MR. MACANDREW'S PAMPHLET.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 133, 19 November 1875, Page 10

MR. MACANDREW'S PAMPHLET.

Since the above leader was put in type, an important pamphlet from the pen of the very able {Superintendent of of Otago has been published. "We regret exceedingly that owing to our not having received a copy of this brochure in. time to write at length about it this week, our present notice of it must be rather short and unsatisfactory. In our next issue, however, we shall probably reprint it in its entirety, at all events we shall criticise it fully. Here, and now, we may say there is nothing in this pamphlet to which we object, nothing that is at all in. antagonism to the views advocated by the Tablet from the beginning on the question of Abolition. We can go further and say that although we have never been of Mb. Mao--

Andrew's political party, on the subject of Provincialism versus Centra'ism, we entirely sympathise with the views he has so clearly, dispassionately, and ably puts forth in his ""Address to the People of Otago." His address is singularly well written, and is manifestly tho production of a Master in New Zealand politics. His Honor does not travel to Greece and Rome, for examples, or go back to thu last days of the Irish Parliament in quest of proofs for or against Provincialism, nor does he take flight into the upper regions of gushing and imaginative patriots, or philosophical statesmen in the expectation of creating a New Zealand nationality on the ruins of popular and local government ; but he speaks right on what he does know from long aud intimate acquaintance with our public affairs. He calmly states the conviction to which he has come, as the result < f his experience. " I repeat," he says, p. 5, " that the Abolition Bill, if carried into operation must be disastrous to tbe interests of this Province in various ways." Mil. Macanijekw thinks that abolition has taken a wrong direction, and that it is the Central Government at Wellington that needs curtailing and at least partial abolition. He is not opposed to the reducing of the number of Provinces, but he entertains no doubt whatever that the -well - being of th< j colony imperatively demands a reform which will, whiLt it defim s and enlarges the powers of Provincial legislatures, reduce the Central Government to very small dimensions mdi cd. In this opinion we entirely coincide. This, iv our judgment, is what the country wants, and what it must Lave if it is to progress, and if its various parts are to live in peace and harmony. As a specimen of Mr. Mac Andrew's style, and of the forcible and popular way in which hs writes home to his constituents, here is one paragraph from p. 4. " It cannot, I presume, bo denied that, considering* the extent of its territory, the short peiiod of its existence, and the comparatively small handful of its population, the progress of Otajjo hitherto has been perfectly marvellous, all the in.>re so looking at the fact that it has contiibuted upwards of two millions of money to the Colonial client, iv respect of which, there has not been one single sixpence of value received. Just fancy to yourselves what this sum might have accomplished had it been expended in developing the resources of the Province." Again we quote from the same page : "As a, striking example of the contrast between the two systems we need only revert to the fact that under the General administration, tlie cost to the Colony on immigration has been upwards of £21 10s. Od. a head for each statute adult, while under the system so successfully carried on for years by the Provincial Government, the total cost did not exceed £15 1(X 0d per adult." In p. swe find the following: "The Provincial Legislature and Executive of Otago (which could fulfil all the functions of the Colonial Legislature and Executive without any additional charge) costs oive shilling and sixpence per huad on the population of the Province, wkile the Colonial Parliament and Executive costs two shillings and nine pence per head."