LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 274, 28 November 1877, Page 2

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

The following ia the substance of a Paper read at a meeting of the Hawera Institute, by T. Middleraas, Esq., and is now being published at the special request of a number of friends who heard and approved of it:— Mr President and Gentlemen— My purpose in this paper on Local Government, is merely to review our present institutions. The volume of politica talk and writing here in this colony, both in and out of Parliament, is something prodigious. The hope of saying anything new, that is worth saying, is small indeed. The danger of falling into the rut of com-mon-place, is great. No doubt you expect to be served with an article you have often had before, in newspapers and elsewhere —what Carlyle calls “ thrice boiled coleworr. It even may be So, but I will attempt to give you something better. Every thoughtful person who takes an interest in public affairs, must have noticed the tendency here at present, to cut up our local governing institutions into little pieces or fragments. Almost every new Act of the Legislature, is a fresh creation of Boards, Committees, Councils, or Governing Bodies of some sort, with separate powers and functions, without unity of any kind, and subject to no central control in most instances. Already every second man you meet is a governing man. The process of creation never seems to abate. It is still going on rapidly. We have now Waste Land Boards, Harbor Boards, Education Boards, Licensing Boards, Town Boards, Hoad Boards,, River Boards, County

Councils, Hospital Committees, School Committees, and many more besides. If cutting political power up into little bits is a good thing, then perfection in the art of government will soon be reached. If the Local Option Bill becomes law, every man will then be a governing man, and, what is more, will have his wife to help him. I have no doubt whatever but what we are following a wrong course, a course opposed to that recommended by the highest authorities on political science. Can anyone doubt that this jungle of institutions, which, as I have already said, have no unit}', arc subject to no central control in most instances, will

only lead to endless administrative confusion and nonsense. In truth they have already lead to it and no end of it. In my opinion the whole thing may be compendiously described as a system which gives the right to misgovern your immediate neighbour, without being accountable for it to any one wiser than yourself. I will take the County of Patea as a sample of what exists all over the colony, I estimate, in this county alone, when the Education Bill becomes law, that about 250 or 300 men, will be members of Boards, Councils, or Committees of some sort or other. Now, this means, that these 300 settlers will leave their own employment, perhaps, two days every month on an average, to look after the administration of public business, great and In Road Board matters this busintjpr. « tends from the merest petty detail of work, up to the difficult kinds of engineering. This is undertaken without professional assistance of any kind. Indeed, by far the worst feature of the case is, the need of professional help is very often never felt. But I will return to this portion of my subject again. That our present system of Local Government is clumsy inefficient, and open to all sorts of objections, I think is clear enough. But the question comes—What could we put in the place of all these miscellaneous institutions ? I answer at once—concentrate in our local governing body the duties, powers, and functions that are now dispersed among several. Call it a Local Parliament, or Council, or any other name you like ; but make it important, having large administrative, but of course no legislative powers. Past experience leads me to be tolerably certain that if the proposal I have now placed before you was accessible to public comment and criticism, it would bo condemned by many persons as wild and visionary. And such criticism would certainly be just, if the method of conducting public business at present pursued by Road Boards and County Councils was not radically changed as the character of the institutions. But the absolute necessity of changing those methods, is one of the important points I wish to insist upon. If every petty detail of executive work has to bo settled by representative bodies, as at present, then the large army of 300 men, already referred to, are all required —indeed, are quite few enough. My contention is, that nine-tenths of the business that now occupies the time and attention of all the miscellaneous Boards and committees throughout the County, should be decided by one man—that is, by a properly qualified engineer. As matters stand at pit-sent, the Road Boards are jealous of each other, or jealous of the County Council —at least, from some cause or another, cannot combine, andnevet will combine, to employ an engineer, and of course arc too poor to pay for one themselves ; consequently each Road Board does its own work after a fashion. But Heaven help us ! how much talk over a little bit of very bad work. Ido not wish to be misunderstood —I blame no one. It is the system that is to blame. An unprofessional man cannot do professional work. A man must be specially trained before ho can bo expected to have special knowledge.

Speaking roughly, and in a general way, I should say that if the County of Patea was divided into five wards, each ward returning three representatives, making a total of filteen members of Council : the three members of each ward forming a local committee of advice, whose duty it would bo to report to the Council upon all matters connected with their respective wards, but without the power to determine anything: this Council having all the duties, powers, and functions of the present miscellaneous lot of institutions I have already attempted to enumerate (I am afraid I must have missed out some of them), said lot being all previously clean swept away by the legislative besom — then I am strongly of opinion, if such a state of things was brought about, work might be done ; at least, I am as certain as I can be of anything, that a very great improvement on present management would at once take place, and for several reasons, which I shall endeavor to point out, would tend to be an increasing improvement. The governing machine would at a stroke be vastly simplified in its executive action, and rendered far more intelligible to the general public—two important points. The best men in the County would seek election, because the more interesting and important the functions of an Assembly, the better the quality of the intelligence that is likely to come to it. Elections are now so common, that they arc looked upon with little interest. Only a few weeks ago the election of a County Councillor for the Hawera Riding lapsed for want of a candidate. This, by the way, is a pregnant little fact. Councillors should retire by rotation, experience would not be thrown away as at present, and steadiness and continuity both in planning work and in its execution, would be the result, (To be continued.)