The southern land revenue, thus swollen, was a glittering temptation to politicians at Wellington.  As early as 1874 it was clear that more colonial revenue would be wanted to pay the interest on the growing public debt.  Vogel decided to appeal to the old Centralist party and overthrow the Provinces.  Their hour was come.  The pastoral tenants nearly everywhere disliked the democratic note growing louder in some of them.  New settlers were overspreading the country, and to the new settlers the Provincial Councils seemed cumbrous and needless.  Fresh from Great Britain and with the ordinary British contempt for the institutions of a small community, they thought it ridiculous that a colony with less than half a million of people should want nine Governments in addition to its central authority.  The procedure of the Provincial Councils, where Mr. Speaker took the chair daily and a mace was gravely laid on the table by the clerk, seemed a Lilliputian burlesque of the great Mother of Parliaments at Westminster.

Nevertheless, the Provinces did not fall without a struggle.  In both Otago and Auckland the older colonists mostly clung to their local autonomy.  Moreover, Sir George Grey had taken up his abode in the Colony, and was living quietly in an islet which he owned near Auckland.  Coming out of his retirement, he threw himself into the fight, and on the platform spoke with an eloquence that took his audiences by storm, all the more because few had suspected him of possessing it.  Keen was the fight; Major Atkinson, quondam militia officer of Taranaki, made his mark therein and rose at a bound to take command of the Centralists; the Provincialists were fairly beaten; the land passed to the Central Government.  The management of local affairs was minutely subdivided and handed over to some hundreds of boards and councils which vary a good deal in efficiency, though most of them do their special work fairly enough on accepted lines.

Though colonists join in complaining of the number of these no serious attempt has, however, been yet made to amalgamate them, much less to revive any form of Provincialism.  Municipal enterprise has made few attempts in New Zealand to follow, however humbly, in the wake of the great urban councils of England and Scotland.  Water companies indeed are unknown, but most of the towns depend upon contractors for their supplies of light; municipal fire insurance is only just being talked of; recreation grounds are fairly plentiful, but are not by any means always managed by the municipality of the place.  None of the town councils do anything for the education of the people, and but few think of their entertainment.  The rural county councils and road boards concern themselves almost solely with road-making and bridge-building.  The control of hospitals and charitable aid, though entirely a public function not left in any way to private bounty, is entrusted to distinct boards.  Indeed, the minute subdivision of local administration has