REFORM.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2693, 15 October 1889, Page 2

REFORM.

TO TUB KDITOIi. Silt, —If uot too voluminous it would bo useful, in view of the importance of Local Government Reform, if you would publish some of the interesting appendices to the report of the House of Representatives Committee upon that .subject. It is not easy for settlers to see these Parliamentary papers, and tedious to write for them to Wellington. With the fullest information obtainable on the subject of Local Government, I would be pleased to see ita consideration taken up with intelligence and zeal by the public, for the reforming General and Local Government demand our first consideration, as we cannot hope to produce satisfactory results, by continuing to use such machinery as has hitherto proved to be so bad, costly and inefficient. In a former noto to one of my letters, you say that my constitutional history is defective, and you quote about the United States some traveller's tale. My constitutional history is derived from such writers as Hallam, Hale, Blackstone, Dr. Ewes, Coke, Seidell, May, and others, who till now have been regarded as reliable authorities, and I might but for consideration of time and space, have quoted their own exact words. When opportune I may have more to say about despotism and democracy, but we have to set our own house in order now, and are not called upon to discuss the affairs of the United Kingdom in the United States, as your first suggestion seemed to point to i.e. of adopting Mr Ritchie's Local Government Act, One chief difficulty in it and Home Rule, being to reconcile the infinite number and variety of interests, lights, customs, prejudices, and usages, which prevail in difficult parts of the United Kingdom, even sometimes in the same county. None of these exist here, and the difficulties are chiefly of our own making. We require simple machinery to work without jar, and friction and over which the taxpayers will have a direct and effective control. After seeing the Local Government Committees'report, and appendices, I hope to say more.—l am, yours etc., W. A. Mukiiav.