LEANING ON THE STATE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 251, 2 March 1911, Page 3

LEANING ON THE STATE

REMARKABLE SPEEC. I BY A MINISTER. Some interesting statements were made by the lion. G. Fowlds in a speech at Christchurch on Friday night to a "citizenship meeting" arranged by the Methodist Church Conference. Coming from a member of the Government, the opinions expressed are of uncommon interest. Mr. Fowlds was mainly concerned with "local or civic" citizenship," and lie said: "I am tempted also to lay special empha.sis on civic citizenship at tile present time," Mr. Fowlds continued, "because I feel that in New Zealand we have been more successful in developing the national and Imperial spirit than we have been in developing the civic spirit. Perhaps some of you might suggest that if looking to the State or to the national l Government to do everything for you is an evidence of the national spirit, then we have been too successful in its cultivation. In that conclusion I would entirely agree with you. Whenever I have made a mild suggestion that localities should do something for themselves, for example in the matter of education, I have been met with a perfect storm of abuse and denunciation. People in this country have acquired a marvellous hallucination that everything they can wring from the coffers' of the State is paid for by somebody other than them> selves. All this goes to prove my contention that we have failed .in a measure to develop a rational civic consciousness and citizenship. "Some people would contend that tljis lack of a true civic spirit comes entirely from the imperfect condition of our loval government law. I am free to admit that our local government law is imperfect and defective, but I think I am justified in holding that the converse of the contention i have mentioned is quite as true, namely, that the imperfect condition of our local government law is the I result of an undeveloped or a wrongly developed ideal of citizenship. Some people's idea of local government reform' seems to be limited to what they call 'an assured finance,' and when you enquire more fully what they mean by 'assured finance' you find that they, mean a steady stream of revenue drawn from the coffers of the national Government. Until we get rid of that idea we cannot expect much salutary reform of the law governing local government in this country."