The Daily News MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 125, 5 September 1910, Page 4

The Daily News MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5.

! "LAST, LONELIEST, LOVELIEST." ' The smallest act of aggression aimed at I Auckland raises the mercurial temperament of the population to white heat. The mercury does not rise rapidly in the frigid temperament of the Wellingtonian, and the people of the capital generally smile at the heated remarks of citizens from the north who become voluble or literary on a small pretext. The antagonism of town for town, even if it is amusing, i s not altogether without its uses, for anything worth having .jis worth fighting for, and as far m Auckland is concerned, if it cannot h,are civil war with Wellington, it can use its tongue and the pen that is "mightier than the sword." Auckland's jealousy of Wellington is at least an indication that -the civic spirit is very pronounced in the larger city, and even if Auckland becomes angry at the thought that its local uninhabited Government House will not require bread, meat and butter, in great matters of heart and human interest it is as far in advance of Wellington as Brennan's | monorail train is in advance of a wheelj barrow. Auckland has never forgiven I the Government for removing the seat ,of government to Wellington, and whenever it has pointed out the fearful injustice of .the act it has become so overheated that nobody took it seriously. Auckland's methods are strangellylike those of the suffragettes who chain ! themselves to the grilles of the House of Common= and scream until they are taken to gnol. The sincerity of the northerners cannot be doubted, but they -clamour to the same extent about the .removal of Government House furniture

; as they do about a 'Frisco mail service j or an "injustice" to a volunteer officer. | Auckland believes that, as it is the finest i city in New Zealand, it should be the j beginning, the middle and ttie end of all ' thine* in the Dominion. It has AdI miralty House with nobody in it, and I Wellington has nothing of the kind. It ! has Calliope Dock and Mount Eden and I Cornwall Park, the Domain, all the finest; j philanthropists in New Zealand, the best | climate, the greatest population, and the i best harbor. No place in New Zealand I • . is more progressive, more beautiful, more (parochial or more fightable. But even iso, people in other parts of the Do- | minion are apt to believe that the rej ported wrath of a small section of Auck- • land people represents the opinion of the one hundred thousand odd seuls who live within sight of Rangitoto; while the real fact is that the scream of a small body is so magnified that it is made to appear as a combined clamor of the province. Earlier, Auckland claimed with much heat that it was the natural and only first port of call for Spreckel's steamers, and it was prepared to almost die to defend' its right. It glorified a. young volunteer officer to such an extent that it would have been necessary to revise the King's Regulations in order to give him what a few Aueklanders believed was justice. At present the one hundred odd thousand citizens, represented by the one dozen irritated member of a certain Chamber, are protesting with great vigor that an injustice has been done to the Queen, City in not allowing the new line of | 'Frisco boats (to be run by the Union Company) to take Auckland' as the I first and last port of call. Despite the horrid injustices done to Auckland, and the fact that the Government and business firms refuse to be guided by sectional opinion, Auckland thrives amazingly—it grows too fast, in fact. There | is a real danger to a country in the too rapid growth of a city, especially in New Zealand, where the population is almost stationary, and the growth of cities necessarily means the depopulation of the countryside. It is possible that the national standpoint does not appeal to the citizens of any New Zealand city to the extent desirable, and the Dominion's politicians who take a national view mav be counted on the fingers of one hand. It is, however, inevitable thai' while a country has but a small population the outlook should be parochial, and that small events should be magnified and little hurts treated as gaping wounds. Auckland's wounds are all of the gaping variety, and there can be no balm until everything worth having in the Dominion is owned and controlled by Auckland. One may be permitted the supposition that the Auckland people who see a Rangitoto in everv molehill have more leisure than the neople of Dunedin, Christchureh or Wellington to ventilate their grievances. The gun of northern public anger is rarely direeted on Dunedin or Christchureh, but is always trained on the capital. Thank goodness, Auckland is about to have a, post office worthy of the Chamber of Commerce and that there are distinct hopes she will some day glory in a railway station that will make even Dunedin jealous. But Wellington's point of view should be that Auckland's Post Office belongs to New Zealand; Auckland's boast should be that the Dunedin railway station is the property of the nation. Christchureh should swell its chest in pride at the Public Trust building in the capital, because it belongs to the Dominion, and Dunedin might dance a Highland fling at the circumstance that people from all centres may walk in Hagley Park. Australia is going, to try to be national. It las set a " Wattle Day" apart, anfl all good Australians will wear a. sprig on that day and think nationally—and Imperially if possible-■ When some patriot in Wellington rises to suggest that on the birthday of Wakefield every citizen shall wear a fernleaf —if the fire fiends will kindly leave a few—Auckland may probably want to know why the privilege should not eolelv belong to the people of the

finest city in New Zealand. But, seriously, the moment that anyoues come to effect a transfer of New Zealand—and not merely Auckland or Wellington —the fire of Waitemata will mingle with the ice of Poneke, and the 'Frisco service, Government House furniture, the capital site, the "Dreyfus" affair, and the parish pump will be forgotten in a universal brotherhood.