New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1875.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4460, 6 July 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1875.

A perusal of our Otago exchanges is sufficient to show that in that province at least there is a very copious machinery for the purposes of local self-government, which, were Provincialism abolished tomorrow morning, could, carry on all necessary administration. We are all aware that much the same machinery exists in other provinces. We ourselves have our attention drawn to that in Otago at the present moment, because in the first place it is ; more prominently pressed upon our notice, and in the second place this same machinery has already done a vast amount of good work in the Southern province, and would have done more had not many of the resources which should have been at its disposal been used up in the support of the Provincial Government andtheprovincialsystem of administration. The Otago papers are just now full of advertisements concerning the elections for members of Road Boards and Municipal Councils, and we may say without hesitation that were the Provincial system quietly put out of existence next week, these bodies would be quite competent to provide all the necessary machinery for the purposes of that government which it is the cry of provincial supporters would disappear with the disappearance of their favorite institution. Some months ago, indeed, the Otago Guardian, if we mistake not, drew attention to this fact, and pointed out, too, the large amount of useful work which had been effected by means of Road Boards and Municipal Councils. The stereotyped answer was given to this by Mi\ Macandrew and those who delight to honor provincialism. To the existence of provincialism they attributed the existence of road districts and municipalities ; the fact being that these exist rather in spite of than by favor of Provincial Government, and were there no such thing as Provincial Government, they would have done much better even than they have. But in Otago especially it is the custom to ascribe every good to provincialism, and we are not certain but that Mr. Macandrew, and others, consider that favorable harvests are due to their cherished system. In fact, so much have they been in the habit of assuring the jieople of Otago that every thing of good that they have is due to provincialism, and that every thing they desire would be theirs but for the interference of the General Government, that many, without pausing to consider that all the Australian colonies get on very well without this institution, ascribe to it all the blessings claimed for it by its supporters. Thanks, however, to the tolerably ample discussion of the question which has been going on now for* some time, the people in Otago, and in the other provinces too, are awakening to the fact that they have been somewhat egregiously deceived, and we know that we are within bounds when we state that outside Dunedin the conviction is gradually ripening that the people could get on very well, and the country could get on a great deal better, if there were no petty parliaments intervening between the General Assembly and the existing modes of local self-government. Indeed, in this respect, evidences are continually before us that the country in Otago and elsewhere has found provincial government to be, in reality, centralism of the most aggravated form, centreing as it does in a particular city all the good things that should be at the disposal of the country districts. Those gentlemen, therefore, who defend provincialism in an apologetic manner, by saying that they are quite ready to get rid of it if a substitute to their satisfaction be pointed out, are not unlikely to have that substitute brought under their notice by the very people to whom they look for support.