COUNTY COUNCIL DELEGATES.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 69, 14 August 1878, Page 3

COUNTY COUNCIL DELEGATES.

The following graphic account of the Municipal and County Council Conferences, held in Wellington, which appears in the Dunedin ‘ Morning Herald,’ is well wortii a place in any public journal. Last year some of the Chairmen of tile County Councils of the Middle Island had the audacity to present themselves as representatives of County Councils having no authority to do so, for which arrogant assumption of rights which did not belong to them they were pretty soon brought to book The same is the case in the present instance, so far as the Geraldine County Council is concerned. The Chairman had no right whatever to sit as a representative of the Geraldine County. We are not sure though that he did so. This con Terence business is a sham and a delusion, leading only to an unnecessary expenditure of public money to enable the chairmen to air themselves in the capita! city at the expen.se of their constituents : •' The eight or nine gent'emen who have for several days been sittmg in conference at Wellington, for the purpose of settling the future destinies of the municipalities of the colony, furnish an instructive and amusing spectarle. We shall not be so rude as to say they recall to mind the famous Three" Tailors of Tooley street, although the likeness incontinently suggests itself; but one might fairly ask them upon what grounds they claim to be a representative body, and who authorised them to make recommendations for the municipal government of the inhabitants of New Zealand. Most of the municipalities have grievances, notably in respect of the Government subsidies, and the Municipal Corporations Ac 4 -, like other statutes, would probably bear amendment ; but the usual and best course in these cases is for each Borough or City Council to formulate its own views and to impress them upon the Government, either by direct communication with it, or through the medium of the local representatives in the General Assembly ; and certainly it does not seem to be an improvement upon that method to relegate these matters to the care of a Conference of delegates holding its sittings at Wellington. The Municipal Conference, however, is not the only one which is to assist the Assembly in the performance of its duties A Conference of County delegates has also met at Wellington to discuss matters affecting County interests, and to show the Government how the Counties Act ought to be amended, although the Government has not indicated any intention to introduce an Amending Bill at all. We dare'say the Conference will make a multitude of suggestions, just as the last Confeience did, and with the same result. The delegates will depart well pleased with their own wisdom and labours, and the Government will throw their suggestions into the waste-paper basket. It seems a pity that the Conference plan should stop here. The idea is capable of great expansion. Why not have a Harbor Boards’ Conference for the promotion of harbor works ? and a Contractors’ Conference to stimulate the flagging loan expenditure ? and a ‘ Billet Hunter’s Conference ’ to watch over the interests of that swarm of officeseekers wlio haunt Wellington during the session, and fill the air with complaints of the Ministerial hardness of heart 1 With favoring circumstances and a little assiduity, the caucus and lobbying systems might be made to blossom forth as richly in the New Zealand Washington as they do in the typical arena of Parliamentary demoralisation, and the political education of the New Zealand Colonists wun'd he complete.

“These Confercmes are a mistake. They are some of the ill-weeds of Abolition, and should be pulled up at once. We do not believe that the General Assembly can ever legislate satisfactorily upon local affairs to the extent which it is now required to do ; but Conferences of this kind are not the proper remedy for the mischief. Nevertheless they indicate an undercurrent of wants and feelings which find no means of action in the existing po’itical machinery All legislative functions, and tbe principal functions of administration, are now ‘ firmly grasped in the strong hand of a powerful Central Government ; ’ loan money is abundant, and the sweepings of the Provincial revenues serve to pay for many an odd job whose cost would be very inconvenient

if it had t© be defrayed out of taxation ; yet ■withal fin result is far from reaching tiic fond as| ir tions of those who dreamed of ‘a great and united colony.’ What these ooal bodies tec! the want rf is the power to adjust then* own machinery to their, own nee s, instead of having to run to Wellington nu every occasion ; but tinMinistry, so profuse in its admiration for the rights of local government when its members were in opposition, now seems only disposed to augment its own powers and to create a great Parliament in Wellington, with Ushers of the Black Bod and all the other emblems of state which are impressive in connection with the Parliament of a mighty Empire, but become something like tomfooleries when attached to the Assembly of a Colony of 400,000 peopled 1