The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1917. LOCAL GOVERNMENT FADS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 13 September 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1917. LOCAL GOVERNMENT FADS.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News),

The question of local government is a vexed and an involved one, as the history of this country fully exemplifies. No sooner has the policy of one government got fully into operation than another with a Minister who fancies himself a heaven-born genius in local government, comes into being and turns the last instituted system upside down. With very minor differences there arc really only two opinions, that of one Ministry, favouring governing bodies, administering huge territories, practically a sort of provincialism, while the other advocates smaller areas in which there is an undeniable community of interest, and in which, by the elimination of the angling for territory that obtains in the other system the rates raised always follows the traffic and is spent on the roads the payer of them most largely uses. The time does not seem long past since we had very large counties, and we well remember, the almost continuous cry of the settlers against the injustice necessarily involved on many thereby. There was' scarcely a settler in the country who did not hail with jubilation the law that provided for counties being formed where community of interest was obvious. The large County of Manawatu was chopped up into several counties, Hawkes’ Bay was divided, and Wairarapa County, we believe, without actually counting, was put upon the block of community of interest and chopped up into at least a dozen counties, giving settlers the right to manage their own allairs. Now we hav e a Government that has the antideluvian view, with a Minister owning huge tracts of country quite largo enough to make a couple of Russell counties, and, of course, the community of interest county people are fools; their policy must be wiped out and we must go back to conditions existing forty years ago. We must have the Manawatu County of ancient days again forced upon us, and of course this applies to Hawke’s Bay, Wanganui, Wairarapa and others. Settlers are being hoodwinked by the heavenborn governing geniuses, still they re-

jjard with suspicion the policy of aggregation that is being preached. New Zealand has reached a stage of bigheaded politicians who seem to be deluded with the idea that they have the aggregated brains of a dozen or twenty of foregone legislators, and, sequentially, aggregation becomes the craze. These men with brain-aggre-gations find nothing large enough for them, and so we find aggregation going on in everything except that which tends most to our progress as a nation and the happiness and contentment of our people. It is questionable svhether even the great war fits in with these men’s ideas of aggregation, for they seem to be obsessed with the opinion that we should go on building up an army to dimensions quite out of all proportion with the material at hand. The real trouble is, they were born in the wrong country and the sooner this mistake is put right the quicker will

it add to the cofort and well-being of our people. We have ample evidence of the injustice of large counties which are not built upon community of interest, and we woujM impress upon settlers that it is not a question for them whether they would be better off in one existing county than another the question is can they attain the advantages of community of interest in either? At a conference held in Taihap# on the 29th of last month, wC had the experience of a settler favouring being joined up to a county with which there was no practicable connectbn rather than with one which had its constructive and administrative machinery alongside his holdings. Sentiment, or a desire to boom one town as against another is not calculated to satisfactorily settle the local governing question brought about by the apostles of provincialism. Th e Upper Wangaehu’s absurd relation to the Wanganui county ought to and does provide convincing testimony regarding such stupidity. The Upper Wangaohu Road District furnishes proof that rural governing bodies may b e too small, and the history of , local government furnishes ample proof that they can be too large. In the one case history makes it clear that settlers have found it in their interests to amalgamate, and in the other ease history makes it equally clear that settlors have discovered that their best interests have been served by division into areas enabling them to attain a true and workable community of interest, and whatever the present government may do towards instituting counties with jurisdiction over precisely simlar areas of country, community of interest will burst them up and scrap all their governing genius. A Minister with his square and rule may force his divisions on settlers for just so long as they can bear the inconvenience, but history ought to indicate that New Zealand does not Tend itself to the rule and square sort of division, and why there is this reversion from one extreme to the other is scarcely understandable. We are in no sense arguing against large counties or ‘dg'uTTist local bodies having the administration of government over large tracts of country in which there is true community of interest, similar to what is found in the Rangitikei County, but to arbitrarily take from its place in nature territory just to make the next county about an equal size is only comparable to cutting a piece off Australia to add to New Zealand, and then expect the j Australians so arbitrarily cut off to be content with the government and management of affairs such as they would be likely to got from Wellington. We hear from these arbitrarily made big county people a lot of verbiage about economy in administration. Economy | runs parallel with efficiency, not with j actual expenditure. We. find a Road District paying some £2OO a year to a | county for which it gets nothing what- ; ever in return. Whereas ir'rhat district j were linked with the county which ! nature meant it to be that sum would j pay for more than the whole of its j clerical and engineering requirements. In the latter case that expenditure is economy, in the other it is sheer waste, a dead loss, the result of big counties in which there is not community of interest. There is to be an adjustment of county boundaries in the Taihape district and we urge our settlers to give most serious thought to any proposal they may be faced with. It is for everyone to clearly establish in his j mind where his community of interest lies, and not to involve himself in unnatural relationships that may prove a curse to him for very many years, per-

haps during his lifetime. When, the time comes for decision on the county boundary question, let us realise where our ultimate centre lies, whether we will go on depending upon local bodies one hundred miles away, or whether it is advisable that the rates we pay should follow, our traffic, no mattter where it goes. It is only by sending our rates with our traffic that it is possible to have the road progress that our production progress w r ill urgently need.