LOCAL SELF GOVERNMENT.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3755, 10 January 1881, Page 3

LOCAL SELF GOVERNMENT.

(To the Editor of the Evening Slar.)

Sib,-—I wrote several letters which were inserted in your papeV before the Provincial system was abolished, advising . the public, against the County system, and warning them it were better to bear the ills they knew of than those they knew nothing of. Sir, we have given the County system a lriai, and I have waited patiently in anticipation of reaping , some of the promised blessings, but the

longer I wait the less chance there seems of realising them. Any laws the Old Country people are trying to do away with are forced on here whether suitable or no, and if it is trne that like begets like —if we follow suite with the Old Country, we shall in a short time have as much trouble here as there is at home with a dissatisfied people. Sir, if we want a road or a railway made, how is it we have to beg of the Central Government for permission to make one or the other P Instead of self-government this is Imperialism. We cannot do a thing without asking leave and going to the centre, even votes of ijiauks are passed at a public meeting tb fche County Councillors, because*'■■they asked permission of the Central Government to make a road. Such v pass^Jias local self-government came to that we cannot do anything with our money without asking the Central Government how we are to spend it, and what to spend it on, and then thank 'the persons for doing nothing. I see in your issue of the 3rd inst. you state the whole population of this colony is under 600,000. Sir, is it not a disgrace to the County system and the colony that hundreds of these men are forced to go gum-digging for want of other-employment, and that the system now forced on the people is all one-sided, and in the interest of the monied class. For the life of me I cannot see how the laboring class could be worse off under any other system. If the Government cannot find employment for 600,000 people, and run over head and ears in debt with such a. small number, I should like to know how it will be when they have 5,000,000. Is it likely that under this system the people will be any better off? We have the self same system carried qn in the Old Country, and can watch, the result there; it is sure to follow here in time. The same balloting system, which has never been given a fair trial because the tickets are num.bered, and the moneyed classes know if they were not nambered these would be bo more bribery 'and corruption! but

people would be more likely to give their votes according to convenience, as they would not pay money away to people they were not able to know had voted for them. I may show this acts in the moneyed interest, the contract system, and on society, with your permission.—I am, &c, P.B.P. January 10 th.