, but meantime cannot see how the Government can escape the responsibility of a measure by which they propose to alter the constitution of the., colony.