POLITICAL OPINION IN AUCKLAND.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 74, 26 August 1874, Page 4

POLITICAL OPINION IN AUCKLAND.

The Auckland correspondent of the Otago Batty Times gives the following interesting account of the state of public opinion in Auckland with reference to the resolutions for the abolition of the provinces in the North Island :

I need not tell you that the resolutions on the abolition of the provinces in this island are creating intense excitement, to which Mr O'Rorke's resignation has added materially. Like all public men, Mr O'Rorke has his friends as well as his enemies ;but the latter are numerous and warm, and he has certainly added immensely to their number by the position he has taken. The Government party feel this, and arc doing their best to diminish the force of the act by cavilling at the details of time and place. But there are few who care to listen to them. The spectacle of a man known not to be rich, possessing sufficient political principal and sufficient independence of character to throw up a large salary and a high position, rather than become a mere tool in the hands of others, is rare enough to attract general attention O'Rorke's honesty, O' Rorke's pluck, O'Rorke's attachment to his province and his manly defence of it, are to be heard of everywhere. In fact, I should say that, at the present moment, Mr O'Rorke is the most popular and the foremost man in the province ; and it will rest entirely with himself to make that which is now only a passing admiration, the permanent feeling of the people. On the resolutions themselves opinion is hardly yet sufficiently formed. The cause of provincialism does not siaud high in this province. Its Government has been so thoroughly drained of all resources byjthe General "Government, and has been obliged to reßort to direct taxation with such very little result to show for it, that it would have been impossible to make the unthinking crowd respect it. At the present moment its supporters are to be found only among the thoughtful, who prefer the principle of people taxing themselves to their being taxed by a Government over which they have no direct control. These supporters point out that unless the land fund of the Middle Island be impounded and made colonial revenue, the General Government is in no better position than the Provincial. Despite the absurd talk of a surplus of £400,000, everyone knows that if the loans were closed to-morrow they would require every farthing of the consolidated revenue for their own purposes. There is also too much reason to believe that our credit has been already nearly exercised to its limits, and that fu f ure millions will not come in so readily. How then can the General Government help us better than the Provincial? is the cry among Provincialists. These resolutions avow that they will not interfere with the land revenue, and their only other resource is local taxation. Had we not better leave that to the Provincial Council whom we know, and whom we can control ? They maintain that while the Provincial system exists no exceptional tax can be imposed on this Island, but that with its Provinces abolished the Assembly would soon impose the taxes necessary to provide those institutions supplied from the land fund in the South. Thus the pure Provincialists, who, though amongst the most intelligent, are not the most numerous party at present, though what they may grow to in a time of agitation is doubtful. My own opinion is that the respect for the Assembly, which is based chiefly on the English notion of our Government, and on the fact of their being brought so little into contact with it, would vanish in such an agitation. The Assembly is at present unknown, and of course magnificent in the imaginations of the people. They could net fail soon to learn that its character, motives, and ability, and the 78 members comprising it, are not so much superior to any 78 men whom they ordinarily see about them, and can as little be trusted with great powers and great sums of money without breeding corruption. They would soon sec how much the Provincial Councils have done for the colonisation of the country, and how invariably the Assembly, by its finance, its wars, and its land legislation, have plunged it into debt and difficulty. I think that during the agitation whichu seems coming upon us. the Provinoialist party will grow in strength, and that provincial institutions will be regarded as the stronghold of the people against the aggressions of the Assembly, which from the formation of the country must always be —-when rich—practically irresponsible. As a matter of feeling, I need scarcely state that every one without distinction feels that the partial abolition is an insult to the North Island. The Government supporters are active, and lose no opportunity of seeking to counteract this feeling by hinting that it I

is only a prelude to their abolition, and the resumption of the land revenue in the South. But they are met with expressions of disgust at a policy so underhanded, even by those who believe in the total abolition of provinces, of whom there is a very large party. Turning then to the Centralists, I find they are much divided. The more rabid among them feel bound to support any measure that will damage the provinces. But they do not like the exceptional position, with the liability to exceptional taxation, which the North Island will then occupy. Nor are they, as a rule, the supporters or admirers of Mr Vogel, but generally the men who have always exhibited least faith in his schemes. The Centralists are not distinguished for argumentative power. They declaim against the Provincial Governments, and all their deeds, but attribute all the faults, follies, extravagance, and mad schemes of the Assembly to the presence of Superintendents there. The Centralists are, however, the most active party just now, and are seeking to do their best to support the Ministry by public meetings. They talk of one at the Thames, where the bait is to be the localisation of the goldfields revenue and its expenditure by a Thames Municipality. In the country districts the Provincial Government is not popular, as it has been able to do so little. The General Government through its loans has, on the other hand, been able to do much, and people do not yet feel in taxation the cost thereof. We may therefore expect to find much division of opinion in case of a dissolution. The only thing that may create unanimity would be the general irritation at seeing the North Island created exceptionally and as inferior to the South—its institutions spoken of contemptuously by the Premier, and the abolition of its provinces spoken of by him as " the cession of the island to the General Government."