CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 444, 23 March 1875, Page 2

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES.

The Times 1 New Zealand correspondent writing from Wellington on August 30, and published in that journal on December 9, gives the history of the situation, and the arguments of the Centralists as follows : — In my last letter T referred to the general expectation of an unusually quiet and uneventful Session. No important administrative or political changes were foreshadowed \>y the Government; and the prevailing feeling throughout the colony and in the Parliament,- was in favor of leaving Ministers to devote thepaselg&S to working out the Railway and Immigration sAeme. During the session, the position of the Northern Island provinces came under discussion, and the Government, apparently a3 a consequence of that discussion, openly declared its opinion that the time had arrived^ when the provincial form of sub-government in the^j Northern Island had ceased to be necessary or ex-^ : pedient. A series of resolutions was then brought down, on the passing of which the Government staked their existence. The purport of these resolutions was to instruct the Government during the recess to prepare a measure for the abolition of these Provincial Governments, and boundaries, and for the substitution of £^^^S®ai'3s"vvittioiit legist lative powers, whose chierWefrk would lie in the expenditure of funds locally raised by rates, or derived from an endowment out of the sales of crown lands. The resolutions were carried by 41 against 16, an overwhelming and somewhat unexpected majority, and one which indicates clearly enough that Provincialism in the South Island also, is doomed to a speedy death. It is, indeed, only the enjoyment of a large land fund which makes the other island cling to ths form of Government which secures its provinces in the possession of this source of revenue ; and if, as an essential principle ot the new measure, a fair proportion of the land revenue arising within each dis trice _be> secured to it for local improvements, such measure ' will be as generally acceptable to the South Island as it has become necessary in the North. Provincialism was a necessity of the isolated position of the several settlements in former days ; but as the facilities of inter-communication have increased by the extension of the telegraph, of roads and railways, the need of eight or nine distinct Governments has proportionately diminished. Moreover, as population spreading out from one provincial capital meets that from another, many absurd anomalies and much inconvenienced arise. Two neighbours, with only an imaginary boundary line between them, may now be found living under entirely different laws with regard to matters seriously affecting their daily life and daily work, as well as the tenure of their land. It is, however, chiefly from the financial point of view that the inconvenience of provincial divisions and forms of Government has been felt and complained of by three or four Colonial Treasurers in succession. Whenever one Provincial Government wanted. money it sought out three or four other province?, more or less needed than itself, and together the^r would go with their demand to the Ministry of the day, saying, "Do this or die." As the " innatus amor habendi " has always been strongly developed in provincial executives, and as they invariably command a good many votes in the Colonial Parliament, the natural tendency of such action annually recurring could not be otherwise than to subordinate colonial interests to those of minor Governments ; and Mr Vogel has very wisely determined -not to run the risk of imperilling the great national work on which he is engaged, by over-taxing the credit of the colony to satisfy the sometimes unreasonable demands of the Provincial Governments. A finance intelligible to the New Zealand bond-holder and uniform land laws for the whole o£ the colony, in place of the endless variety of regulations, which half fill the " Colo¥iis.ation,Circular," and hopelessly puzzle intending immigrants, will be the most beneficial among the many other advantages which will result from the change.