Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA & RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. THURSDAY, 9TH JANUARY, 1868.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 815, 9 January 1868, Page 2

Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA & RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. THURSDAY, 9TH JANUARY, 1868.

The Auckland people are at their wit s-end as to how thev shall be governed. As far as we can gather the facts of the case, a majority of them would fain keep up provincial institutions, but they do not see where the money is to come from, while the minority, who are tired of a small parliament which costs a large expense, believe that they have only to Bit still and wait the issue. Time . and the requirements of society are working for them. The N. Z. Herald has found out that the General Government is the great spendthrift, and makes out a case in which there is a good deal of point and force. Disapproving as we do of provincialism, we yet make this admission most readily. The General Government requires a lesson in economy fully as much as any of the Provincial Governments, and while we contend for one central power, this position of ours lays us under no obligation to contend for one that is extravagant or badly administered. Our system of pies and fingers,—more especially when a large number of the pies are baked for no other purpose than to have fingers put into them, —whether the system is general or provincial, should be opposed by every one who has a sincere wish to extricate the country from its present overtaxed condition. The cream of what our Auckland contemporary says will be found in the following extract: —

At the present moment some £35,000 of our Provincial Revenue is disbursed by the General Government —spent for us in the maintenance of certain departments, the administration of which the General Government keeps in its own hands. We have here an instance of the manner in which the General Government administers Provincial Revenue for the Provinces. Did we administer this £35,000 ourselves, we do not hesitate to say that the expenditure might be reduced one-half, and that, too, without resorting to skeleton departments or impairing the public service in the slightest degree. Can any of us acquainted with the internal working of ihe Supreme Court department venture to say that a great saving might not be effected there--with the short hours of duty, shorter than in any other Government office —and with one official kept literally to assist another m doing nothing ? Can. any one turn to the system of appointing and paying Resident Magistrates pursued in this Province, and say that under this head the General Government economises as it ought to do the Provincial money it expends for us 1 Is money not recklessly spent on every department within the Province which is administered by the General Government ? Will any man say the telegraph between Auckland and Onehunga and a few country villages in the Waikato is worth, or could not be efficiently managed for less than £3,722 4s. per annum.

But two blacks never made one white or even a whitey-brown. The fact that the General Government spends too much money is no reason why the Provincial Government should do the same or even better the example, neither is it any reason why, if the Provincial Government can be dispensed with, money to any amount, large or small, should be expended upon it. We must have a Government. We need not have two. Abolish the one and carry on the other as cheaply as possible. The Waikato has no more need for telegraph than a cart has for three wheels. Save the money expended upon that by all means, and much more besides. Ah, but Provincial Government is local government. These are words the provincialists find as useful as Mesopotamia was to the old woman, who, by meditating upon it was cheered under all her afflictions. Unfortunately, Provincial Government is not local government, or even an approach to such a thing. It it were, we, at least, should bear long and be kind to it, because we stand up for local government now and at all times. Provincialism may mean, in a certain sense, local government for the town of Auckland or the town of Wellington, or the town of Dunedin, but it assuredly does not mean local government for the Bay of Islands, Wanganui, Tuapeka, or any other town or district not blessed with the residence of a paternal Superintendent. The Auckland journal says the Provincial Government could save one-half of the £35,000 he refers to, which is wasted by the General Government, It may be so. But we would have given readier credence to the assertion, if the Provincial Government had shown any economy when it had money to expend, and lavished it away—jobbed it away, in fact —after a style and manner before which even the General Government must pale its ineffectual fires. The Auckland candle, it appears, was lighted at both ends. It has burned done.