The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News. MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1873.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1209, 8 December 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1873.

-- - -,- - |fo . ~.,,.. , For the canse that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs reslstanco. For the future in the distance, And. the Rood that we can do

We watch with curious interest tho " battle of the lobbies " as now renewed in Auckland over the trust confided to the Improvement Commissioners. Amid all the contemptible log-rolling that characterised the late session

of Parliament in Wellington there was not anything mores contemptible than the character of the opposition that was offered to the Auckland City Improvement Commissioners' Bill. It was mixed up with the Floatage of Timber, the Ngakawau harbour, the cutting down of Shortland-street, tho fossicking for coals at Raglan, and almost all

the other dirty transactions in the lobbies that made Southerns pause in wondor at Auckland's ability in the noble practicoof rolling logs. We observe now that with remark*

able unanimity our two morning contemporaries, having received the cue, have set themselves to excite the public against

the only attempt that can ever be

successfully made to repair the gross errors committed in the original plan of the city. But we shall hot hesitate to draw aside the veil and show the unworthy motives that actuate, and have heretofore actuated, this opposition. And here we will exculpate the Herald itself from any desire to thwart the efforts of'a commission' whose aims and objects it has hitherto so sfcren-

uously supported. We see the inspiration, and we know the pen. That pen has-been

set in motion because of the opposition

which has been given to the laying off a road intended to benefit merely private interests. We refer to the road attempted to be smuggled in on the south side of the Grammar School reserve. Had that little manoeuvre been overlooked, and private interests been benefited at the cost of the public, the opposition in Wellington would have been purged of three-fourths of its virulence, and this pen would not now be wagging in the Herald. We do not mean that the Herald, or any one connected with it, • has the slighest interest in the laying off a road along the southern boundary of the Grammar School reserve, but we have been only speaking of the inspiration and the pen that have given birth to the recent articles in the Herald attacking the Improvement Commissioners and their operations. As for the Cross its object is the same as was the object of Mr Vogel, and his henchman Mr Luckie, when in the House and in the lobbies they resisted the Commissioners' Bill at every stage. It appears that one of the streets projected by the Commissioners will necessitate the removal of the Southern Cross printing office in Chancery-lane. This building the Southern Cross Company held on a lease, terminating this month, but it was hoped that the owners- of the property would release the building if this Act had only been burked. It was therefore of the utmost moment to the Southern Cross Company that the Bill should be thrown out; and so severe was the ministerial pressure on those who usually follow Mr Vogel that several who could not see in this Chancery-street affair a great State question exceedingly resented the pressure, and expressed a determination to kick overthe traces. Even a minister of the Crown, the Honorable Mr O'Rorke, felt the selfish and unreasonable pressure of his colleague so irksome that he launched out in a manner rarely assumed by one Minister towards another, declaring in significant language that "there is a limit to endurance." To his honor be it said, the present Superintendent, Mr Williamson also was one of those who, renouncing his allegiance for the time, strenuously resisted the selfish efforts of Mr Vogel, and one argument used by him had a powerful influence on the House—it was to the effect that with the progress of the railway and t'lo docks if power was not at once given for purchasing buildings and opening out the streets contemplated, four times tho amount would not purchase them in a year or two. And the writer of the present article was informed by a Southern member that immediately after the bill passed tho third reading Mr Vogel met Mr Luckie beside the table in the House, and the first remark-was,

"What will we do"" Mr Luckie?B reply! was, " I suppose ;ve must take Hiirst'a place." The question and the reply clearly I showing what was uppermost in the mind, ; and what had been the sole motive in the selfish resistance to the improvement of the : city, hi these circumstances we can very readily understand the sneering articles now , appearing in the Gross on the subject, i Having thus preliminarily drawn aside the '. screen that hides the vile motives in this ] concerted attack we shall reserve detailed reference to the unfounded and simply lying statements that are so glibly made about the objects of the improvement Commission. The great card seems to ' be the assertion that the object of their constitution is principally education, and that the trust is being so abused that there will be nothing left for education. The first assertion is simply false ; the second is mere assumption; and the assumption of people who can see no farther thau the tips of their own noses. The object of the Improvement Commission is, as the name implies, the i mprovement of the city ; in fact the utilising of the Barrack reserve to undo the evil done by that reserve when the plan of the city was originally spoiled by that reserve in deferenceito military exigencies ; and whether wisely or unwisely education occupies only a subordinate position among its objects as lixed by Act of Parliament. Both of our morning contemporaries, referring to the numerous schemes for disposal of the Albert Barrack Reserve, with which the public used to bo wearied, and speaking in r.r cathedra style, assert almost

in as many words that to raise funds for education is the purpose for which this trust was created. Hcither has evidently ever read the Act of last year or of this ; or if they have read them they have either for-

gotten, or worse still, they Lave wilfully misrepresented them. Last year's Act was intituled "An Act to provide for the im-

provement of the City of Auckland l.y laying out the Albert Barrack Military deserves in Auckland in streets and places of recreation," a title which is fully borne out in the fourth and twenty-first sections and throughout the whole—reference being made

in the end of one clause alone to the "sur plus," which is to be " applied to such edu

cational purposes as may be from time to time directed by Act of the Provincial Council of Auckland." The present existing Act is intituled " An Act for enabling the Auckland Improvement Commissioners to acquire certain lands and houses/<;/• (heformation of new sheets in the City of Auckland and fur other purposes." In the name of common sense what does that mean ? Will our contemporaries say that that means " for the building of schoolb.ou.ses ''." We are really surprised that newspapers will wilfully v rite such stuff and try to force it down people's throats. Throughout the entire eighty-one clauses of the Act the word "Education'i

is not once mentioned, nor the remotest

reference made to it save in the preamble, and in tho 54th clause allusion is made to the Act of last year as providing for the disposal of any "surplus" that may happen to romuin. We are a-hamed to think that newspapers could lend themselves to such wilful mis

representation, and try to rouse up popular feeling against a most commendable effort to iinprovo the oity. That the Southern Cross should try to wreak its paltry vengeance on the Commissioners for being dislodged by them from Chancery-street may be expected ; but we really hope that the Herald will not allow itself to be made a tool of by those who vow vengeance because of a little worthless bit of roadway. We have a good deal more to say on this subject.