CENTRALISM V. PROVINCIALISM.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4507, 31 August 1875, Page 2

CENTRALISM V. PROVINCIALISM.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sin, —Abolish Provincialism, aye, and Hansard along with it: both are expensive and eminently useless toys, and all sane men are saturated with disgust at the very mention of them. What man of self-respect would care to wade through the inane platitudes pervading the abolition speeches ? As each representative finishes his great oratorical feat, the offensive effluvia of the collapsed political windbag is scattered broadcast through the media of the Press and wire over the length and breadth of the colony, and the whole atmosphere of society is deleteriously impregnated with the most loathsome pabulum of vulgarity and claptrap. Those illiterate exhibitions which are embalmed in Hansard will one day be ransacked by some Dryasdust, and held up as a monument of the squabbles of the kites and crows of the New Zealand Nonarchy. The provincial entities of this colony are a standing insult to our civilisation. Who says a good word in their behalf ? Only turncoats and hypocritical pensioners. Let us have one end, one* faith, and one baptism, in other words, one Legislature, one puree, and one law. The North Island has fewer members than the sister island. Why then is the South afraid of injustice at the hands of her weaker partner? Why should one section of the people be taxed to educate the young, when another section squanders thousands and tens of thousands of pounds out of the public puree to prop up a parcel of quasi-acholastic pensioners for institutions that are neither useful nor ornamental ? If you do away with provincialism, says the satrap of Otago, we shall lose our educational reserves. Precisely the very reason why I would advocate centralism. Why should 214,000 acres of the public domain bo set apart to maintain in ignoble indolence six quasi-professors besides three quasi-lec-turors in a quasi-university, affiliated to another quasiuniversity? Where are the sudents? Are there even nine bona fide pupils? Is not the bottle-washer of the chemistry class, e.g. the only.student of the anatomy class, the quasi-professor of which is now laudably employed in dissecting a child that had been

imported in spirits into Otago! One student ar-tini? a * to?) ‘° T. to another. Can the farce of humbug farther eo» As tor the law class, the door is closed till the return of nofit crin re under° O, T enlisted ' al ™S politician, under the banner of a quondam enemr and against an idol of many years' standing But, sir, circumstances alter cases, and men turn their coats as the chameleon his color. Abolish the petty Legislatures of the country, and do not suffer Jw Ex “w Ve< 2? IClals ™der the new regime to forsake their posts for three months during the session of Parliament. Let them be ostracised from the political arena, and let them mind their own affairs Too many cooks spoil the broth. There can be no rational administration, so long as nabobs and their flunkies nock yearly to "Wellington to scramble for as much as they can of the loaves and fishes, to enrich themselves first ami their petty principalities afterwards. If e.g. Otago, can dispense with the sendees of its Executive for three months in the year, why not for twelve? Another evil that we have to contend against in this over-governed but misgoverned land is the number of petty capitals, but none of them sufficient to constitute a metropolis for the creation of a healthy public opinion. Consequently, our newspapers are village organs, and even our Supreme Court is subdivided, and therefore demoralised and degraded. Selfishness, avarice, and ignorance grow rank as weeds, and real education, particularly that of the young, in the absence of an efficient national system, is very generally neglected and even despised. Consequently, political magpies carry the day, while real merit retires into the cold shade of reflection and silence. But I must withhold my hand, for i am actually trespassing too much on your time space, and attention, —I am, &c., ' J- G. S. Grant. York Place, Dunedin, August 2S.