The Tuapeka Times. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1870. " Measures, not Men"

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 105, 12 February 1870, Page 6

The Tuapeka Times. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1870. " Measures, not Men"

Since the Board of Wardens for the Tuapeka and Waitahuna depasturing districts was first constituted, we have watched its workings with no small degree of interest. While we readily admit that the Board has proved a great benefit to these districts, we are nevertheless certain it has fallen short of the anticipations of the public, and has not accomplished what it would have done under less proscribed or more favourable circumstances. No blame whatever can be attributed to the Board for failing to attain to anything like complete success in the management of the large tract of country nominally placed under its control. On the contrary, we believe the Board has done everything it could do with the ver}- limited and restricted powers of which it is possessed. All the blame — and that is not little — is attached to the Government for the unprecedented manner in which they have treated the Board. For eighteen months this body has existed, and been obliged to stumble through its work without anything to guide it — the Government not having yet sanctioned the bye-laws the Board submitted shortly after its constitution. The inspector, too, is placed in a similar position. When he is asked if a man is running more cattle than appears in the returns, he can only answer that his hands are tied — that until he is allowed to muster and impound cattle at any moment, he is powerless to act — that he has asked for this power, and it is not yet granted to him. Why, we ask, all these unnecessary obstructions ? Why throw impediments in the way of men who have shown themselves really qualified to manage the affairs of the depasturing districts, for which they were elected by the public. We should have thought the handsome return of £1500 a year to the revenue, as compared with the miserable £400 raised for the same extent of country before the Board was formed, would have supplied the Government with an argument sufficiently strong to induce them to facilitate the working of that body in every imaginable way. If the question of byelaws, &c, had only been represented to the Government on one occasion, we would have overlooked any omission or irregularity that might have occurred; but when we remember that the subject has been laid before them — in fact, forced upon them, month after month for a year and a-half, and received no consideration whatever at their hands — we have no hesitation in saying their treatment of the Board has been culpable in the extreme. The time is fast approaching when the Board, to prevent the run being overstocked, will be obliged to adopt restrictive measures; but this also resolves itself into a matter of bye-laws, and unless the Board is very soon put in possession of these laws, it may as well resign its unenviable trust into the hands of - a Government which appears to place so little reliance upon its capacity to deal with the business before it.

It is not an uncommon thing for members of our Provincial Council absenting themselves from their seats during a whole session of Council. Two remarkable instances 1 occurred in the late special session. Messrs. Shepherd and Haughton were more attracted by the charms lof speculation in Auckland than by a discussion of the Hundreds Act in Otago. We do not wonder at their choice ; at the same time they must feel they richly deserve the censure of their constifcutents. Had these gentlemen occupied their places in the Council, the Government, we imagine, would have had a good working majority, and been saved the humiliation of accepting a compromise on the Hundreds Question. The Opposition would then have been comparatively impotent, and yet have proved a healthy check upon the Government party. But the evil we complain of is not confined to members of Council. Some members of the House of Representatives are equally at fault. Mr. Billion Bell has gone to England, and we notice, by the shipping intelligence, Mr. Cargill, the honourable member for Bruce County, has' followed him. We do not complain of Messrs. Shepherd and' Haughton trying their fortune at the Thames ; nor do we grudge Messrs Bell and Cargill their pleasure trip to England, but for the best interests of the commonwealth, we are strongly of opinion that these gentlemen should resign their seats, so that the respective districts which they represent may have a voice in the Councils of the country.