The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1889. MR HISLOP’S RESIGNATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1940, 7 September 1889, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1889. MR HISLOP’S RESIGNATION.

Mb Hislop has done the best thing he could do for the Government under the circumstances. He has resigned his seat; he will be re-elected, and thus, purged of all his sins, he will return to Parliament as fresh as a daisy and as innocent as a lamb. We are satisfied he will be re-elected. If he had waited until the general election next year the odds would be against him, but in going before his constituents, when flung down from his greatness, his condition will excite sympathy. There is no reason why it should. He has been condemned on all sides; there is no paper in New Zealand which has not condemned him, with the exception of the Oamaru papers. The two Houses of Parliament hare condemned him, and public opinion generally looks upon him as guilty of a very grave offence. Still public opinion is extremely ready—too ready —to condone political offences. The general opinion is that dishonesty is inseparable from politics, and consequently political offences are looked upon as very harmless. The public feels very little interest in politics as a general rule, and do not know who is right and who is wrong. That Mr Hislop deserves condemnation to obscurity goes without saying; that he will be elected under the circumstances is certain. It will be no credit to Oamaru’s sense of decency to elect him, whatever may be said of Oamaru’s good nature in that respect. He has, therefore, done well for himself and for the Ministry, because if he had continued to occupy office the Government would find him an “ Old Man of the Sea” on their shoulders next election. It is well for the Ministry that he has resigned; it is very bad for the Opposition, and we think also that Mr Grimraond’s motion to censure Mr Fergus is a very illadvised move from a strategic point of view. If the Opposition had dono wisely, they would have given the Ministry rope enough and allowed them to hang themselves. They would undoubtedly do it. No Ministry has ever been guilty of such an extraordinary number of shady transactions in the course of two years as the present one, and the policy of the Opposition ought to Lave been to allow them to hang on in their enfeebled condition until next election. The more feeble they became, the more contemptible would they be in the eyes of public opinion, and the less would be their chance of re-election. The policy of the Opposition, therefore, ought to be to let them hang themselves, but in cutting them down half strangled it will only help to give them a new lease of life.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT,

The report of the Local Government Committee has been presented to Parliament, and is as follows; 1. Decentralisation, 2. Reduction in number of local bodies. 3. A definite and fixed relation between the finance of the General Government and that of local bodies. 4. The establishment of local districts with elective governing bodies. The districts to be comparatively few in number, and to be defined with due regard to community of interest and the natural features of the country. The four large cities of the colony, with their suburbs to be made separata districts, and the remainder of the colony to consist of not more than sixteen districts. 5. The constitution of local Councils to be by election by the Borough and County Councils (or Road Boards where the Counties Act is not in force) within each distr'd, with provision that the Governor in Council may, where necessary, alter for the purpose of such election only the boundaries of any Borough, County, or Road Board district. The Committee recommend that a Committee should be set up early next session, for the purpose of further enquiry and consideration of this subject.

Of all the reports we have ever read this is the most vague. It might mean anything. Clauses 2 and 4 suggests to annihilate town boards, education boards, road boards, park boards, cemetery hoards, health boards, borough councils, county councils, etc., etc., and to put in their places 16 councils and four municipal councils. It would be difficult to divide the colony of New Zealand into 16 districts having a community of interests. Then according to clause 5 the 16 large councils shall consist of members elected not by the general public but by the members of the county councils and road hoards. One would think from this that road boards and borough and county councils are to be allowed to live, and if so, in the name of all that is good and gracious what are the 16 larger bodies for? It seems to us they savor of provincialism. Then the people will not be allowed to elect members of these; they are to be elected by road boards and borough and county councils. This is a fearfully backward step. This system exists in Spain, but nowhere else that we know of, and certainly that country, is not one to take a pattern by. This programme, if carried out, would centralise all local Government in the large centres, such as Christchurch, to the great detriment of the smaller districts. The report is utter nonsense ; that it will never go farther is certain, so there is no use in discussing it. It only serves to show the stuff of which a select committee of our Parliament is made. It is really sad to think that this is the work of the best men we can find to represent us in Parliament.

VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

We publish in another column an article from the Yeoman (a North Island paper) dealing with Village Settlements. It shows that, in spite of all the Government has done to destroy Village Settlements, they are flourishing still. Mr Ballance was condemned for settling these people on the land in 1887. Now we ask our readers a simple question: Is it not better to settle these people on the land than support them out of charitable aid money ? Who pays the charitable aid money ? Is it manna that falls from heaven ? or does it come out of the pockets of the taxpayers ? It is not necessary to answer the question, and what we wonder at is that men of property can be so mad as to saddle themselves with taxes for charitable aid purposes while it is possible to avoid doing so by adopting Mr Ballance’s plan. Mr Ballance drained the towns of the unemployed and settled them on the land, so that there were no unemployed during the last election times. Mr Eichardson stopped, Village Settlements, and now, notwithstanding that our population has decreased by 12,000,' most of whom were doubtless working men, and that the stir in the flax industry has employed hundreds, the unemployed are as enormous as ever. And, to make matters worse, Mr Richardson will not give the unemployed work. He tells them plump and plain to go to the Charitable Aid Board and obtain rations there. It is useless to discuss the subject. We have frequently pointed it out, yet such is the infatuation of the propertied classes that they prefer to pay taxes for charitable aid purposes than allow these men to settle on the land. It is a fearfully near-sighted policy, and it will recoil on their own heads yet.