ULTRA-PROVINCIALISM AGAIN

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 229, 20 June 1872, Page 9

ULTRA-PROVINCIALISM AGAIN

The occasion of so many inaugural addresses of late by Superintendents of provinces, from Taranaki to Otago, has given rise to remarks in some quarters, more or less entitled to notice, though on so effete a subject as that of Provincial administration of borrowed money. No doubt it is very natural for local Executive to have unlimited confidence in their own ability. Self-reliance is not only excusable within certain limits, out is praise woi thy as well, so long as people keep within the sphere of their own proper duties. This is pre-eminently true of Provincial Governments. The administration of local revenue of all kinds, and the regulation of minor legislation of a municipal and local character, are among their proper vocations, and they will do well if they conftne themselves to these. But some of our provincial magnates are not satisfied, it appears, with so circumscribed an area of duty. They would extend the circuit of their influence a little further. Regardless of past experience, and ignoring the lesson it teaches, some of our ultra-proviucialists are for laying claim to the right of expending in their own way the public moneys for which the credit of the colony is pledged. This -was the keynote in the address of the Superintendent of Canterbury to his* Provincial Council a few weeks ago. Mr. Rolles-

ton was clearly of opinion that the administration of public works by the Colonial G-overnment instead of by the provincial authorities would " prove a costly experiment." He prophesies accordingly that " the taxpayers of the colony will not long admit of the continuance of such an unnecessary complication of Government.." His remedy for these evils is to return to ultra-provincialism, " through the employment," he tells us, " by the colony of local management in the execution of works provided for by borrowed moneys." In other words, the colony for the future shall provide the funds and be responsible for them, but them Superintendents and their Executives will undertake to spend the money. This is what Mr. Rolleston and his friends call public economy. They would reduce the sphere of the Colonial Government to the single unenviable duty of providing ways and means, and apportioning them out with scrupulous exactness to a number of totally irresponsible bodies, to be spent by the after the fashion, we may suppose, in which borrowed moneys were expended heretofore in this and in other Provinces. These are the newest doctrines in political economy brought forward by the provincialists of the day. If anything beyond its own past history were needed to illustrate the recklessness of the old system of provincial expenditure of borrowed money, we have it in the proposition here so modestly laid down. In no other way that we can conceive of could the door be more widely opened to all kinds of jobbery, log-rolling, and abuse. And this is the remedy for the " ills we have " of a provincial statesman and a prominent Oppositionist ! This is the way he would have us escape what he calls "a complication of Government" ! Truly we are blessed with some clear-headed reformers in our midst. We are far from supposing there is no room for improvement in the administration of the affairs of the country, but certainly this is not the direction in which many at the present day would look for a change for the better. What is needed, we are confident, is vigilance and impartial oversight in carrying out the great policy of Immigration and Public Works ; but if these cannot be obtained through the Parliament of the colony, we may well ask the question, Where are they to be looked for? — " Auckland Weekly News."