THE POLITICAL POSITION OF THE PROVINCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 54, 3 February 1872, Page 14

THE POLITICAL POSITION OF THE PROVINCE.

[lndependent, January 29.]

The speeches delivered yesterday by the Hon Mr Fitzherbert as representing provincial institutions, and by the Hon Mr Gisborne as representing the Colonial Government deserve more than a passing notice. They were remarkable lor unanimity of sentiment, and afforded no mean indication of the light in which the question of our future iorm of government is regarded by the representatives of each branch ot our Constitution. The event which evoked these utterances afforded an admirable opportunity for a somewhat discursive but nevertheless important —expression of opinion on the great question which is sure to occupy very largely the attention of the parliament of the colony at its next sesion. The inhabitants of Wellington without invitation —without any pressure to secure their attendance 'mustered strongly to witness the initial stage of the erection of a building dedicated to the service of

their provincial authorities. Their presence indicated more than mere curiosity. It meant a great deal more than that; and his Honor the Superintendent was not slow to recognise this fact. It afforded most indisputable evidence that the inhabitants of this part of the colony still cherished the political institutions under vrhich they had existed through times of good and evil report ever since the foundation of the colony. And this view gave both Mr Fitzherbert and Mr Gisborne an excellent text upon which to preach the advantages of local selfgovernment on the one hand and a strong united central authority on the other. His Honor used a simile —not a new one, but the very best that could be used—to illustrate the necessity' ot preserving the proper functions of local government. Be compared the demonstration over which he presided to the pulsation of the human physical system. It was an indication that the body politic was in tolerably good health. He might, have gone farther and carried his image to its full meaning, and showed that the functions of the General Government and those ol the local authorities should be assimilated to the circulatory process ot the human frame. He did however instinctively point his remarks in . this direction. * The whole tenor of his speech was that local governments must always be subordinate to a cential authority and be confined to the exeicise of local functions which the political centre is incompetent to discharge. His happy allusion to the combination of offices which the new building will afford, and his comments thereon, hit the nail on the head. People of the race who inhabit New Zealand will never be content without the fullest enjoyment of their privileges of self government. With a traditionary respect for an overshadowing authority, Britons have always insisted on domestic government being left in the hands of the people themselves. Call them by what, name you will, we must always preserve some institutions analogous to those under which our forefathers have existed and which the Anglo-Saxon race i everywhere instinctively founds. Ibe problem which seems to agitate politicians in New Zealand really requires very little trouble to solve. We have only to carry out the principle embodied in the Constitution under which we live. Let the Central Government be the centre of the governmental action of the colony. Let it have care and take heed of the graver and generally inclusive matters affecting the colony, and leave the rest to the local bodies. Of course, if the different agencies differ with each other, the healthy government of the country cannot go on. It will not do lor the arteries to assume a position in antagonism to the heart, nor for the veins to strike out an independent course of their own. The whole political system must work in unison—and what is there to prevent this unanimity in New Zealand ? Nothing that we can see. Some derangement has doubtless occurred, but tiie evil is easy of remedy. Wo do not need any violent change ; all that is required is to restore each portion of the political system to its proper and legitimate sphere of action. It is no use tor the head to say it has no need of the foot, or for the right arm to despise the left: and it is impossible for the subordinate members of the body to exist independently of the great central power from which they derive their vitality. The Colonial Secretary evidently was influenced in the few political comments he made yesterday by T considerations of this kind. He seemed to feci that although the people of New Zealand were willing to accord, and had accorded the largest latitude of power to the General Government upon matters of colonial concern ; they had not done this in the spirit of abandonment of their own proper rights. And this, view must be the guiding principle of any reform of provincial institutions which the Government of the colony may propose. The people will back them up in any well digested measure for placing provincial institutions on a footing in accordance with the altered, circumstances of’ the colony, but it may be depended on that any attempt to absorb in the Central Government the functions that can be more efficiently discharged by-the local institutions will ' 1 meet with unmitigated failure.