PROPOSED CHANGE OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 25, 4 January 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

PROPOSED CHANGE OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT.

The New Zealander of the Bth ult. concludes a long article on the proposed change of the seat of Government with the following remarks - : — '" We believe that much of the class-feeling which arrayed the squatocracy of Victoria 1 against the intending settlers is revived just now in our own colony in the ; struggle for the seat of Government between the Northern and Southern : Provinces. The proposition to fix the seat of Government ' somewhere in Cook's Straits," we look upon as a mere evading of the question, a temporising policy to allay the irritation which a ■ downright straightforward statement of the case would engender. We regard the real discussion as being, not between Auckland and - somewhere in Cook's Straits,' but between Auckland and Canterbury. We have always had a great respect for the colonists the Canterbury Province. We look upon them as the aristocracy of our Britain of the South. But we do not see that because they are morewealthy and refined than the matter-of-fact workers of our own Province, they have therefore a prescriptive right to the location of the Government among them. The Province of Canterbury and that of Auckland are not inaptly represented by the aspects in former days of Adelaide and The square mile of country which represented a very small unit of a squatter's run in Melbourne, would represent, in many cases, the farms of no less than eight settlers in Adelaide — for the usual size of farms there was only eighty acres. This simple circumstance shows how much more dense a population can be located on a given extent of territory under the one system that under the other. At the same time the result of the contest between the squatters and settlers in Melbourne shows how hopeless an attempt it is for a class, small in numbers, however high its intellectual standing may be, to bar the progress of advancing population. The squatters of Victoria had an advantage that the squatters of the Middle Island do not possess. The former had before them an interior practically illimitable where to find their place of rest when driven from their former runs by the advancing tide of settlement. Tbe latter occupy a country of limited extent, because hemmed in by inaccessible mountain ranges. Hence there are bounds which the pastoral development of the Provinces of the Middle Island cannot pass. To the settlers of Auckland a range almost illimitable is open. The greater condensation of a population of farmers will very soon give to the inhabitants of this province a numerical superiority which our southern neighbors cannot hope to attain. Our working population wants no slice of the runs of our more wealthy Southern neighbors ; we have in our province ample room and verge enough for our successful progress. But we do want some recognition of our prospective, ah well as our existing capabilities, and we are not willing to give way to a class which, however respectable in point of wealth and intellect, would wish to make us the stepping-stone to their own elevation. The long battle between the squatocracy. and/the middle orders in Victoria resulted, by a very natural reaction, in the establishment of a government which, in its vote by ballot. and. all but universal suffrage, is more democratic than can be found in the majority of British Colonies. In fact, the approximation of the constitution of the Victoian Parliament to that which prevails in America is such as would delight the' heart of Mr Stokes himself. We apprehend, however, that thereT/are few who look upon the working of American institutions as so admirable that they would particularly recommend them for imitation. But we. must own to a fear that the colony of New ZeaLarici will \!>e broken up into a number

of small mdeperiderit 'P^bvinces, having unfty of actiony no coherence of ; purpose, each jealous arid suspicious of its neighbotjß, and incapacitated thereby from taking; that place in the " comity of nations " to which, as a homogenous ' whole, NctWyZealand would be entitled.