The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1895. THE QUESTION OF FEDERATION.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 281, 1 June 1895, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1895. THE QUESTION OF FEDERATION.

Federation has not the practical importance for us that it has for Australians, yet all New Zealanders must j take a keen interest in a question which seems destined to very soon change the whole tenour of the history of our nearest continent. Already, in i New South Wales, factions are using federation as a party cry, though with a vagueness which savours very greatly of insincerity. In Victoria, the same word is being used, with similar vagueness, as a cloak to cover the jealousy aroused in that colony by the proposed commercial understanding between South Australia and New Zealand. In Queensland, a subsidy recently voted to a cable owned by a foreign power, drew upon those Northern people the wrath of a temporarily united, though not yet federated Australia. And now a complication with another foreign power, is bringing Australia face to face with the question : Which is it better to use in conserving Austral ian interests in Europe — British diplomats or Australian representatives? Recentty the query was answered iv the form of a cable announcing that "Sir E. Grey, replying to a question in the House of Commons, said a convention to settle the terms of arbitration with regard to the % 'izuro of the barquo Costa Rica Packet, and imprisonment of Captain Carpenter, irouhl shortly be siynnl." We note the last four words, for they measure the stage to which the British diplomats have succeeded in bringing the affair, after nearly four years activitj'. The question naturally arises " Could a representative of a Federated Australia have done more ?" He could hatdly have done loss. It seems, that for an alleged offence supposed to have been committed in 18SS, the Dutch officials of Netherlands, India, arrested Captain Carpenter find detained him from February till November. He was never tried for this alleged offence, but on his release was told " to clear." He promptly sent in a claim for £10,000 damages, being tho profits he ought to have made during the season's whaling. The owners of the ship, and the crew, who were dependent on Captain Carpenter's special knowledge, lost the season's whaling, and they claimed respectively £10,000 and £5,000 damages. The .Netherlands' India papers, commenting on the outrage, suggested that £12,500 would be a reasonable payment for the lot, but (Ob ! save us from our friends) in May, 1893, the British Foreign Office directed their Minister at the Hague to ask for £2,500 ! New South Wales, the colony to which Captain Carpenter belongs and through which the claim was forwarded, was thoroughly aroused, and public meetings were held in the cities, and in Parliament Special Commissions were set up. This is Juno, 1895, and we learn that a convention to settle the terms of arbitration will shortly he xi'inol. We hope the unfortunate Captain will succeed in outliving the negotiation. In the meantime the Government of his own colony has been entirely ignored in the whole matter, save that before the question was reopened on the basis of the original claims " the Imperial authorities asked for assurance that the British expenditure would be defrayed by New couth Wales." Incidents such as this make Federation important for Australians and interesting to us.