LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 277, 20 May 1912, Page 2

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL

IS THERE TOO IIUGH GOVERNMENT? In returning thanks for his re-election as chairman of the Moa Road Board 011 Saturday Mr. Trimble remarked that he wished to refer to one aspect of the Local Government Bill, and that was the question as to whether there were really too many local bodies. The constant agitation that there were too many local bodies was one of the causes that' led to the present Act, which certainly limited the number to a dangerous total. In fact, it amounted more to centralisation as against decentralisation, which was previously the general principle, in allowing each district to govern its own affairs. The number of local bodies in the Dominion, some six hundred, seemed an enormous quantity for such a small population, but it must be remembered that this population was scattered over a very large area, so that there must of necessity be a large number of local bodies. Besides, lie continued, it appeared to him that it was rather an advantage that a number of people should be trained up in this way to take part in the government of the* country. Of course local bodies could be done without altogether. An Austrian diplomat of high rank had written a book, in which he said that New Zealand could be governed by a governor and six policemen. It could be done, lie admitted, but was it compatible with a popular representative government as English speaking people understood it? The trend has been for the whole people to take part in the government. If they went far enough back, to the beginning of this form of government, they would find that only wealthy people took part, but that was because they were the only ones fitted by education to do so. But with the spread of education, the whole people were gradually fitted to take part. This could only be done effectively by dividing the country into small districts where the people elected their own representatives. No one could be a member of even a small body like the Moa Road Board without being brought to look at things on a larger plane of view thnn their own farm or road. Certainly, local government by small bodies might be a little more expensive, but he thought ( that the advantages to the people interested far outweighed that. Various letters were received in connection with the Bill.

!The secretary of the New Plymouth Harbor Board forwarded a copy of the 1 resolution passed by that body protesting against the proposed basis of representation at the forthcoming conference { on the Local Government Bill, and sug- ! gesting that each class of local body J should have separate representation. The J chairman remarked that it was too late J now to take action.

Mr. If. Okev also wrote, acknowledging receipt of a copy of the resolution passed at the meeting of ratepayers of the Moa Road District re the Local Government Bill.

The Under-Secretary to the Minister of Internal Affairs wrote similarly.

The clerk also intimated that Mr. J. B. Hine, M.P., had also interviewed him, acknowledging receipt of the same resolution.