The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 1875.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1686, 14 July 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 1875.

For the nose that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance *or th» future In the distance, ▲a* to* i»od that we ctn it.

It is interesting sometimes to observe what a flimsy veil of virtne self-interest can assume, and wear it with a perfect air of self-satisfaction. An illustration is afforded in our Wellington telegrams, and in the logic wherewith the Neto Zealand Times establishes the fact that the Empire City should be the New Zealand port for the reception and dispatch of the San Francisco mailboats. Nobody can complain that any place esteems its own interests to be paramount, or that it advocates them before all others ; and if any one so complains the act is idle, for nature will out, and self-preservation is the first law of Nature. But when self assumes the air of patriotism or any other great virtue, and appeals to all others on grounds so high. one wonders whether self-delusion or wilful and impudent assurance is at the bottom of the argument. When it was seen that the completion of the trans-continental American railway showed that San Francisco had taken the place of Panama in the transit of trans - Pacific mails, we think the rival claims of Wellington and Auckland in this particular case were settled, and determined by the inexorable logic of geography. The fact that the mail boat coming from San Francisco to Wellington direct must pass the mouth of this harbour, afforded an argument that has silenced controversy, and the connection of Auckland with all parts of New Zealand clinched the argument. But Wellington, with unblushing effrontery, returns to the attack, and asserts that "the New Zealand vessel should steam direct to Wellington as a central port whence the mails for North and South could be distributed within forty-eight hours from arrival." There is no account of the time that would be requisite for the American steamer to pass from off our harbour to Port Nicholson, which would add a goodly . portion of another eight-and-forty hours; no account of the advantage? of earliest telegrams from Auckland, which certainly would confer on the South not excluding Wellington herself the boon of prior intelligence by nearly eight and forty hours as compared with the results of making Wellington the port of arrival. If we did not believe that the argumentation of our Wellington

and wilful closing the eyes and stifling reason, we would say that it manii'eited deplorable mental obtuseneas. But the precious portion of the Times1 article is in the end. Says this paragon of patriotism and disinterested advocates : " We trust the Cross and other New Zealand journals will treat this question froni a colonial point of view, and in that case they are pretty certain to support our proposal." For cool impudence this bears the belt; and it shows how little reason, and how greatly simple greed, guides the discussion of questions, elevated to the grandeur of being considered "from a colonial point of view."