The Westport Times. TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1870.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 689, 26 July 1870, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1870.

The present session of the Assembly bas brought with it no little disappointment to those who have long felt the inadequateness of the Provincial institutions, and the serious and unnecessary expense their continuation has entailed upon the Colony. The assurance of the Colonial Treasurer that he would prefer to abandon these institutions, if found incompatible with the promotion of public works and immigration, rather than forego the stimulating aid which he believed most vitally necessary to the condition of the Colony, is gratifying so far that be would seem to accept the possible contingency of the present Ministry lending a hand in sweeping away this long-continued abuse. The very reasons advanced, however, for the gradual removal of interprovincial barriers may be brought with more weight in support of their immediate extinction. Apart from the cost which a system of double government renders inevitable, the uneven and uufair manner in which the Provinces have distributed the revenue at their command, and thbir systematic disregard of the claims and requirements of communities which, though entitled outlying districts, have an equal claim to a separate identity, is an all-sufficient reason that they should give place to a form of government capable of general adoption and calculated to hasten rather than retard the progress of the Colony. The Provincial divisions of the Colony do not represent one separate and distinct interest which has

grown up with their settlement, and this portion of the Nelson Province serves as a forcible illustration of that fact. What justice or reason can there be in a form of government, under which it is possible that a portion of the province, containing nearly one half the entire population, and contributing within a moiety of twothirds of the revenue, where the interests and the hahics of the people are dissimilar,and where the country, by its physical configuration, is practically disunited from the earlier settled portions, should be forced by an arbitrary and indiscriminate fusion into a distasteful connection with the older portion of the Province. Unduly represented in the Colonial Parliament, as also in the Piovincial Council, our grievances are certainly neither imaginary nor inconsiderable, and the remedy we seek is one which, we believe would tend greatly to the beneficial government of the Colony. The provinces once disposed of the Assembly would have a largely increased revenue at their command, which might either be allotted to public works or a partial remission of the overburdened taxation: The gold duty, which is now being referred to as an impost that should be done away with in the face of the increased burdens which have been specially imposed upon the miners, is not a source of revenue to the Colonial Government; and there is little hope of any reduction being effected, or, indeed, the revenues of the country being turned to proper account, so long as the Government of the country is embarrassed by Provincial institutions.