ABOLITION OF EARLY PROVINCIAL COUNCIL

Shannon News, 12 April 1929, Page 1

ABOLITION OF EARLY PROVINCIAL COUNCIL

“A GBaSAT MISTAKE.” “Any change having the tendency to >■ simplify Government,, to reduce the patronage of the executive ,and to decentralise ■ power, 'should commend itself to the sympathy of'all thoughtful men,” declared Mr. Q’Began at the lJpgal conference in Wellington. ,f A great mistake was made, in my opinion,* in 1875, when we decided to abolish provincial government. The evils . emanating from the abolition of the provinces have exceeded those contemplated by the able men who defended the provinces tyhen they were attacked in the early seventies. The degradation of local government is signified in the aggrandisement of the central government, and local govern- y ment has been undermined steadily since the abolition of the provinces.

“Local governing bodies haVe diminished in importance, first because their number has been multiplied out <sf all reason since 1875, and, secondly, • because they have been deprivedyin a large measure of their political powers., .y Proposals arc constantly coming before Parliament or are being bruited in the press, not for the avowed curtailment of local government, but in favour~bf principles of which that curtailment is the inevitable sequence.”