IS WELLINGTON CONSUMED BY JEALOUSY ? And Shall She Be Disfranchised?

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 66, 5 October 1901, Page 8

IS WELLINGTON CONSUMED BY JEALOUSY ? And Shall She Be Disfranchised?

THE people of Wellington would know nothing of the enmity alleged to be existing between this city and the city of Auckland were it not that, fiom time to time, some fierce newspaper diatribe on the subject is wired down by the Press Association from the Northern city The Auckland "Star, ' purpoiting to voice the sentiments of the people of that city, in reality does nothing of the kind, and, viewing affairs through a pair of exticmely smoked glasses, thunders forth a one-man opinion that Wellington and Auckland need but little encouragement to commence civil war. * • • The discontent, if any exists, is the sole property of the "Star." When any event occurs in the discussion of which the San Francisco mail service is mentioned, up goes the red rag, and the bovine "Star" is wildly rampant. Theie is absolutely no reason or sense m the suggestion that Wellington is ever on the alert to filch from Auckland something she holds dear The fact of the matter is that Wellington has a big handful m successfully managing hei own affairs When a bogey is created by the Northern paper, and trotted out to frighten nervous and timid souls on the banks of the Waitemata, the people of this town aie not disposed to take either the bogey 01 its makei at all seriously, but only as a painful humourist making weird jokes fiom crude materials # * * That any papei 01 peison should seriously write 01 speak of disfianchismg Wellington because she, forsooth, is not guided by the opinions of a journalistic person up North is highly comical. To speak of Auckland and Wellington as if they weie

opposing nations, ready to fly at each other's throats, is as absurd as the disfranchisement scheme. The "Star," in reading up history, has found what it calls a precedent in the disfranchisement of Washington. The cases are certainly not parallel, and the idea from which the paper gathers its ammunition is extremely Feeble. * * * Why does not Birmingham disfranchise London, or Manchester declare the people of Leeds to be of another colour, and outside the pale? If the "Star" gets over its megrims, and looks over the edge of its own favourite prejudices, it will discover that the sensible people of the two cities of this island are anxious for the progress of New Zealand as a whole, that Aucklanders do not believe that a race of robbers exists m Wellington, and that Wellmgtonlans are satisfied that Aucklanders are not thirsting for Wellington's gore. * * * The Auckland members, who are requested by a paper which is suffering from literary biliousness to oppose any progress that does not specifically include Auckland, might exist politically for a brief spell in following the course laid down by the ' Star," but they would soon find that a selfish policy like that cannot possibly succeed. Will the Auckland "Star," in its pretence of representing Auckland opinion, allow us to pretend to voice the opinion of the people of Wellington for the purpose of mentioning that oui people are neither jealous of, noi desirous of robbing their Northern brethren of, anything they possess that is of use to the whole colony — that their aspirations are at one with those of the Queen City, and their hearts as warm towards their fellow-colonists further north as the "Star" deems them to be cold.