THE STAFFORD MINISTRY.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 319, 9 November 1860, Page 3

THE STAFFORD MINISTRY.

The introduction of the New Provinces Act repeal Bill might be supposed to be the most important event of the session, if we measured it by the determination of the Ministerial party to maintain the existing law intact, or by the resolute attitude of the Provincialists and the wary generalship with which they seek to evade the battle until every individual on their side can be brought into the field.

There was a rumor, to which however we attach no credit, that it was the intention of the government to' make the maintenance of the " New Provinces Act 1858 " a ministerial question. After having survived the storm of l Native affairs;' after having escaped the explosion of the literary projectiles of the Venerable Archdeacon Hadfield; after having avoided the danger of the Native Offenders Bill, and survived the Audit discovery of Mr. Travers* "little bill" for £135 2s. Id. amongst the accounts for firewood for the Colonial Secretary, we do not think that the ministry, even if defeated, as we hope they will be in this case, would be weak enough to go out, upon a decision in which, so far as they are concerned, no great principle is involved.

It is very notorious that the object of the enactment of the New Provinces Act 1858 was a special one, viz. the separation of Hawke's Bay from Wellington, and the damage, pro tanto, to the pretension and power of the gentlemen who ruled in their own peculiar fashion in Port Nicholson. It was necessary that that operation should be short, summary and decisive; that no opportunity of remonstrance or appeal should be afforded to the inhabitants of Wellington proper,—who might not unreasonably be supposed (to feel and to have some interest in the matter, —and that no discretion should be left to the Governor--certain prescribed conditions being complied with,—but "with all convenient speed to establish such Province accordingly." Having to be done, the thing was done thoroughly and successfully; it wasno coup manque Having effected the object of separation, which, there is reason to believe was in itself a good and useful one, the New Provinces Act, we think, should be no longer allowed in its present shape to remain upon the New Zealand statute book.

In process of time as population increases and extends, it may be that a further division of existing Provinces may become necessary; but there is no sufficient reason that we have heard urged, why such separation, when the occasion for it shall have arisen, should not be effected by means of an Act of the General Assembly passed for the ape-, cial purpose, after full consideration of the case, and after the arguments pro and con had been weighed by the representatives of the people. Such a plan would we believe, meet the wishes of those who are inos* -"'"*^^,*~*fe^Ti'ov/jJ^ —* Xt would P'\7 |—^^^^^■■ljiy^CtiDii^r j

or aniraatsd by personal hostility to the members of a. Provincial Executive, from causing the dismemberment of a Province, the derangement of the policy of its Government, the damage or destruction of its credit, and the injury of the public creditor. No one, we presume, will contend that there ought not to bp a discretionary power vested iv the Governor to give or withhold his assent to the exercise, by a minority, of a power so formidable as that which the existing law bestows, without check or control of any kind whatsoever. The multiplication of Government establishments is itself, in a new country, an evil, and there is now a door opened to their indefinite extension. If the expenditure upon the establishments of the General Government and that of the several provincial Governments of New Zealand were added together, they would present a total which would somewhat astound our financial economists. The following published observations of an intelligent visitor from Melbourne may not be without i»terest, if read in connection with the official return, recently laid before the House of Representatives, of the numerical strength of that army of martyrs now in the pay of the General Government, and which forms but a section of the official force of the Colony.

"A leading feature of the capital of this colony is its intense officialism. I expected to find this the case in visiting New Zealand, because I had formed a very high opinion of the intelligence and other valuable qualifications of the class of colonists who have resorted thither, and also because I thought the peculiar form in which responsible government has been presented to New Zealand rather calculated to develope this.kind of thing. But the reality far exceeded anything I had anticipated; and if all else connected with the colony were as flattering as its best friends could ■ desire, she would still have to be greatly upon her guard as to the terrible evils consequent upon being over-governed—she would still have to steer a ticklish course to avert hopeless entanglement in labrynths of red tape. "In my various wanderings and observations upon men and things, 1 have always been astonished at the large proportion of the community whose predilection seemed to point in the direction of public employment. It has often struck me as remarkable that it seemed to require about onehalf mankind to govern the other half; and having unfortunately, I suppose, not one drop of the Barnacle and Stiltstalking blood in my viens, never having been permitted to touch red tape in my life, and having" no relation on earth, I believe, who ever did touch it, I find myself quite but of my element among a race of highly respectable and very official gentlemen, every one of whom seems to have a finger in the public purse. In these regions every other man you meet is official: if not Governor or Colonial Secretary, he is sure to be a Superintendent or Provincial Secretary, a Land Commissioner, a Native Commissioner, Police Magistrate, Collector of Customs, or something of that sort. How such an infinity of officials can diet amicably off such a very limited revenue as that of New Zealand it is beyond my capacity to explain. Perhaps the truth may be that Barnacle although hungry and exacting enough when funds are ample, is content with very small doings indeed rather than betake himself to any other line of business. Is not this a valuable hint for you? The general revenue of the entire colony of New Zealand amounts, I believe, to about £120,000, yet throughout the entire colony does Barnacle abound to absolute repletion. You have charged your Government with chronic and sys^lnatic extravagance,—a charge which might be ?*urged with still greater persistency and emphasis!. Let them look to New Zealand, and they will find, amongst a great deal of evil in the unnecessary multiplication of officials, this important fact, that the New Zealanders get a Secretary, Treasurer, or . some other leading man, with undoubted capacity and some claims to statesmanship^ for about the same salary that you throw away upon a fifth-rate post-office or custom-house clerk. Verb sap."

The dismemberment of Provinces can but increase this "intense officialism," whilst the cost of the establishments which inevitably spring up absorbs funds which might otherwise be applied to public improvements. Much as we desire to see the extension of local self-government, we cannot persuade ourselves that it will be successfully effected by unduly facilitating the cutting-up of the Colony into districts which will be found to be too large for mere municipalities and too small to bear the cost of Provincial establishments. The real friends of a sensible system of local self-government will, we doubt not, be found arrayed againut the New Provinces Act—New Zealander. ■ ■

The debate on the New Provinces Act Amendment Bill, which dragged its length far into the ' small hours' of Friday morning, terminated in a division, upon the amendment of Mr. Weld, * that this bill be read a second time this day six months.' Ministers obtained, as was anticipated, a 'majority of one,' and have by that success lost the opportunity, which it is said they were prepared to embrace, of 'going to the country' upon the policy involved in the New Provinces Act, 1858. We all know what can be done by the judicious use of a good ' cry;' but it does seem to us to be a most singular error in judgment, on the part of gentlemen who may be supposed to have the best means of testing public opinion, to suppose that the New Provinces Act, 1858, was, or is likely to be, a popular measure with the people of this Colony. If that law have any principle as its basis, it is this: That the minority shall rule and coerce the majority; that one thousand persons—in a population of twenty thousand—shall be able (secretly it may be, without communication with any of those interested equally with themselves in the matter to be decided), at their own good pleasure, without check or control from Governor or Government, to dismember a whole province and damage its public credit; within its former limits, they may erect themselves into a separate state, where, powerless, poor, without credit or money, burthened it may be with debt, they must take upon themselves the charge of the maintenance of officials and departments, of harbors, police, gaols, schools, hospitals, charities, and those inevitable establishments under which the older government are gradually being bowed down. We know what the end of such a system must be. But the time for annihilating the Provinces and Provincial Governments has not yet comej and nothing but the blindness of v Centralism gone mad " could lead men to suppose that this is now a popular policy. It is not necessary for us to say that we have no sympathy with ultra-provincialism. We have resisted the absurb pretensions of the provinces to the exercise of powers which were never intended to be confided to them by the Constitution Act, — just as we resist the attempt to deprive the provinces of their real usefulness, and finally to over- ■' whelm them, by the weight of official establishments. We know what extravagances some of the provincial Governments have been guilty of; the; have been, for the most part, however, genero"' errors, and have been redeemed,^ sterling serv' to the people. If there have b*cn quarrels betwa the individuals composing tike Responsible M 18 ** ' try and .the individuals exposing the Exec* ye of one or all of the Provinces, the thinking ptiou of the public will be r/"»er disposed to havr ov^ linen " washed in pri/ate* The remedy of-nock-: ing the provinces & the head, because the-*2?™ 0!; remain on good/arms with their "bigrother," who is himselpot always civil, or jusfc«rgene-' rous, but wb'is* °n the contrary, somell***l6B m©B' provokingl'naughty and supercilious, *s not one which taking men will prescribe ; *«d it wft\ we thin*? require more persuasive p were of elo-» quene'than any we have yet heap displayed, on the/linisterial side, to persuade thfpublie, *of the, effcacy of that nostrum. j , . ; ■■ /If ultra-Provincialism have c*er gained any ybrceas a hustings' cry; it will b/Veeausier the presen/Covernment have overlapped the limit of offJositioh to the Provincial system; and we are /re that "the New, Provinces Act, 1858," unamended, is the most powerful electioneering weapon that they <jonfd have placed in the hmd% ,_