The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. MONDAY, JULY 30, 1883. Our Little Washington.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1008, 30 July 1883, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. MONDAY, JULY 30, 1883. Our Little Washington.

The Centralisation debate in the House of Representatives has brought into vivid light the anomalous and mischievous position which the City of Wellington and its surroundings occupy in New Zealand politics. The subject under discussion was obnoxious in the highest degree to the Wellingtonians, who did their best to treat it as a matter of no account, and any debate which could take place upon it as an utter waste of time. Such efforts of local interests to stay the advancing tide of public opinion will, however, prove of little avail in the long run, and if there was one point more clearly brought out than another in the debate, it was that the interests of the colony are gradually being made subservient to those of Wellington. The entire business of government is being centred there; and Wellington officialdom is being firmly constituted the ruling power of the colony. If any person idly imagines that the outcry for economy in the administration of the General Government which was made two or three years ago has produced any permanent effect, he has but to read the Estimates for 1883-84, and he willjfind his belief dispelled. And why ? Simply because Wellington does not want economy in the administration of public affairs : it wants as large a staff of officers as possible employed in the Government Buildings in Wellington, and every petty detail of the business of the country confided to their care : and all the immense social and political influences which it possesses are levelled against the Ministry and the Legislature to affect this end. The manner in which the taxpayers’ money is being wasted for the purpose of maintaining the Government establishment at Wellington in full blast may be illustrated by a passage from Mr Ptke’s speech—“ I saw not long ago an invoice sent down from Wellington to a remote part of Otago—that far away district which is of so little importance to this House, and these were the lines : * one ruler, one quire of foolscap paper, six sheets of blotting paper, one bottle of ink, one dozen of pens,

one packet ot pins!’ All these had absolutely to be sent from the Government storekeeper in Wellington down to the remotest part of New Zealand. And that is economy. These articles could all have been supplied by a localstorekeeper at half the price which it cost to send them from the department in Wellington.” This is not an isolated case. The same kind of thing is going on day by day, year by year, in all parts of the colony. The influence of Wellington in the General Assembly is quite out of proportion to the importance of that provincial district as compared with other parts of the colony. The late additions to the Legislative Council make the number of Wellington members of that body twelve, the roll of the entire Council comprising fifty members; and it must be borne in mind that the Wellington members, living on the spot, can practically always attend the sittings of the Council, and they thus forma more fo'inidable phalanx than any other equal number of Councillors, since the latter reside in parts of the colony more distant from the seat of Government, The effect probably intended —of Wellington being so strongly represented in the Council is to render it doubly difficult to effect any constitutional change, or even any temporary alteration in the place of sitting of the General Assembly, however necessary or expedient in the interests of the rest of the colony, such change might be, if it were calculated to injure the pecuniary interests of Wellington in the slightest degree. The Wellington phalanx in the Legislative Council could always be depended upon to resist such a reform to the death. The mischievous influence exerted by Wellington over the Government is displayed in a variety of ways. We find it in the excess of loan expenditure, which Wellington has enjoyed, compared with the Li, 257, 000 deficient loan expenditure of which Canterbury has been deprived. We find it in the unjust concessions of public property which have been made to Wellington private railway companies : we find it in the refusal of the Ministry to offer Mr Wright the portfolio of Public Works, while, in deference to public opinion, offering him a seat in the Ministry. The terrible alarm exhibited by a section of the Wellington press lest the member for Ashburton should be placed in charge of the railways—a post for which men of all shades of political opinion, except those with Wellington interests, admit that he is admirably fitted—is the outburst of a natural fear that the various railways might, under Mr Wright’s management, be treated according to their respective merits; in which case the Wellington lines might possibly be placed under an economical system of administration which would be more conducive to the interests or the Colonial Exchequer than the convenience of particular individuals or the gratification of Wellington vanity. These are but illustrations of the modes in which Wellington influences work to the detriment of the colony. There is a peculiar selfishness about Wellington and its people. Wellington is not the only part of the colony which displays a lively regard for its own interests; but Wellington, above all other places, thinks of /itself alone and at all about tjie rest of the colony. The fine-sounding names by which it delights to designate the town of wooden boxes which lies on the shores of Port Nicholson only divert the inhabitants of the really important parts of the colony; but the latter are growing weary of the extravagance which pervades the Government administration and which is largely attributable to Wellington influences; and they are beginning to perceive that if the Government of New Zealand is to be put on a sound and economical footing the first thing to be done is to remove it into some more wholesome social and political atmosphere than that which it breathes in Wellington.