PROVINCIALISM—A RETROSPECT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 55, 10 February 1872, Page 11

PROVINCIALISM—A RETROSPECT.

" Facts are stubborn things ;" but it admits of a doubt whether they are more so than those falsehoods which, by dint of constant repetition, get possession of the public mind until they are as firmly believed "as proofs of holy writ." When this happens, it will sometimes take centuries to dislodge them. At last, however, the disinterment of some buried document, or the deciphering of some musty records, renders it clear that what had been so long and generally credited had no better foundation than some impudent forgery or baseless report, that had escaped, for some reason or other, contemporary examination and exposure. There seems to be some danger that the same thing will occur in our clay relative alike to the real parties to whom the colony owes its provincial institutions, and to the real causes which have led to their decadence. Whether these institutions are as beneficial as Dr Featherston so long maintained, or as Mr Fitzherbert would now have us to believe, or as baneful as the Richmonds and Staffords have, for the last eighteen years, so industriously represented, has nothing to do with the point at issue. We are of opinion that it would be no difficult matter to show that the assertion, made by Mr Fitzherbert, " that they were won after a hard struggle, protracted over many years," was not strictly accurate. If this had been the case they would most certainly have been more highly prized. The error has arisen in confounding two distinct things, which are not necessarily connected, together. It was representative government which was demanded by the Constitutional Association ; but provincial institutions were obtained for the colony by Sir George Grey, in opposition to the expressed wishes of the very men who have since obtained the whole credit for their introduction. A reference to his despatches to Earl Grey on the form of government best suited for New Zealand, and to a file of the " Wellington Independent" for 1851, when the Provincial Councils Ordinance was before the then General Legislature, will prove the truth of this statement. Let credit be given where credit is due. The gentlemen, who were subsequently known as the three F's, opposed alike the author of the Constitution Act, and the provincial institutions he recommended for the colony. It was not until they had secured power under them that they were able to appreciate their merits.

The public are not always just, because they are seldom afforded the means of forming correct opinions as regards public men or public events. It must, however, be admitted that if they were not so willing to be deceived, deception would be more difficult, and less general, than is the case at present.. They look only at results, and do not trouble themselves about the successive steps that have to be taken before those results can be arrived at. They seldom think of the exertions and merits of those who clear the bush, plough the land, and sow the seed ; and honor those only who perform the far easier and more grateful task of gathering in the harvest. So with public men and popular measures. It is those who secure them, not those who have prepared the public mind for their advent, who are rewarded. The " hard struggle" to whicli Mr Fitzherbert referred, was a struggle between those who upheld, in the then state of the colony, the principle of nomination, and those who supported the principle of popular election. Amidst the din and clamor made by the contending parties, the term " provincial institutions" was never once heard; and denunciations of nomineeism, ridicule of the nominees, and neverending praises of the representative system, furnished the stock-in-trade of the popular party. The term "provincialism" was first coined by Mr Sewell in a letter he addressed to the Duke of Newcastle in 1853, which was some time after the Constitution Act had been partly brought into operation. It may perhaps be looked upon as a noteworthy fact, that those who so strongly denounced nomineeism, and so stoutly upheld the principle of popular election, have never once raised their voices against the one since they attained political power by means of the other. A combination of fortunate circum-

stances favored the inauguration of the provincial system of government, and at the same time constituted the causes which prolonged the hostility and jealousy which their good fortune had provoked. The manner the Constitution Act was brought into operation, the delay which took place in summoning the General Assembly, the presence at Auckland of a merely nominal general ad interim administration, the arrival of successful and unsuccessful gold seekers in the colony, the enormous rise which took place at the time in timber and all New Zealand produce, and so far as this province was concerned, the purchase of and opening for settlement the large and level district of Wairarapa, all tended to give strength and prominence to provincial institutions, and eclat and funds to those who exercised authority under them. Never was a new system of government inaugurated under more happy and favorable auspices. An inquiry into the true causes which led to its decline would prove an instructive study alike to colonial statesmen and colonial journalists. The reply volunteered by Mr 'Fitzherbert, though true in fact, is not sufficiently full and satisfactory. He has told us that the reason why so good a thing as provincialism has got into so much discredit is, because it was too ambitious. There were occurrences and proceedings well calculated to confirm the truth of this explanation" * Dr Featherston would have been satisfied had there been no G-eneral Government at" all ; and he certainly looked upon himself not so much as the Governor of a State, as the President of an infant but independent Republic; while Mr Fitzherbert represented himself as holding an analogous position to that of an Imperial Secretary of State, and wondered how Lord John Russell would have acted if the commander-in-chief had treated him as the Secretary of the Province of Wellington had been treated by her Majesty's Commander of the Forces? But this aping of Presidents and Home Secretaries was not confined to provincialists. Mr Stafford, the Superintendent of Nelson, assumed the airs of a Viceroy, and read to his faithful Commons his " royal speech" sweated ; while the mock dignity of the Superintendent of Canterbury, who had just before held the sinecure office of Inspector of Police in the village community of Christchurch, was such a step as leads from the sublime to the ridiculous. Throughout the colony public men sought to swell themselves and their offices, like the frog in the fable, to dimensions which they could not attain without bursting, and in their vain efforts in this direction the centralists were not one whit behind their opponents. Oblivious of the fact that there was no hereditary peerage in the colony, they insisted, in the very first session, of being recognised as the "Commons of New Zealand in Parliament assembled ;" and forthwith proceeded to mimic English forms and names, without caring whether they were appropriate or not to the peculiar circumstances of the colony. The ambition of the centralists, or rather their ignorance, pomposity, and imitativeness combined with a total absence of originality or creative capacity, have been far more pernicious to the country than they would like us to believe. Tf the colony has progressed, it has not been bv their agency.

To our thinking the decadence of provincialism has not been so much owing to the ambition of its advocates—for they had abilities to sustain their pretensions as well as the successful institutions of kindred colonies in America to justify their proceedings—as to the aid they rendered in establishin" ministerial responsibility, and in thus increasing the favor of the General Assemblv, extending its over-riding jurisdiction, rendering frequent sessions unavoidable, and enormously adding to the cost of the Central Government. The financial compact of 1850, and the absence of the Wellington provincialists from the House in 1858, when the disruption of the province was abruptly consummated, had also the effect of weakening the provincial partv, of diminishing the revenues of the North Island provinces, and of undermining provincial institutions. When, however, it is borne in mind that the character of the legislation and administration of the champions of proYincialism,in the Province of Wellington,

1 was such as to bring the whole system into merited ill-odor with their own constituents, and at last to make the very name of provincial institutions a bye-word and reproach in the province, which had previously been their chief stronghold, a sufficient explanation is afford"ed for the declension of provincialism without taking into account its ambitious pretensions on the one hand, or the open and covert attacks it was subjected to by its enemies for so long a period on the other. It is evident now that a reaction has set in, and that the provincial system has more vitality than was generally supposed. In the Province of Wellington, outside the Provincial Buildings, it never had been very popular, because its true character was very imperfectly understood. The people, very naturally, judged the tree by its fruit, and never enquired whether under different treatment better fruit might not be obtainable. But the system now promises to be more popular in this province than it ever was before. This is doubtless, in part, owing to the conjunction of favorable circumstances, but chiefly to the radical alteration which hos taken place alike in the policy and the administration of the province. For this we are indebted to the abilities and mature experience of the Superintendent, and the clear sightedness and indomitable energy of the Provincial Secretary. If this truthful retrospect has been hitherto more honest than flattering, it will be thought that what follows is not deserving of a like character ; but as we have dared to censure where we felt that censure was merited, we shall not be deterred from withholding just praise when we feel that it is deserved. No two other men in the province could, in the space of many years, have achieved what the Superintendent and Provincial Secretary in a few short months have accomplished. They have shown what the provincial system is capable of when the right men are at the head of affairs, and a friendly Ministry is in power to back their exertions. They well deserve the laurels they have won; and we feel it also necessary to add, that they are entitled to a much larger pecuniary recompense /or their great services than they are ever likely to receive from a nondiscerning public. They hove infused so much new life into provincial institutions that the danger is that the consequent reaction in favor of provincialism may prove not quite compatible with the maintenance of colonial unity on the one hand, and the extension of the principles of local self-government on the other. Professor Jowett has well said, " Many political maxims originate in a'reaction against opposite error; and when the errors against which they are directed have passed away, they, in thenturn, become errors." These remarks of the learned professor are applicable to all isms, and more especially to provincialism and centralism, nomineeism and popular election, protection and free trade, State interference and laissez /aire, If the advocates of such would always keep this truth in remembrance, they would be less dogmatic and more just. But after all it is not so much the form or body which is of vital importance as the spirit with which it is animated.