WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1929, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS

PROVINCIALISM

NORTH AND SOUTH

(Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, July 2

The “Evening Tost” makes merry in its editorial columns over what it calls •’ islanditis,” an ailment, it implies, to which the good people on the other side of Cook Strait are particularly addicted. ' The suggestion that i,.e Royal Show should be given a. permanent resting place in Wellington and the Prime determination to push on the coijij)]gtion of the South Island Trunk seem to be at the root of tile whole, matter. “There has been,?’ the “ Post ” says, “a great cry abpiit this quest for a centrally city that will find the Royal Show a home and a revenue and provide a suitable meeting place for all the people,-off New .Zealand; and the ‘ our-place-first ’ people have all been trying to jump on Wellington. Rut Wellington has been, and still is. serenely unconscious of the fact, and is, of all the interested communities, probably the least perturbed.” Here the evening pit per is scarcely judicial. There are a great number of people who wopbi like to see the Royal Show permn nelitly, settled ysVithin easy reach of their,-city. "

INDIFFERENT WELLINGTON. By way of establishing Wellington's inililTerence to the locality of the Royal Show, the “Post” recalls the benevolent forbearance of the people 'of the city in the past. “It is np use,” it claims, ■' to say that Wellington is not agriculturally-minded. The people here have hardly any choice in the matter. -IJ they were to copy certain well-recommended precedents elsewhere* they would form cabals and caves and conspiracies and big (fours to pull the Royal Show by hook or by crook, to murder the flat rate, to rob the Nelson Harbour Board of its apples and the New Plymouth Harbour Board of its butter, and to wreck the peaceful cooperation so dear to the hearts of the amiable advocates of inner and outer harbour qt Napier. But somehow Wellington lets all these chances go by default.” /Wellington is entitled to some credit for keeping itself to itself, but as the capital city of the Dominion it enjoys opportunities .which ftre not vouchsafed to the other large centres of population, and it is rather a compliment .than.a reproach that these centres regal’d it with seme misgivings.

CONTENT TO WAIT. It is only fair to say that the Wellington people as a whole are not clamouring (for the sole possession ’of the Royal Show. So far the promoters of the] idea are being actively supported only'by the folk, already indicated, who would be likely to profit from the attendance of a large number of moneyspending visitors. The “Post” indicates the attitude of the mass of the people fairly enough. “'The average Wellington mentality,” it,''says, “ takes the line&that if it really pays the Royal. Show to come here, the flies on the, wheel will not forever keep it away; ditto the ships; and as to the apples and butter—-well, there 'is enough to go round.” The Royal Show/ as, everyone who takes; an interest iri the institution knows, is not merely a money-making exhibition, and unless Auckland, Manawatu and Christchurch'fall in with the scheme that is being promoted here the rotary system will not be readily abandoned. Manawatu has particular claims in this respect and it is hard to believe they will be abandoned without a very emphatic protest. !

SOUTH MAIN TRUNK. A Mr A. Fisher, a member of the Canterbury Farmers’ Union, who probably will not be displeased in having attracted the editorial attention off one of the'i'Dominion’s leading newspapers, is takenvto task by the “Post” for having, stated at a meeting of his Union.-that there were no doubting Thomases'-in the North Island and that there should be none in Canterbury. Tiio suggestion appears to have been that while the. North Island had no hosita bxoivin seeking favours from the . Government the South Island was much less diffident in its requests. “There was a scarcely veiled ‘ our place first ’ tone running through most of Mr Fisher’s remarks,” the “Post” protests, “ and an implication that such a tone is necessary in the South Island because it is universal in the North Island. The unsoundness of the implication is. indicated by the fact that in Wellington there are many doubts about the economic merit of the proposals to complete, the South Island Main Trunk and the Duller railways, **seb in a provincial sense Wellington would certainly not be hurt and might be helped by the proposed expenditure.’’ The retort, it must be admitted was very framed.