THE RAVINGS OF THE AUCKLAND PRESS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 1 October 1901, Page 4

THE RAVINGS OF THE AUCKLAND PRESS.

A Wild Demand for Reprisals. Wellington should be disfranchised. The Auckland “ Star ” says editorially: —“The cause of Wellington antagonism to the San Francisco service is well understood. Anything which may seem to confer a benefit upon Auckland, even though the advantage (o the whole colony bo undeniable, is certain to excite the bitter hostility of the Press and people at the seat of Government. An idea prevails that if the San Francisco service were got rid of some of the big Eastern lines might be induced by a big subsidy to make Wellington a terminus and that the Vancouver steamer could also ho brought there. It counts for nothing that if this scheme were carried out the English mails via Suez, coming overland from Adelaide, would still he brought on in the intercolonial steamers, and that we should lose a valuable commercial connection with eighty million people speaking our own language and having in large part common traditions and sympathies. Any potty local gain to Wellington shopkeepers transcends all such consideration.

“Pressure on the Government in the interests of Wellington has reached a point which calls for the disfranchisement of this people, and thereis a very excellent precedent in the case of Washington for applying tin’s remedy to a disease which is seriously undermining the purity aud efficiency of our national affairs. Apparently nothing but reprisals will put an end to this state ot tilings, aud we suggest that our members should take joint action for the purpose of obstructing systematically every measure that is submitted in the interests of Wellington, We believe that the feeling in favour of disfranchising that city will also find large support in other parts of the colony, aud persistent efforts should bo made to curb in this way the insatiable greed and narrow localism of a community which exists very largely on an extravagant public expenditure.