The Telephone. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, OCTOBER 6.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 253, 6 October 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, OCTOBER 6.

The notice of motion given by Mr. Macandrew in the House on Thursdaylast in reference to the changes the Government should effect in the local governing institutions of the colony, are of a highly important character. It is understood to be the intention of the Government to take the matter in hand during the recess, with a view to establishing the local bodies upon an improved basis. The alterations contemplated in the motion are well defined, and if the House concur the Got eminent will stand committed to introduce next session such measures as will add largely to the powers of the local governing bodies throughout New Zealand. The honorable member for Port Chalmers is clearly of opinion that the Legislature should limit its functions to questions of a colonial character. He urges that in any proposals the Ministry should submit to the House for securing local government that it be a sine qua non on their part, to relieve the people of all taxation at the hands of Parliament, other than such as may be necessary to cover interest on the colonial debt, the cost of defence (other than local police), of the Supreme Court, Telegraph and Postoffices, Immigration, ocean lighthouses, and Legislative Departments; also to localise the railway revenue and land fund in the various districts, and to vastly increase the legislative powers and functions of local bodies generally in their respective territories. To enable them also to construct public works, and raise the necessary funds in such manner and from such sources as they shall deem fit. It may be assumed that the Government are fairly in accord with the views propounded by Mr. Macandrew, although not prepared to go to extreme lengths. In his address to the electors of Gisborne Sir Julius Vogel expressed himself very distinctly upon the necessity of localising the revenue derived from real estate. His vital objection to the Property Tax, as regarded that class of property, was that the revenue was not spent in the neighbourhood where it was raised. It was, in his opinion most essential that money obtained by direct taxation of real property should be spent by the local boards for local purposes. Experiences is daily confirming the fact that local self-government as it now exists is unsatisfactory in the extreme. The powers conferred upon the local bodies are more visionary than real. The County Councils are simply road boards of a large size, with powers of a most meagre character, restrained and hampered on all sides by the present centralizing system of Government. The mere alteration of a boundary line of a riding, is in itself a ponderous affair, not to be achieved until the whole circumstances have been carefully filtered through the various departments of the Circumlocution Office, possibly some hundreds of miles away. The pernicious system introduced by the Roads and Bridges’ Construction Act has contributed to a great extent to lessen, if possible, the power of the people. It concentrates in a marked degree the control of the local bodies at the seat of Government, and stamps out that spirit of self-reliance that becomes established in communities where the local administration is thoroughly reposed in the hands of the people. Referring more especially to the County system, under the powers at present conferred, it can only be looked upon in the light of a delusion. The people have no real power. That remains in the hands of the Government of the day. To get a few pounds from the Government to supplement the funds necessary to construct a bridge at the end of Gladstone Road is a matter of no ordinary undertaking. Notwithstanding the large amount of revenue derived from the East Coast, it is a laborious and costly task to get any of it returned to the district. After months of writing and anxiety, a word is dropped by a member of the Government, or a half promise is guardedly made by some high official, and a glimmer of hope arises that at last tardy justice is about to be done in respect to some long neglected road, or much required bridge Thus it is from one end of the Colony to the other, except in those favored portions which have acquired th? art of “ Working the Oracle." These things

arc daily becoming more patent and the necessity for change more and more apparent, The geograpical configuration of New Zealand, with so many isolated centres of population, its many separate parts, differing from each other in their various local requirements, altogether forbid the possibility of the local wants of the Colony being effectively administered from any particular centre of the Colony,' The promised substitutes for the Provincial form of Government have never been granted, but in lieu Centralism of a pronounced type has been created. To compare the present state of things, with what Sir Julius Vogel, in fancy, saw would follow the Abolition of the Provinces, we will quote from a speech of his delivered in the House eight years ago : —“ I dreaded doing away with the Provinces because 1 thought we should have to sit here in judgment on local works, and that gradually wc should find creeping upon us the demoralizing system of mutual compromise, called by the Americans “ log-rolling.’’ But wc have avoided this difficulty. If our system be carried out, the name of any particular road or bridge—or any work indeed, but the buildings for the Government service, and the main railways of the country should rarely be heard in this House, at least not for purposes of supplication, though it might be as the subject for congratulation at the triumph of the form of local Government that could give to the country the works required without the necessity of Parliamentary intervention.” The system then proposed was, unfortunately, never carried out. Instead of any “ triumph ” for “ congratulation ” the following year found the party in power hard at work monopolizing what should be the duties of the local bodies, and acquiring political support through pledging itself to expend nearly two hundred thousand pounds on certain particular roads and bridges. From such a state of things as now exists the country would gladly welcome some such change as is indicated in Mr. Macandrew’s motion. The unseemly scramble for the “ loaves and fishes ” witnessed every session, when the principle is acted upon that “to him that hath shall be given,” would be avoided. The languid interest now taken in local matters would be no longer evinced. Settlers would feel that they had a voice in the expenditure of their contributions for the public good. The construction of tramways, so essential to this district, as well as many other public works, would be in the hands of the local governing bodies. No fresh legislation can of course be expected during the present session. The country must still endure the ills it has so long borne in the fond anticipation that under the Stout-Vogel regime a better state of things will ere long eventuate.