Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1884. NEW ZEALAND AND FEDERATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 37, 11 January 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1884. NEW ZEALAND AND FEDERATION.

The results of' the Annexation Con- • ference recently held m Sydney, is still being discussed m the ''leading Aust alian and New Zealand journals. The Lyttelton Time.*, the organ of the Montgomery party m the South, is strongly opposed to New Zealand joining any Australasian Federal Council, and observes :— The mouths of babes and sucklings occasionally give utterance, we are told, ; to things worth listening to, but, as a rule, it is wiser to; trust to the observations of . age and experience. The Melbourne Age, for pvomplo, wlipti {fr nx>o—l"*«- ,. ol\«- i*--±U a relations of Australia and New Zealand, is worthy of attention. This is especially the case when its; remarks amount to an honest confession of Australasian selfishness, and. a warning, to Nev Zealand of consequent breakers ahead. The Age takes up its parable . son Federation, and reads' us a "lesson thereon containing words off sensible advice. It points out that the behaviour of Queensland and If ew ; > South Wales on the Question of Annexation \n the Pacific amounted, at the Sydney Con« ferencp. to a virtual shelving of New Zealand and her especial interests. So long .as Queensland and Sydney can secure the annexation of New Guinea, and the expulsion of Foreign Powers from Melanesia, they care not a jot what becomes of islands to the cast of Fiji. New Zealand may secure Tonga and Samoa if she can, but it must be without their help On the other hand, New Zealand must, of course, help them to ' secure New Guinea and Melanesia, and must bear/its share pf the cost of tbeso, to her, Vittfevly -valueless possessions. 3lr Whitaker seems to have done his best for this Colony, but his arguments iell 'powerless beiore the solid selfishness ofSytlntey, Queensland, and the other Colonies, who, Victoria excepted, declined to consider our particular wants as coming within the province of an Australian Council. Thus it has been, and thus, we venture to prophesy, will it always be when New Zealand interests clash, or even are more distinct and separate from those of the continental colonies."* Those twelve hundred miles of sea which separate ( our islanders from other lands; dis connect also and cut off our interests from those of other colonists. There can be no real community of interest between us and New South "Wales and Queensland. Were the British Empire " tp fall to pieces to morrow, or were to cast on her Culuuies, it is just barely possible that for the sake of the appearance of external strength which unity gives, we might think is worth our while, to federate, But as thevo. seems r rio immediate- pr6s*pect.-:of the dissolution of the Empire upon which tho sun never sets, and an public opinion m Great Britain is .settling more and more- steadily and strongly each decade against loosening the ties which bind England's daughter nations to their "mother; it is* at least an <■ open question whether New Zealand cannot well afford to wait. At present the tie which binds us to Australia, our common membership of the British Em pire, is strong enough' to meet the "sentimental" call for union on tie ground of race kindred;- At the same time it is loose enough to allow either paj\ty to manage its own aftairM exactlyas it pleasss. Some day there will be a Federal Congress of ttye British Empire m which we trust that botty New Zealand and Australia will be represented. Until then would it not be as well to allow no superior over us expept Queen Victoria and her Government?