II

People who are inclined to think that New Zealand is overgoverned at the present day should remind themselves page break

William Rolleston before leaving England

page 21of the astonishing fact that, at a time when our total population was less than one hundred thousand, we had one Central Parliament and six Provincial Parliaments. Indeed, at one stage, when three new provinces had been created, we had ten separate Governments all operating at the same time. These Provincial Councils, which were really Parliaments in miniature, had for many years a more real power and influence than the Central Government. They built all their own roads, bridges, and railways, they were entitled to the proceeds of all land sales, and they maintained their own educational system and their own Civil Service. At the same time, they were entitled by law to a share of the Customs Revenue received by the New Zealand Government, and they watched with a jealous eye every incursion by that Government into the domain of provincial affairs.

The reader may smile at the pomp and ceremony with which these little Parliaments were carried on.

Anthony Trollope, when he visited New Zealand in 1872, thought the Provincial Councils in many cases better housed than the State Legislators in the United States, and was struck by the way in which they had imitated the British House of Commons with a Speaker's Chair, Reporters' Gallery, Strangers' Galleries, a Bar of the House, Cross Benches, Library, Smokeroom, and a "Bellamy".¹

In 1856 a paper, called The Auckland New Zealander, described the Provincial Governments as "puerile imitations of the petty sovereignties of the long-defunct heptarchy assuming a semi-monarchial style for the democratic office of Superintendent".

The real reason which rendered necessary the Provincial system was that the various New Zealand settlements were widely scattered and geographically isolated by mountain ranges and rapid and dangerous rivers. In addition to this, they appeared for a long time to have no real community of interests, and centralised government was virtually impossible.¹

Under this system, as Sir George Grey said, "Every great city had its Parliament, in which men were trained in the knowledge of affairs, in the knowledge of legislation, a Parliament which bred up and educated the men who have governed you to this day". There is great force in this statement. Most of the public men who afterwards played a leading part in New Zealand politics or in professional or civic life had first served in provincial politics. Moreover, the Provincial Councils had a great educational value; the citizens were initiated into public questions which they could hear debated in their midst, and it was many years before the proceedings of the Central Parliament could arouse the same degree of interest.