WORK FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 204, 16 August 1860, Page 3

WORK FOR THE G ENERAL ASSEMBLY.

There- are some matters most essential to the interests of i the colony which vyeTrust the ' Assembly, will lake iip. at its nest mpeting,

and which affect all the provinces alike. One of the most i mportautof- these is .the- present banking arrangement. Now, the. whole of.tlie banking business of the colony is jdone bv two banks which have--their•.■head,.-.offices in London. r ’ r Tlie shareholders are mostly there also, and the immense profits which are derived from us, by the high rate 3of discount and preraiuin charged, go to fill the pockets of strangers. It is high time, this were altered. Why should we' not -have a . New Zealand Bank, with its branches and its shareholders in all the different towns .and.districts . of -this, colony ? Why should not the depositors, get Interest on their deposits, .and the shareholders of such a bank receive the; dividends.to expend in the colony, instead of letting them be spent in England ?-. Surely the gold of a New Zealand Shareholder is just as good as that of a London one,.and the paper money of a New Zealand Bank would j.ust. ; .be as good, be as readly take n-, and-go as the- notes of tlie Oriental Bank or'of the Uuioiv Bank of Australia.

We need very mu ch also some improvement in the transfer of land. In this matte.’ we are very much behind many of the other British colonies. It is absurd to have to call in the services of a .lawyer whenever a piece of land changes hands. The present cumbrous, expensive, and dilatory method of having a long deed drawn out on every such occasion savours too much of red-tapism to be satisfactory. It would be a far more simple and quite as complete a method of selling land, to keep a registry of land sales, where for the fee of Is. or 2s any 'such sale could be notified, and a simple bill of sale given to the purchaser'. 1 ’ We trust the Assembly will see fit to take up this subject, which is of great importance to a colony where the sale of land from one person to another is as common as the sale of the ordinary necessaries of life. Another ' matter of importance which requires early attention is the readjustment of the electoral districts of the colony. This we have heard is likely to be introduced into the Assembly at its next session. Otago has increased much faster, in proportion to its population, than any other province, within the last few years,” and- therefore it will he entitled to a larger addition to its present number of representatives. 7’lie great difficulty with-us will be to find the right men to send ; even at the present it will be difficult to get thiee thoroughly qualified gentlemen who can leave their businsss for months at a time to go to //uckland or Wellington; but should the number be increased to-six or seven our difficulty will be greatly augmented. It would only be fair, that the Assembly should meet at the capital of- the different provinces in: turn. Dunedin is as much a central spot; as y/uckland. The province of Otago is. larger,, and will shortly be much more important than the province of Auckland, but we would not on that account be so selfish as to require that the Assembly should always meet here ; we would be satisfied to take our turn with, the other provinces; hut we protest that it is most unjust to us, and increases our difficult}’ in finding representatives, that it should meet at Auckland, varied only very rarely by a meeting at Wellington.— Otago Colonist.

(From the Lyttelton Times,'July 7.) The policy of the ‘Yew Provinces Act,’ passed in. the last session of the General Assembly, will probably prove one -of the most prolific subjects for discussion in the session which is about to commence, besides being one of the most importautin a political sense. Views antagonistic to its general principles and tendencies have from its first enactment Teen very distinctly . expressed by leading men among us, and the accounts which have come down from Hawke s Bay and Marlborough have from time to time confirmed our early impressions. The representatives of Canterbury strongly opposed-the New Provinces Bill in its passage through the House of Representatives, and, so far as we can ascertain, both old members and new will go up to Auckland next week with precisely the same views on the subject. The New Provinces Act obliges the Governor in Council to establish a separate province in any district not less than 500,000 acres, nor more than 3,000,000 acres in extent, having a port, town* and at least 1000 of its inhabitants settled within a million acres, 150 of whose electors shall petition for separation. The boundary line is to be settled by the separating community alone, but it shall not come within 60 miles of the capital town of any established province. The reason given by the Ministry at the time for asking the General Assembly to legislate upon the subject, was, that there were certain parts of the colony whose geographical position, circumstances, and natural resources rendered them well fitted to be centres of settlement, and whose increasing population would quickly give them great impbrtance on the map of New Zealand, hut which were as yet included in the territory of the provinces as at first constituted, and governed as parts of those provinces respectively, by a Superintendent and Provincial Council at a distance., It was alleged to he a necessary consequence of this state of dependence that the growing district couhl never obtain a fair share of consideration from those who administered its affairs, that its wants were neglected, and its revenues squandered. As a signal instance of the dreadful way affairs were carried on in such cases, the condition of Hawke s Bay was pointed out; an overwhelming case was made out against Wellington in. the absence of its representatives; and the. inference was left to be drawn that all other parts, of; the colony, not close to the large townships, were being treated in the same disgraceful manner. If wo were to take for granted . that-these-

things are so—that the Pravi.ncwL.GovieEP* ments are by nature, so t*a»l has .and. never will be done.'by.'.Biem tq any .listr.ict. lying out of sight, of . their .-Council Chamber window’s—then we should .certainly agree that partition, must go forward,'and the country be divided into the largest possible number of the. smallest possible blocks, each with.its local legislature. But we'should certainly, not do it after the forms of the-New Provinces, Act.. .‘All ..restrict,ions .'should be withdrawn : no district .should' he denied redress lor its grievances because ;it'may not have a port, town ; nor should a busy, thriving population ‘have its . revenues stolen'arid, squandered in another because tlie tw6 are' only thirty miles apart. .'. We. maintain that if it be trufe'jthat all Provincial Governments are by nature so bad, so unfair, so tlKiughtless,'as to plunder and neglect the. thriving districts’ which compose their su.bje(-t, toA'iini’y, a ..scheme rights of self-government to be taken ,at .will by some,-but shuts out others, whatever. their desert, from any relief.,of their is not based either on justice or on wise policy. For the sake of assumed the wickedness of Provincial Governments to he inhere it and irremediable ; and some instances may have occurred,, upon which unfair reasoners might found a compendious condemnation of these institutions.-; But we venture to submit that such instances are the exception, not the rule, and that Provincial Governments administer their affairs with as much common sense and justice as larger bodies having a like-shale-of human nature in their composition. Outlying are much more inclined to vgrong of the Government than the Government is to do wrong to them. We have seeminjustice dope through, thoughtlessness mcrpfjthan once, but the fault has been quickly repaired. A- contrary course on the paitl’of ariy Government would be. childish, and would argue want' of common sense much,more. of fairness. We doubt-; ii’ the legislatures of the new and small provinces would improve at all in this respect; rather the reverse. The local legislatures - have very important work to do-—work which no central administration can look after, and wliicli a feeble Government would be powerless to-grappie with. As an instance, —how could immigration from England be carried on if the colony were split up into small provinces? Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Nelson, and Marlborough -will not be able to answer this; question. The-real government of the country, its colonization, and the arrangement for the well being of its population, in nine out of ten’ of its cherished concerns, must be done by the Provincial Governments. One result of crippling -the Provinces will certainly be, to. limit’ their p^verof performing all their important duties, and no efficient substitute can just now' be provided. The expense of the large provinces is a constant theme for new-provincial theorisers;. They insinuate and sometimes boldly say that the subdivision of the province will reduce the cost of its government. Notliing is more fallacious. We venture to say that the actual expense of the Government alone of any original province now in existence is but a trifle greater than that which the Government of any new province formed within its boundaries must cost from the day of its creation ; while the departments whose, cost , swells , the esti mates, and which serve for the transaction of the out-of-door business that ' the Government is set to do, will be as necessary "'in the new province as they a*e. in the old. /The. mabljiif nery .for selling land, for;; sWveys,/for making roads, for inspecting sheep, for administering law, for., preserving property,, .Rh;/ hundred. other things which it., is., .the, duty of .the. province to look aftfr, must ..be, |ar mprp ex?, pensively worked in two sepa«is*; establishments than together.. The .Superintendent of. Marlborough talks of saving money, in salaries to spend it upon the roads. He will not be long in learning tliat in order , to,’have roads men must be paid ; he cannot dp everything and spend nothing. It is clear in fitct that, with the same work to do and. the same resource?, two Governments must be either less efficient or more expensive than one. We hold it wrong, therefore,'that a province should be. split ..into two, except'with good reason shown. If a case for separation arises, it should be judged upon, its merits by the General Assembly—the sole competent and trustworthy tribunal of appeal. Empiric legislation, and the substitution ,of an. unela.stie machinery for the free action of, the constitution, are hostile to really good‘government. The Ministry in 1858 had a mania for quackery of this description'and the New Provinces Act was their darling nostrum. It is high time to .stop its operation.