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Southland Times, Issue 1579, 17 May 1872, Page 2

The successful passage of the Shires Bill through the Provincial Council ia another step in the direction of decentralisation. Everyone knows that the days of Provincial G-overnment, with its expensive apparatus, and ludicrous mimicry of constitutional forms, are drawing to a close. The unwelcome truth seems to have penetrated even the walls of the Council Chamber itself. The instinct of approaching dissolution may have to some extent contributed to the favor with which this measure has been regarded. It may be looked upon as a sort of testamentary disposition, providing for the discharge of all the most useful functions of the Provincial G-overnment, after that worn-out institution has retired from the scene. When that event occurs it is highly desirable that there should be some intermediate power between the Road Boards and the General Government, with its bureaucratic tendencies. By this measure the Road Boards of a district of given area, and population, and raising a certain aggregate of local rates, are empowered to combine as Shires or Counties. When this is done, a proportion of the Land Reyenue raised within the district, twenty per cent, as at present suggested, is handed over to the Shire Council for expenditure on local works. This amount is supplemented by a rate on property, not to exceed ls, or to be less than 3d in the pound sterling of annual value. All main roads, bridges, and ferries within any shire are subject to the control ofthe Shire Council, which is invested with very extensive powers as to the construction, alteration, and maintenance of such roads. Tolls may also be imposed, markets established, tramways or railways made ; and many other matters relating to the good government of the district come within their powers. Should these bodies work well, other powers will certainly be added, and, before many years are past, we may have in the Shire Councils bodies possessing considerable political influence, well qualified to exercise the power of administration of all local affairs, and yet without the same aptitude for meddling with the colonial policy of tbe General Government which the Provincial Governments have hitherto displayed, and which has been a fruitful source of the mismanagement and indecision whioh have characterised the public policy of the colony tor some years past.