The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER, 3, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 3055, 3 December 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, DECEMBER, 3, 1872.

The unseemly rivalry between the Governments of Victoria and New South Wales is becoming seriously detrimental to the Australasian group of Colonies. We cannot feel surprised that claims so arrogantly pressed as those of Victoria; rouse a spirit of re sistance. In most of the Intercolonial Conferences that: have taken place, Victorian delegates have given themselves airs and put forward demands for superior consideration for themselves and their Colony, that had the appearance of di< station by a superior, rather than of co asultation with equals, Snobbish enough this, and calculated to render the people of every other Colony determined to ex set to the utmost every advantage that j josetion, natural or accidental, offers. Wo do not undervalue the promptitude with which self-evident benefits are seized up on by the Victorian Government. ‘They did wisely and well by at once t. icceding to the postal arrangements oh‘bred by Lord Kimberley. It was so evidently the interest of the Ausfcralasi an Colonies to accept the terms that i 10 loss could accrue to Victoria throi.gl i undertaking

the responsibility. Immediate action was required, and it was taken. We do not see why New South Wales should take umbrage at being forestalled in the matter. The Government of that Colony had the same opportunity of taking the lead as Victoria, but its statesmen apparently took time to consider. They had not the same quick perception of the value of the article, and, like a slow bidder at an auction, they allowed it to be knocked down to one who acted while the other was thinking. Nor do we know that New Zealand has much greater reason to be satisfied with the Government of New South Wales than with that of Victoria. Both Colonies have treated us with a sort of patronising hauteur in regard to the San Francisco mail service. Either would help, on condition of receiving the benefit of being the terminus ; but neither would concede anything for commercial advantages secured by the enterprising spirit of New Zealand. Our advances have not been met in a proper spirit. They have been treated as if they had been suggested through our financial necessities, instead of by a liberal business forethought that sees its profit in mutual benefit and intercommunication. As the matter now stands, the help of New Zealand is material cither to Victoria or New South Wales in any arrangement that may be proposed. It does not seriously matter to us which Colony has the advantage in the diplomatic war now raging. Neither nations nor colonies O O # have any right to entertain feeling, in negociations where the prosperity of their inhabitants is involved; and oven if such indulgence were permissible, we do not know that either Colony is entitled to greater consideration than the other; for both entered into postal engagements with us which, if not really repudiated, were so far taken liberties with as to leave us in the lurch.

It was intended to have held a Colonial Conference at Sydney on the 9th of this month, and Mr Vogel and Mr Reynolds, the Colonial Treasurer and the Commissioner of Customs, were to represent New Zealand. It now seems likely that, instead of Sydney, the Conference will sit in some other Colonial capital, “in order,” according to the wording of the telegram, “that the discussion may take place on neutral ground.” We think there should be no objection to this course, notwithstanding that the representatives..of every Colony are supposed to be men above being influenced by mere popular clamor. But there are other reasons why this should be agreed to than merely postal considerations. Victoria and New South Wales are as truly at war respecting the border duties as any two neighboring nations can be—only our common mother will not let them fight. The difference must be wrought out and arranged mentally, not physically. These border duties point to one of the great questions proposed to be settled by the Conference, a system of Colonial free-trade. The irritation which the dispute about duties has caused in both Colonies, naturally leads to the feeling on the part of the rest, that to hold a Conference where the delegates are liable to be subjected to pressure by a soured ami jaundiced population, is not desirable. The representatives of New South Wales, were the Conference held in Sydney, would be advised, fettered, and perhaps even threatened by friends, acquaintances, and demagogues. There would be hole-and-corner meetings, in which strings, of resolutions would be passed, representing every imaginable shape of crude and ill-formed theories, couched in ill-formed and unintelligible phrases. Now it is desirable to avoid all this, and to secure to the Conference the utmost freedom from any outside influence likely to disturb or distort the calm and statesmanlike consideration of questions of so much importance to the advancement of each Colony. If Victoria has assumed a position the other Colonics do not choose to accord to her, ic is not likely that it will be unduly pressed against the deliberate dictates of common sense, by which it is not too much to assume tire conduct of the leading statesmen of Australasia will he guided. To meet in Melbourne would he equally objectionable, for the same reasons, as to meet in Sydney ; especially as the Conference will take place in accordance with a suggestion by the Government of New South Wales. We think therefore the Government of New Zealand will do well to accept the proposal of South Australia, Tasmania, and Victoria, to meet in Hobart Town—a place remote from the intrigues and bitterness that prevail in the two Northern Colonies.