ABOLITION OF PROVINCES.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1217, 6 October 1874, Page 4

ABOLITION OF PROVINCES.

Mr D. M. Luckio's recent speech to his Nelson constituents has been sharply criticised by the Lyttelton Times, and Mr Luckio makes lengthy reply. The following extract from his letter conveys even more plainly than any portion of his speech, the opinion he holds on the question of abolition of provinces : Separation of the two islands is a defunct idea. The colony is one ; the people, North and South alike, have one interest. They are bound by one common debt. There arc larg lands and rich lands in the North as well as in the South. All these are the inheritance of the people, and many millions of acres in the North have still to become tho property of the people. These lands, all common sense and sound business ideas declare, should firm, and must form, the tangible security to the public creditor of the colony, any so-called compact lexa-1 or implied notwithstanding. 1 have long believed this, and the belief is growing rapidly in the public mind now. i affirm my opinion that, if Mr Vogel shall continue blind to the existence and growth of that belief, and fail to act upon it, the clay is coming when he will be compelled to give place to another Minister who will grapple with the subject, and save at once the lands and the credit of the colony. I am surprised at the temerity you display in speaking as you do of the land fund of the Middle Island, which, I said and say, mu=t become common property. You ask " whose land fund ? Nelson has none worth mentioning ; Marlborough is in the same position and so is Westlancl; so are all the northern provinces." Did you not blush when you wrote the word " Westland " The daughter of Canterbury, part of the original province, separated by a " compact " &s mistaken as it was unjust and short-sighted—crushed with a debt far beyond her power to meet or to pay the interest of, a debt incurred by Canterbury who secured all tho fat lands to herself and left Westlaud with " none worth mentioning." Canterbury with immense sums at her credit, and obtaining interest thereon, while Westland is steeped to the lips in poverty, all because of a compact as unjust as any compact ever was. Can you honestly and sincerely defend such a state of thing ? As a social teacher, as a pnblic moralist, do you mean to say that the people of Canterbury, as that province stood prior to the separation, in justice, morality, or sound public probity, are entitled to enjoy riches flowing from tho public estate that belongs to Canterbury, to Westland, and to " all of us," while Westland continues poor, and subsist on doles from the colonial chest ? No, Sir, those are compacts that no reasonable community will long permit to exist, and you know that it is so. Js Canterbury, is Otago, is Auckland, when tho time of her landed power comes, as come it will, to bo permitted to sell and absorb, for merely local purposes, lands which are largely benclited by tho colonial public works, for which coloiu'ally borrowed money is being expended and for which tho country at large is liable? Our existing system is detrimental to all just government policy and principle j it is perilling tho

future of our public works, and damaging our credit, and the sooner such an unjust and unwise system is abolished, the better it will be for the colony and for that policy of public worlcs which has lifted it from past stagnation and points to a better future. These have long been my opinions, and I shall, as a citizen of New Zealand, hail with pleasure the advent of a Ministry who have the boldness to to say they will carry them out, and save New Zealand from being any longer the laughing-stock of neighboring colonies by reason of the multitude of her little peddling Parliaments, and petty monarchical pretenders.