PROVINCIALISM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4278, 5 December 1874, Page 3

PROVINCIALISM.

(From the West Coast Times.) A serious fault inherent in the provincial system of government, as it has been established in New Zealand, is the undefined position of Superintendents and Executives. It has been a fault from the beginning; it has been fraught with evil in different directions under whatever system provincial institutions have been established; and it will eventually contribute to their downfall as much as any other and outward circumstances, unless a material change he made in the relationships of Superintendents, Executives, Councils, and the people. With a purely official Executive, nominated and appointed by himself, a Superintendent has the power, provided he has the will, to become an autocrat. With an Executive nominated by the Council, a Superintendent runs the risk, if the Executive have the will, of being reduced to a cipher—“ A character which, standing by itself, expresses nothing.” These are the hems of the dilemma in which Provincial Government, as it at present exists, is placed ; and is a dilemma which it is by no means desirable to perpetuate. Autocracy, however good a thing it may bo in particular situations, is an inevitable a nil insufferable anomaly in the midst of institutions the essence of which is popular representation. And the reduction of a Superintendent to the value of a cipher is equally repugnant to the public sense, unless the public are pleased to pay for Lilliputian imitations of monarchy or for a corps of purposeless pensioners. In the absence of any radical change for the better, or until the time come, as it seems certain to corno, when provincial institutions shall bo replaced by some other system, how is this disagreeable and unprofitable alternative to be obviated.