THE LATE SESSION.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 24, 17 June 1867, Page 2

THE LATE SESSION.

The Provincial Council, after a six week’s session, was prorogued on Tuesday last. If the members of the Executive had been bribed by Ministers to deal the Pi’ovincial Governments their deathblow, they -could not have affected that object more successfully than by the course which they adopted. We are not surprised at the Executive playing thus into the hands of the General Government, but we were surprised to see the Superintendent looking placidly on during the whole time the little game was in progress. “ Starve the outlying districts, Stafford & Co., would say to Borlase, “ as that will be the means of securing their support to our District Council’s Bill.” ■ The outlying- districts have been starved accordingly. “ Make Provincial Governments stink in the nostrils of the members of the London Stock Exchange, as then they will not bo able to exist by the aid of loans, and we will take care they do not exist out of the general revenue.” And accordingly the best means that could bo devised for this purpose were adopted. “Get them embroiled in an expensive law-suit,” and the command was faithfully executed. Wo repeat that we are not surprised at Mr Hickson and Mr Borlase aiming a death-blow at Provincial institutions, as they have never looked upon them in a favorable light, but that the Superintendent should have apparently aided them in the attempt does, we confess, astonish us. But so be it. If anv Province can do without a Provincial Government and a Provincial Legislature, Wellington certainly can. The Wairarapa is more likely to fare better with a District Council than with any Provincial Council, while Wei-

ling-ton and its suburbs have such a preponderating influence on its decisions. “It is no easy matter,” most justly observes the “Advertiser,” “to review the session that has just passed, because there is so little in it to review. A couple of attempts to turn the Executive out, and both very nearly successful; a couple of amendment bills of no great importance, and one that is highly objectionable; a Select Committee that involved the Province in no little expense, and came to no practical result; and Estimates passed very much in the form in which they were presented, constitute the work that has been accomplished in six week’s sitting.” If the Council can do no more than it has done this session the sooner it is extinguished the better. The cost of this six weeks session is put down at a sum exceeding £3OOO, while the cost of the Executive alone is put down at £3,386. It would not cost more to establish five municipal Governments for the five districts into which the Province ought to be divided. The game, which has been played at Wellington, is certainly not worth the candle.