INSULAR SEPARATION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 357, 7 January 1876, Page 3

INSULAR SEPARATION.

(Sir J. L. C. Richardson ) While the Maori rebellion raged in the North Island, and it prevailed, though spasmodically, from about 1860 to 1868, separation in my opinion undesirable and wrongful, and therefore, though exposed to much obloquy, I steadily opposed it; but now the very embers of disaffection having expired, I think it not only justifiable but desirable. There would not arise the slightest difficulty in securing the interests of the public creditor out of the consolidated fund by Central legislation, in confining all future liabilities to each island on special securities or by special taxation within each, while local self-government of an efficient character—so dear to every British colon : s!> —would become an accomplished fact. The alternative, eo far as we know, is a remote power ad ministering local affairs, and the result a multitude of disaffected- outlying districts, combining together from time to time, as the- Provinces have been said to have combined, to thwart the General Government and Legisla ture. There may be at least one remedy, but that will not be resorted to while we can continue to borrow with facility ; that is, the calling into operation a taxing power, as in smaller municipalities, commensurate with the liabilities incurred. Among the it.any YuavuntJ which hav& induced me to desire Insular Separation, with a Province in each Island, as a substitute for the apparently doomed existing system, is a grave doubt as to the finality of any policy even thongh hedged round by the clearest legal definition and authority. It is needless to refer to the changing and descending scales of capitation grants, even though partly modified by assumed duties, because the moneys connected immediately or remotely with the performance of these duties are derivable in a greater or lesser degree from loans ; but the last public declaration by one in authority is sufficient to alarm the most confiding, for the basis on which the railway system was chiefly founded is, it would appear, likely to be swept away, and Provincial boundaries, district boundaries, in the question of railway finance, are to be ignored; and thus Otago, after having lavishly provided out of her Customs revenue for the necessities of the State is to see her surplus railway revenue, derived from the pockets of the people, transfered to cover the liabilities of non-paying railways, passing over unpeopled mountain ranges in remote parts of the Colony. What next? Can we expect that the endorsement of the Land Compact of 1856 by the abolition Act of 1875 will be held to be sal-red ? Can we hope that the legal sanction given to our educational reserves and other endowments will remain a secure possession ? Can we believe that the very foundations of land endowments from the earliest Provincial history may not in future be shaken, when v?e remember that a Bill passed the Legislature declaring that none but railways likely to pay working expenses should be made; and when the Engineer reported that the Kaipara line would not do this, another Bill was passed making this railway an exception ? One is almost tempted to ask, in the language of a New Zealand financier, now a candidate for a Canterbury constituency, " What is the use of the Government getting measures passed, if the next Act ia to bring in another measure to neutralise the action of the first?" It is this shifting of the foundation that alarms me, and induces me to wish that we might, iu view of future loans, as certain as an accomplished fact, confine ourselves to the Middle Island liability for Middle Island objects, and not embark in a s?a of uncertainty. While, therefore, retaining our Central Legislature with its defined powers, superseding past Provincial Ordinances as may be deemed fitting, I think the Provinces might be consolidated into one, or if politically expedient, into two, in each island, having ]arge administrative powers and sufficient legislative powers for the enactment of such bye-laws or ordinances as might be required, as in the case of municipalities. These Provinces should have an elected Superintendent as chairman of a small elected board, both he and the members retiring at certain fixed periods. To this central board in each of the Provinces, the necessary subdivisional authorities should '■<! «übord ; nated, and a vetoing i power it' li"! in n few certnin H'-ociiicd case:! us at present, re.t with the l".:oern<jr.