PROVINCIAL CAPITALS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 54, 3 February 1872, Page 12

PROVINCIAL CAPITALS.

We have before had occasion to observe that the decadance of the Provincial system has been owing far moie to the conduct of its professed friends than to the action of its open enemies, and the whole of the circumstances which immediately or remotely gave occasion for the ceremonies and festivities on Monday last afford abundant evidence of the truth of the assertion. Dr Featherston, the acknowledged champion of Pro* vincial institutions, may have just cause to complain of the action taken by the General Assembly in 1856, when the Southern Provinces were relieved from contributing anything out of their land revenue either towards the cost of the General Government or the extinguishment of the Native title; and again, in 1858, when the New Provinces Act was passed, and the powers and revenues of the original provinces were seriously abridged, but still his warmest admirers must°admit it was under his administration the greater portion of the public estate was alienated ; when the province was plunged over head and ears into debt and difficulties, until it was no longer able to meet its engagements; when the Provincial Government Buildings were sold to the General Government, and the proceeds expended on other objects; and when the members of the Provincial Council and the officers of the Provincial Government, were literally turned into the streets. On the other hand it will be equally as readily admitted that under the administration of Mr Fitzherbert the province has been enabled once more to bold up its head : that public works have been inaugurated on a scale never before attempted ; that a revenue of £30.000 per annum, for roads, bridges, and education has been created by a single act of the Provincial Council ; and that offices so long re. quired for the use of the Provincial Executive and for the sittings of the Provincial Legislature are being again provided. Still the question presents itself, if the provincial system is to be abolished, why should the province be put to the expense of erecting provincial buildings at all; and if the system is only to be modified, and Wellington is to become the Washington of the united provinces of New Zealand, could not a better and more central site than the reclaimed land in Lambton Harbor have been chosen for the buildings which would then be required for the new Provincial Government ?

This question is not so absurd as it may at first appear. If the provincial system is to be maintained, there is no reason why the existing piovincial boundaries should be maintained also ; and if the city of Wellington is to be separated from the province which has hitherto borne the same name, there is no valid reason why the boundaries of the latter should not be extended to the

northern boundary line of Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay ; nor why the site of the seat of its government should not be fixed in the vicinity of the junction of the NorthEastern with the Napier and West Coast roads. The object which the adoption of such a course would have in promoting the settlement of the interior, in augmenting the revenues of the enlarged province, and in securing its future peace, progress, and prosperity, need not he here dwelt upon. If the example of the United States is worthy of imitation, with reference to the capital of the country ; the example set by each state in fixing its seat ofjGovernment not in the largest city, but the most central and convenient postion, may be also well worth following, and be accompanied with tlie happiest results. Crude as the idea is yet for the sake of the maintenance of the unity of the colony, it may be thought deserving of the attention of M inisters when the proposed draft of a new constitution is under consideration.