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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4413, 12 May 1875, Page 2

Provincial Councils are very remarkable bodies, and should not be judged by any common standard. They clamor for an equal distribution of revenue, and expel from oflico any Executive that proposes a measure to give effect to their wishes. They are likewise great on the educational requirements of the country, yet they do not scruple to sacrifice the education vote as the first fruits of an unreasoning economy. They profess to be the friends and patrons of science, yet decline to make adequate provision for its culture. We are led to make these remarks from what has recently taken place in Canterbury, and what we know has happened in other provinces in years gone by. It is reported that the newly formed Canterbury Executive proposes to rescind the votes for the extension of the College and Museum, on the pretence that the funds of the province cannot afford the expenditure. Faith would thus be broken with the public, and the governing bodies of these institutions. The local newspapers are justly indignant at the new policy. The Lyttelton Times remarks :

We published the other day a rumor that the new Ministry had ordered the addition to the Museum not to be proceeded with. The rumor, wo believe, is absolutely correct. As the first act of the new Ministerial policy, the action acquires a significance that it would not otherwise have had. . . . A Ministry —especially a Ministry that demands so long a recess for reflection—has generally ransacked its brains for all the fresh ideas they contain, before it launches forth into action. The spirit that governs their first act is sure to guide the whole course of their policy. Else they will be open to the accusation of veering and shifting (not an unlikely charge against a Ministry composed of such self-contradictory elements) and this accusation will be fatal to its reputation with the electors. Hence the importance of discussing this first act of . the new Government. On a first consideration it would seem as if their intention was to rescind the vote of money for the Museum. If this be so we admire the audacity of the proceeding. The vote has not lapsed, the Provincial Council is the same as that which voted the sum, the 'Ministry therefore comes down to ask the House to stultify itself; in fact, to vote that its previous vote was passed when it was irresponsible for its own actions. The new Ministry, therefore, will ask the Council to commit a breach of public faith, an illegal act, and lay up store of litigation for the province. We venture to think that the sum voted would bo but an item iu the expenses caused by the latter consequence of such policy. If the complete rescinding of all votes bo the purpose of the now Ministry's action, we have a very pretty course of policy before us. Their policy will be a retrospective one. No Act, or vote, or Ordinance of past Governments will be safe from their hands. It will not bo at all inconsistent with the spirit of their action to root out the Museum bodily from the Domain and deposit it, say on the Sandhills. Some members of the Ministry have taken pains to show that they feel strongly on tho uses of the Domain; the privacy of amatory swains la not to bo rudely curtailed for the paltry aims of science or learning, or even for the architectural adornment of a piece of ground that needs but that one tiling to make It the most attractive part of tho city. To have tho opportunity of a higher education, or of a scientific training, or of seeing noble buildings amid the trees and trim plots of a park, is not a public privilege of course ; but to have a nulet arena for moonlight passages of arms is one of Incalculable value, which it seems the people must be permitted to enjoy undisturbed by the gloomy shadow of heavy stone buildings, or the trooping of gowned students or of spectacled savans. Certainly, the policy will bo retrospective. It will also bo a policy of losing bundles In gathering straws, and of shutting tho stable door when the steed is stolen Most Governments, In trying to produce financial success, are satisfied to confine their economy to operations of tho present or of the future. Our new Ministry have struck out a lino for themselves, and intend to economise In the past; to gather straws in the field that has not only been reaped, but re-sown. It will bo a policy of coups d'dlat.

The Times then points out what the now Executive should do. Instead of rescinding the vote for the Museum, they should get the Board of Governors to spread the sum devoted to the buildings of Canterbury College more equally over the different departments ; perhaps to build the now Museum, Library, and College in one block. “To apeak plainly,” it adds, “the Museum would be an honor u to any country; the Library is simply “ a disgrace to a province that professes “ to have so much respect for education.

“ That a colony, supposed to have been I “ founded largely by English University “ men, has subsisted for more than “ twenty years with public libraries so “ meagre that even private students “ would be ashamed to acknowledge them “ theirs, is one of the many anomalies “that find their source in a one-sided “ education. It would have said much “ for the intelligence of the province, if “ it had sluiced-off one half of the ener- “ gies of the indefatigable director of the “ Museum to the task of gathering a “ good scientific library, in order to make ‘ ‘ his collection of specimens of any “ scientific or public use. A museum “ might as well be distributed into per- “ ambulating penny shows if it has not “ a reference library and lectures to “ elucidate and fertilise the results for “ the public. If the Government have any “ regard for their fame, they will not “ cut down the vote for the Museum, “ but will level up to it the votes for “ the Library and provincial College. Its “ Museum, its system of education, and “ its reputation for culture, are the three “ things on which Canterbury has long “ prided itself, as giving it superiority “ to all other provinces.”