THE Wairarapa Mercury. MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 1967. THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 33, 19 August 1867, Page 2

THE Wairarapa Mercury. MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 1967. THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL.

The debate and the division which took place on the second reading- of the above Bill will be found sketched in our special correspondent’s letter, to which we desire to direct the attention of our readers. The Bill, which, thoug-h it had many faults, would have proved a boon to the outlying- districts of the Colony, has been rejected because the House does not represent the people. It has been rejected because it would place too much power in the hands of the people. It has been rejected because Provincialism, is the worst kind of Centralization. We still believe that true Provincialism is not antagonistic to, but in harmony with the principle of local self-government, that the rights of the Provinces could be maintained, not at the cost of the outlying districts, but at the cost of the' central authority, and that Provincial Councils would have had their uses if Shire Councils had been established; but the house has thought otherwise, and to maintain the influence of the “ Provincial Centres ” it has sacrificed the rights and interests of the outlying districts. The “ Advertiser ” of Monday last has an able and log-ical article on the subject, and in the truth and justice of the following remarks we are sure our readers will concur. The writer of the rejected Bill, says

If it proved' beneficial to the districts severally, it could not prove injurious to them collectively, Provincial rights notwithstanding. In fact, the Bill proposed simply to allow the several districts of the Colony, or of the Provinces—if the expression is a better one—permission to improve their position if they liked to do so, and the ultra-Provincial party resisted'such a proposition as an invasion of Provincial rights. If it was so, then clearly Provincial rights, and their advocates must be antagonistic and opposed to the interests of the districts which would have benefited by the adoption of the Bill. Freely interpreted, the expression “ Provincial rights ” must, we imagine, mean the right of the large towns to an undue proportion of the revenue contributed by the country, and the vested interests of.the official army who live and fatten on the sped, and who are necessarily most consistent advocates of Provincial rights. We commend the subject to the consideration of the country electors, and advise them at the next election to arrive at a clear understanding of what those rights really are. They will then perhaps, be inclined to assert their own.

That the object of the promoters of the measure was to undermine the present provincial system there can be no doubt, hut that object the opposition might have defeated without leaving- the outlying- districts to the the merc3 r of the sea-port-towus. They were asked to affirm the right of the outlying- districts to the benefits of local government, and they have affirmed that they have no such right. They have also, at the same time, rendered it all but impossible for anv enlightened settler in any such district to support them in future. The Bill was far from perfect, but our objections to it were of a precisely opposite character to those which were made to it by the most violent of its opponents. They considered it went too far, while we think if did-not go far enough.We have said that the establishment of Local Governments in towns and outlying districts need not he antagonistic, hut could be made to harmonise with ,Provincial institutions, and we find we are confirmed in this view of the subject by Mr J. C. Richmond, the most earnest centralist of the present administration, who in a recent letter published in the “Bruce Herald” makes some''’sensible observations which the ultra-provincialist, as well as the ultra-centralist might accept as established truths witlioufc doinoviolence to his creed. He says that the management of local affairs is" the great political school of the people at large, the great test of the capacity of man to lead and represent. It trains the community to active'self-reliance. ' The townships in the United States are independent of the State and the Federal Government in all local affairs. They are also charged with carrying out in detail the educational system and the police regulations of the States. The establishment of those and analag-ons institutions should not be

ioft till Provincial Governmentslanguish ibr the want of tho revenues that now support them. If the provinces dovelopo into states, such an orginazation as the Local Government Bill would have created would not have been superfluous. At the same time it must ho admitted that the object of the Ministry was nob to iurnish tire Provincial Governments with the means to develope the provinces into states but with the machinery which would starve and eventually supersede Provincial Institutions. That object however might have been defeated had. not tho ultra-provincialists proved themselves punctually more arrant c’eiitralists than tho party they have thus nicknamed It may be doubted whether public opinion, is sutficeutly ripe for securing-, by means of a general election, and in spite of the power and influence of the Provincial Governments, the carriage of an improved Local Government Bill through the House in a subsequent session, but we feel certain that the time will arrive when the outlying districts will unanimously demand the establishment of Local Institutions even though their establishment should involve the destruction of the Provincial Governments TVnm file +inn» *1 » term ultra-provincialist was first used the writer has been tho advocate of the principle, the term is 3osed to signify; but he has always that Local Self Government is tho soul of true Provincialism, and ho would now rather see the carcase perisn than that the spirit should be prevented from expanding itself, by means of these Provincial , trappings, over the wholecolony.