PROVINCIALISM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4459, 5 July 1875, Page 2

PROVINCIALISM.

Top late. The effort, that is being made, by journalists and politicians, to rouse tho New Zealand public on behalf of Provincial Government, comes rather late in the day. It is an effete system. The people are tired of it. For more than twenty years it has mismanaged public affairs, squandering tho colonial estate, encouraging officialism, adding to. the permanent debt of tho colony, and .most effectually checking the growth of a healthy public opinion. The men who administered provincial affairs were not corrupt. They were, as a rule, the best men the provinces could produce; but the system was altogether such as to warp men’s judgments, to narrow their views by purely local and selfish considerations, and to create a reckless disregard of interests other than those lying directly around. Thus, each province became wrapped up in its own mantle of self-sufficiency. Tho provinces were distinct communities, not having common interests, or common objects in view. They were not parts of a united country, animated by a spirit of generous rivalry, but hostile cantons, bent on thwarting and humiliating each .other. Meanwhile, another power was growing up slowly but surely, which was to smite them down. The General Government, and the Colonial Legislature, which had been used as mediums for registering provincial decrees, gradually assumed a controlling position. Bit by bit the Assembly encroached upon the provinces ; —first in one direction, then in another. At last, it decreed that the provinces should borrow no more, and frantic was the rage of provincial magnates at this decision ; but their ire soon cooled when they found themselves still at liberty to play with the colonial security, namely, with its Crown lands. If they could not borrow, they might sell and hypothecate what remained

of the public estate; and accordingly they set themselves zealously to work to realise and spend. But again, the-General'Assembly interposed : not effectually this time, -as in the matter of borrowing. Cautiously feeling its way, it told the South it might retain its land fund and Provincial Government ; but as for the North, it must part with these altogether. It was only a warning, however, but the scare has been overwhelming. Resolutions are not laws,. although, as in the case of the famous financial resolutions of 1856, they may be made to have the effect of law without . being embodied in any statute ; and with this example of their _ own dexterity before them the provincialists anticipate the worst. They are now making frantic appeals in the North to the passion and prejudices of the people ; _ and in the South, appeals are being made, to the cupidity of the settlers by projecting railways, as- Mr. Dbivek pithily said, to every man’s door, at the same time authorising the Provincial Government to make contracts, to be paid for out of loan—or somehow. Too late, however. These appeals, differing in kind, but having the same, object in view, come too late. The_ colony has to contemplate future possibilities. It must review the situation as a whole ; and provincial interests will not be allowed to stand in the way for an instant. -What are these possibilities 1 What is this situation ? We have only to point to the public debt, to the gaps in the trunk railways, to the unfinished works to which the country t 3 pledged, to the stoppage of free immigration and - the consequent consolidation of our population to meet public engagements, to convince every sane man that the provincial question is settled. It will soon be one - of the solved problems in colonial politics. Superintendentalism will be among the lost arts of government. The system will disappear as an active force in New Zealand politics, and the Colonial Parliament may then set about the task of reform in earnest.