A QUAINT SUGGESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 22147, 30 September 1935, Page 8

A QUAINT SUGGESTION.

“ Piquant,” we should say, is the aptest adjective to apply to a suggestion made by Mr W. Hinchey, chairman of the Southland Electric Power Board, for a separate Parliament for the South Island. “ Impracticable ” would be too completely obvious. “ Novel ” would be most wide of the mark, except on the assumption of a statute of limitations, because the point that strikes one first about Mr Hinchey’s suggestion is that it comes just about seventy years too late. Seventy years ago the proposal he has made would have been (lively politics, a contribution to a cause which, though it had lost its first momentum, was still being pressed in quarters far apart for reasons virtually the same as those which have caused him to bring it forward now. For a number of years the provinces and the General Government were at odds. The main South [sland settlements were much more advanced than the North. They had no Maori troubles of their own, and grudged the cost of Maori wars. The movement for “ separation,” as it was then called, was specially strong in Otago, where the influx of new settlers to the gold diggings who had no ties with the past and the programme of expansion following on the gold discoveries both made influences working for “ home rule.” Like claims were put forward by Auckland when the seat of government was shifted to Wellington. Before that, outlying portions of a number of provinces had found grievances in their local administration, not local enough to please them, and new provinces had been formed, some of them with the smallest claims to separate existence. The abolition of the provinces was not easily brought about, and when it became inevitable, through the difficulties which a proportion of them had fallen into, a compromise plan which rather hesitantly was put forward was that they should be reduced to two, with enlarged powers, representing the two islands, “ which amounted to denying,” says the latest historian, “ all the progress of the past ten years.” Actually, before responsible government was established, separate executive councils were set up, at one time, for the two islands, and each had a Lieutenant-Governor of its own, but that plan did not last more than a few years.

To such a division of the islands Mr Hinchey would return with his suggestion for separate Parliaments. The reasons for his plea are that the South Island has been losing ground to the North, a shipping company has moved its headquarters, the North gets more of its share of tourists, and others of like kind. But these are all business questions; they are not political. It is natural to ask whether any of the certain disadvantages from which the South has suffered would not have operated in the same way if the islands had always had separate Parliaments. Other questions which lie raises, as to whether the South receives its just proportion of expenditure of public money, should be fairly easily tested. It is true that one or two North Island newspapers habitually oppose any . ex-

peuditure for public works which promise to have theii' first benefit fox* the South Island. Others, on the contrary, have sent their investigators to these parts, and have been generous in their advocacy of Southern schemes. Every South Islander, no doubt, has had Mr Hinchey’s feeling at times, “ that this island is like a mandated territory, with its Government on the other side of the water,” but the feeling would soon disappear with a closer approximation of populations as between the two islands, and, as population grows, the South can be assured of getting its full share. Too many Southerners, until now, hav6 moved north in the hope, not always realised, of bettering their conditions.. With a Southern Prime Minister, Tourist Minister, and Public Works Minister this island should have an influence in the Cabinet on the most important questions of development more than proportionate to its parliamentary representation. Probably Mr Hinchey was not very serious in his suggestion of two Parliaments. What he desires to do is to remind the North Island majority that these regions are very much alive to their rights, and expect to be treated fairly on all occasions—quite a reasonable intimation to make.