THE COST OF GOVERNMENT IN NEW ZEALAND.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 958, 2 April 1872, Page 3

THE COST OF GOVERNMENT IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand is in the unenviable position of being an over-governed, and a most mischievously mis-governed country. Victoria, with a population of 750,000, is content with one government. New Zealand, with a population of only 250,000 has ten,—one General Government with its chief Beat at Wellington, and nine Provincial Governments, —namely, Auckland, Taraniki, Hawke's Bay, and Wellington in the North Island, and Nelson, Marlborough, Westland, Christchurch, and Otago, in the Middle Island. On referring to this subject the Melbourne "Leader" pertly asks: —ls it any wonder that communities so strung together should he out of harmony with one another ? -That they should, with so many separate governments, complain loudly of being over-governed; or that over government should lead to tbe grossest misgovernment P Surely no country was ever more de-

moralised financially than New Zealand has been within the last ten or twelve years, whether we take it as one community or as a separate number of communities. No sooner was the Constitution Act brought into force, than the General Government began to borrow. But a large number of the members of the House of Representatives were members of one or other of the Provincial Councils, and the provinces began to demand through them the right .of borrowing on their own account. No very considerable liabilities were incurred by the General Government, until the breaking: out of the Waikato war in 1863, when £3,000,000 sterling was borrowed for its suppression. But the provinces were borrowing all along some £50,000, £IOO,OOO or more, and one notably £500,000, so that when the General Government and Provincial loans came to be consolidated, it was found that the Provincial share of the public debt at that time, £7,500,000 was fully £3,000,000. The Provincial Governments, however, had something to show for their outlay ; the General Government nothing—except, indeed, that they could not pay interest on the money they had borrowed without borrowing more money to pay it with, and even with that, that they were plunging every day deeper and deeper into debt. Such was the state of New Zealand in 1870—hopelessly ruined. It was in this state of general financial and commercial depression that the great scheme for borrowiug£ 10,000,000 subsequently reduced for the present to £5,000,000, was launched. This was to cure all past financial blundering, and it is on the faith of this being borrowed at the rate of £1,200,000 a year, that we hear so much about the revival of prosperity. On a family of, say six persons, £7 per head per annum of taxes, would make a large hole in any average income, but to a working man with a family it is simply ruinous. Instead, therefore of increasing the amount of taxation, by borrowing more money for doubtful railway speculations, the proper course would be to reduce the current expenditure by getting rid of.the army of provincial officials who aSs eating up the country like a plague of locusts. Decentralisation is very pretty in theory, but very costly in practice. The country will never recover until it is relieved from the enormous burden of taxation which now oppresses it.