LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.

Southland Times, Issue 917, 16 March 1868, Page 2

LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.

We present to our readers the debate which took place last Council on the question of local self-government, at the last session. (CONTIITOBD.) Now, if all the best talent and intellect is to be left out, the Council, if it is to exist, will consist of men ot inferior education and intelligence, who, however honest in intention, cannot, from the circumstances of birth, early habits, and the hard struggle for bread they hare fought' in their morning of life's battle, efficiently perform the duties of legislators. They may be well qualified to do justice^ tp_th§_position_of-.a_ member of a County Board such asT~ propose. They will be in their element attending to the material wants of the various road districts, they could not minister to their intellectual requirements. If they do attempt it, they but become tools in the hands of the one or two educated men who will still enter the Council for the purpose of securing the loaves and fishes. The member for Biverton has said that it will be still more difficult to obtain competent members to fill seats in the General Assembly than to get them for a Provincial Council. I cannot agree with him. The field is wider ; the honor, whether it ought or ought not to be so, is considered greater. Man's thirst for gain, and thirst for applause, can be better slacked at the large well of the General Assembly than the small spring of a Provincial Council, and we shall find educated and able men ready to fill the positions. It is so in other provinces where the population is not, as a rule, wealthier. But it depends on the people themselves. I have no fear of not finding candidates. We had the opportunity of electing an atle man who would have done us much good ; but you would not. Let the fault be on your own heads, don't blame the principle. As to the statement that we, having only four members, can be swamped by th« more powerful provinces — in the first place, I beg to remind my friend that the abolishment of provinces and substitution of counties cuts the Gordian knot of provincial jealousies and selfishness. The members for the county on the east bank of the Mataura will support us iv the Assembly, as it will be their interest to do so. Invercargill or the Bluff is their natural outlet, so we may count on them. The same may be said of the members for the county in theWakatipa Lake district: this province is their natural outlet. In fact, at the present time, I understand goods are being forwarded to the Lake district from Ounedin via the Bluff. Thus, supposing each county has four members returned to the Assembly, we have virtually twelve representatives to foster our interests. But granting we have only four : if they are capable men — men who have tongues in their heads and brains to direct their wagging — they can form a formidable phalanx which any Ministry must respect and accord attention. The New Zealand majority of one is miner of notoriety, and if a Ministry would not listen to a/air, just, equitable demand on behalf of the interests of the county, all the four members have to do is to kick them out of office — which four men of capacity always could do — as men unfit to be relied on in the honest discharge of the important trusts to be confided in a central government. I do ,not mean to say that they should exercise their influence for mere miserable " log-rolling" purposes — such as constituted the disgrace of the Auckland members in the recent session of the Assembly, when the whole colony was mulcted to pay a debt which her own incapacity had created — but in obtaining straightforward honest justice for their county. Dr Hodgkhißon sees no great evil arising from the want of uniformity of legislation. I must again quote De Tocqueville on his (Dr H.s) pattern republic and favourite democracy: — "Moreover in politics, as well as in philosophy and iv religion, the intellect of democratic nations is peculiarly open to I simple and generaln otions. Complicated systems i are repugnant to it, and its favorite conception | is that of a great nation composed of citizens all resembling the same pattern, aud all governed by a simple power. The very next motion to that of a sole and central power, which presents itself to the minds of men in the ages of equality, is the notion of uniformity of legislation" Whether the laws passed by the State Legislatures of America are conflicting with the principles of English law I cannot say, all I know is that the acts passed by the various Provincial Councils are, according to the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral, very frequently so, as is only natural, seeing that they are passed by men, the majority of whom know nothing about the subject, though they squabble enough bver it. My friend has entirely mistaken me if he imagines that I said " that the Provincial Government of Southland cannot be continued, owing to the bad financial state of the Province." I said no such thing. So far from this [being the case I maintain »that with the exception of Otago, no province in New Zealand is in as good a financial condition as ourselves. What I said was that the financial policy adopted at the hut session of the Assembly precluded the possibility of our continuing our present form of Government for any length of time, simply because we are now left to carry out the expenses of government on an encertain and fluctuating revenue. I believe Southland will be enabled to hold out longer than any other province except Otago, because she possesses a very considerable area of unsold and saleable land. I believe that for, at any rate two, may be three years, our land sales will average £60,000 per annum, but even so it is a question of time. The "Public Revenues Act" was the last spoke in the wheel of Provincialism. My honorable friend is next jnbilant at the idea of my obtaining a practical idea of the drawbacks of living under a " mild despotism," by sojourning in New Caledonia, or Tahiti. In the first place my despotism would be a thoroughly responsible one. An agent of the General Government wonld not dare to perpetrate the unconstitutional actions which have been practised by Superintendents and local Executives. If he acted foolishly he would be dismissed; if unjustly he would lose his position ; and there is no tear but what he would have eyes enough on him. As we are, we enjoy as I hare already explained, totally irresponsible despotism. One advantage about despotism is that a despot has got only one neck, while under a democracy the. hydra headed mob has too many to be easily twisted. As to settling in New Caledonia or Tahiti, if it was not that the climate of Southland is the finest I have expenened I would have gone there long ago. Under the rule^ of a French satrap, all one has to do to mind bis busines and leave politics alone, and he will have his life and property protected from the incursions of the natives, which is more than can be said for the mild and benificent rule of Her Majesty in New Zealand. My friend next proceeds to offer a species of salve to all provincial ills, by recommending us to give up the plan Hitherto pursued in the Council of governing by party, and suggests that an executive should be found outside the Council, in a plan similar to that pursued in the United States and Switzerland. As regards this latter point, 1 d<m/t know how it answers in •'} : • ;•• •

«lwitrerland j how it acts in the State! will W shown by the Mowing quotation to* A* «*• biased and impartial observer, Mr Trollop* *— •• It li the fault of the present system of [Qwun [ ment in the United Statei that the President fa» too muoh of power and weight. As matters np stand, Congress hat not that dignity of position whioh it should hold, and it is without it because it is not endowed with that control over the affairs of the goTenwnent whioh our Parliament is enabled to exercise. The wan tof this clos. eonneetion between Congr-ss and *c President s. Ministers has been so much felt that it has been found necessary to oreate a medium of communi. cation." In regard to the former suggestion of not attempting goTernment by p»«y, I quite agree wMi him as to the absurdity of this storm £ a twopenny saucer. But unless he will undertake to alter the nature of the inhabitants of New Zealand Ifear his recipe.wiUprpTeTalueless. The Swiss, like most people living vi a mountainous country, are tolerably pure and simple m the* habit* and customs, not much given to talking " tall" off the top of a stmmp. I daresay therefore that the system suegested by Dr Hodgkinson answers well amongst them. But so long as the members of this Council stigmatize one another as "incapable, imbecile, untrustworthy, «c, no long will party Government continue. I »"?»y» : try, Sir, to look at things in'a practical point of view. It is very well to say that "if so and so were so and so it would be all right," but ifso and bo is not so and so it is all wrong. The Utopia presented to us of twenty men quietly concurring in everything the Government chooses to do is very nice in theory, m practice Ithm« , mv honorable friend would find it rather drfferent. I think I have now Sir successfully rebutted all the objections raised by Dr Hodgkinson to my resolutions. His stronghold appears to be America and its democratic institutions, but nte most ardent admirers of the Americans, he takes jKHyHoodcare not to- Mtde-am^S^-r^^rrr must again remind him that the America ofh» dreams, and the America of the present century are almost as different as the Garden of Jiaen before the fall of our first parents the work a day world of 1868- And I believe its democratic institutions, entrusted, as experience has proved, to the hands of a people too demoralised to exercise them judiciously, has led to the lamentable results developed by the recent internecine war. One of these has been exposed in a recent number ol the "Blackwood," which I beg leave to quote. "At a local election in Louisiana the other, day, it was disaovered that the number of black votes registered on the electoral lists was greater than that of the whole black population of men, women and children; that black men registered themselves under different names at different times ; and that when the day of polling came, they did not remember the names they had assumed—or any other than their Christian names of Csesar, Pompey, or Sambo, as the case might be. And this stupid, as well as dishonest tampering with the sacred right conferred on them—by bayonet thrust— by their Northern allies, is represented as general in the ten Southern States, and as not unknown even in Tennessee. I congratulate my friend on his model republic, and the honest results of the ballot amongst these enlightened patriots. For my part, 1 do not believe in a democracy where the uneducatedmajority tyranises overtheeducatedminonty.. That the United States of America have developed into a great and wonderful country is owing to her extraordinary natural resources and to the early founders of her constitution. The men of Bunker's Hill ware very different in moral calibre to those' of Bull's Run. American institutions are now on their triaV and it is the toss up of a halfpenny whether the great Bepublic will not evnntuate in a military despotism. The next war will be with the Western States, whose growl » being already heard; and it will prove a very different matter to the last, with the starved out Southern States. I cannot, Sir, admire or accept Dr Hodgkinson's American democracy as a pattern. I fear that toj much Americanism i» being introduced into the mother country. If she suffers herself to be innoculated with the same rabid democracy the great British Empire will in a few years be crumpled up like a leaf, when the blast of the snow kin? saps the life out of it, just as the great Roman Empire was dissolved when the people became too demoralised to exercise their political functions with wisdom andmoderation. The almost illimitable extent of country she enjoys will enable her to stave off the resulte of her form of government for probably a hundred years. It takes along time for the worm calle* man to deiace the work of the Almighty: but there is an end to everything. When elbow room becomes scarce, the howl of the unlettered mob will astonish the Congress at Washington. To return to ourselves : if anything could prove the absurdity of our continuing to carry out our present system of local government, last eveningssitting, when the Licensing Ordinance was read a second time, demonstrated it. We went intocommittee to read it pro forma. The Speaker vacates his chair, and the Chairman of Committees takes it. The short title is read ; it is then moved that the Chairman report progress, and ask leave to sit again. He vacates the chair, and the Speaker takes it. The Chairman of Committees with great gravity informs the Speaker that the Bill has been read a second time, and that he asks leave to sit again. The Speaker, with equal gravity, which does him great credit, informs the House that the Chairman has reported progress and asks leave to sit again. - The whole farce, which is one of the most screaming possible to conceive, takes a quarter of an hour to perform : with what results ? . The settlers want roads, and would prefer that . the Chairman reported progress and asked leave never to sit again. Valuable time is -wasted with miserable results obtained ; for, after all, it is a Licensing Act Amendment Act, which will have to be again amended directly, simply because it is considered by men who know nothing of the subject, and so the farce is continued from year's end to year's end. I have brought this subject before the Council, not because I believe that the twenty Solons composing it would, to use the words of Dr Hodgkinson, "take the initiative in the formation of anew constitution for this graat colony, a work which might well employ the wisest and most experienced statesmen," or that if they did, it would have any material effect. I seek to address Sir, a wider audience, the people themselves, whose interests are directly effected. If I had desired to carry my resolutions, knowing that you, like other children of an older growth are " Pleased with a rattle, Tickled with a toy." I would have addressed the Council in a very different and more complimentary manner. I have preferred to administer home truths, however bitter they may be : and I have the consolation of knowing, that my able antagonist, Dr Hodgkinson, has been unable to deny or rebut a single accusation I have made. He can^ only "hope we shall grow wiser by experience," and I can only leave him to the pleasures of imagination. My object has been obtained by the ample discussion of the subject ; I leave it to be determined by the people, being perfectly confident that they are desirous of a change in some form I beg, therefore, the permission of the House to withdraw my resolution in favor of Dr Hodgkinson's amendment. • , Permission granted, and Dr Hodgkinson s amendment, ■• That ho vote be taken on Mr Pearson's resolution during the present session of Council." was affirmed.

Change or nnre.— An Irishman employed in a shop in New York was one day surprised and deliehted by the entrance of an old acquaintance. After ten minutes' jollirication the Mend left, when Pat's employer said to him, " So, Pat, you knew that person in the old country, did you ? " Och, an' sure did I j an' it's; a lucky, day I met with him here, it's a fine boy he is, wid all his family. His grandfather was a gineral, his father tnu a gineral, and he'd been a gineral himself if he had not come away." " .But what was he after in your pocketa ? I thought I saw him put his fingers there rather slyly." Clapping his hand to his pocket, Pat ascertained that both wat-h aud purge were musing.