AN AUCKLANDER ON AUCKLAND.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 960, 24 July 1877, Page 3

AN AUCKLANDER ON AUCKLAND.

On a strange occasion—the presentation of a silver cup to Mr W. Norton, as the winner of a chess competition between Auckland and Dunedin—Mr Sheehan, M.H.R., made the following strange speech: —He expressed his sorrow at seeing that Auckland triumphs were confined to the chessboard, the cricket-ground, and the football contest. During his stay at Napier he had observed with regret how Auckland had gradually been allowing her trade to slip from her grasp. If the South was being beaten in the games he had enumerated, it was unpleasantly and undeniably asserting its pre-eminence in the more serious and important matters of trade and commerce. Though he had only been absent three years from his native city, he had noticed since his arrival, twenty-four hours before, the many fine buildings which now graced Queen street, but that did not lessen his feelings of disappointment. He had seen an advertisement offering for sale the steamers possessed by the Auckland Steam Packet Company, and he saw that their places on the east and west coasts of the North Island were being taken by the boats of a Southern company—tire Union Steam Shipping Company. The time might come when they (the people of Auckland) would have to live by chess, football, and cricket; at least, that alternative would be open to them. Like theatrical companies, they might travel the colony giving exhibitions of their skill. In the place where he had been sojourning, the people looked down upon Auckland with the greatest contempt, in fact regarding her as the scum of the earth, though Auckland enriched those people by drawing her supplies of beef from establishments at Napier. The tendency of things was to draw the trade from Auckland and to make Wellington, or some other southern city, the head and centre. He saw no reason why Auckland should not beat Wellington, and by a strong effort regain her old supremacy in trade and commerce. But matters did not point that way. Speculation or enterprise were cramped ; they did not appear to go beyond Queen street wharf, or the North Head. His remarks were not hasty or ill-considered, but the result of three years’ mature and solitary consideration and observation. His sympathies were with Auckland; and nothing would please him better than to see her languishing trade revive. He had been born in Auckland; his home was there ; and he hoped to end his days there. He trusted he had given offence to no one by his utterances. He had spoken the truth, though it might have been rather unpalatable. [Applause.] He intended going on the “stump” soon, when he would enunciate his views more clearly, and express his mind respecting the province’s retrogression at more length.