The Westport Times. AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1870.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 750, 15 December 1870, Page 2

The Westport Times. AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1870.

Convincing proof of the unsuitability ofthe provincial form of government to the present circumstances of the colony is furnished by the condition of the various provinces. Southland, unable to maintain the expenditure arising out of a separate form of government, has gladly re-united to the neighboring Province of Otago. Marlborough and Taranaki, financially, are not better able, to bear the cost of provincial institutions. In Wellington the local government is all but effete, and the G-eneral Government have had to provide the funds for the payment of arrears of salary, due for the maintenance of the various departments necessary to the effective administratiou of "the Province.- Everywhere retrenchment is urged and, although the larger and more wealthy provinces have not yet condemned the continuance of provincial institutions as an unnecessary expense, yet in advocating the consolidation of the various divisions of the two islands the principle of centralisation is acknowledged. In Otago a commission on retrenchment has been appointed. Their report has been published and they recommend generally—lst, the correction of waste or extravagance in the internal departments; 2nd, the concentration or amalgamation of offices ; 3rd, the reduction of salaries. The estimated retrenchment is £4SOO annually. But it, is the system itself rather than its details which should form matter for dissatisfaction. If every petty division of the colony must have its separate form of go"vernment with legislative functions, a constitutional petty sovereign, and, in some instances, a responsible ministry, the farce must be paid for. To effect unimportant savings here and there are comparatively useless and certainly vexatious. The remedy, if applied at all, should be of a totally different complexion, having for" its object the entire abolition of a double form of government with separate legislative functions, and in the continuance of which, the evils that the populous outlying districts complain of, must be perpetuated. The colony must contcut itself to be governed a little less, or submit to the increased expenditure that the duration of the provincial evil involves. If it is admitted that the system is at fault, rather than the mode of administration, it avails little to attempt trifling savings. There might be pointed out instances of unnecessary extravagance in connection with the departmental expenditure of this Province, and reductions in the pay of the more highly salar-ted officials might, perhaps, be effected without injury to the effective administration of the various departments. Comparisons may be instituted betweeu the relative positions of servants in the employ of the Colonial Government", whose salaries are not provincially charged, and those who may be more strictly regarded as Provincial servants. It will certainly be found that officers, whose status may be said to be eqtuil in other respects, are receiving a much higher rate of emolument in the Provincial pay than their confreres in the service of the Colony. All that may be nrgetl -in' defence of this anomaly ia that. 1 itneS entire Provincial fabric is liable at any moment to be swept jfcway, and: that consequently the latter service does not offer the same advantage of certainty: Herein, however, lies another argument in favor of the appointment of all public servants and the administration of all public de-

partments, other than those of a purely local character, resting with the Colonial Government. It may be argued that many appointments would be thus dispensed with, with considerable saving to the Colony, while placing all ollicers of the Civil Service on the same footing would further lessen the expense of administration. The Colonial Treasurer, in his address at Dunedin on Thursday last, expressed an opinion that " the time was approaching when all the provinces in each island would be under separate Governments—one for each island—with a Central Government at Wellington." This unquestionably would be a mitigation of the existing evil of Provincialism, but there would appear no reason that one Central Government, while certainly less expensive, would not be even more efficacious in administering the affairs of the Colony.