PROVINCIALISM AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 480, 20 March 1869, Page 3

PROVINCIALISM AND LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.

(To the Editor of the Westport Times.) Sib, —I hope, now that the initiatory *tep has been taken, that no effort will be wanting to bring the agitation for Separation to a successful isßue. We owe a duty to our fellow-colonists from one end of New Zealand to the other. The country districts want to govern themselves and not to be governed by or for the benefit of town and suburban districts. Provincialism has become a mischievous policy—centralism of the worst kind as against the outlying districts of the provinces. Our own individual interest must prompt us to action in seeking local self-govern-ment, and to abolish provincial institutions. It is utterly unnecessary that there should be nine sets of Provincial institutions, nine Provincial Councils, nine Executive Councils— r and a General Government and Colonial Executive to govern about 200,000 men, women, and children. Mr Wells, M.H.R., in addressing hisconstituents, remarks that if the public would for one moment refleclfTipon this system and judge of it by its fruits they would at once see : how extraordinarily expensive it had been. .The acting Colonial Treasurer, in speaking on this system of double government,

says of itf—'Vßad"in,theory, it has proved most -pernicious in practise. It has interferred grievously with the fair action of the representative Government in thjs House, delivering oyer one Ministry after another to provincial factions, presenting to the Government of the day the usual alternative of more ' money or your life.' " Provincialism to my mind is like the deadly upas tree, withering and killing everything beneath its shade. Moneys received by the provincial institutions, instead of being devoted to fostering and assisting the development of new industries, opening up new districts, making main trunk roads, &c, are recklessly misapplied. Officialdom eats up the public revenue, in some provinces leaving nothing for public works, and in none do the provincial •departments cost less than fifty per cent. I cannot help mentioning that a moral obligation is imposed upon every well-wisher of New Zealand to put his hand to the plough and do away with this incubus that possibly may have done good in its day, but which most certainly does not meet our present idea of local self-govern-ment. —I am yours, &c, SCKtJTATOB.