The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1874.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1488, 17 November 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1874.

Vor the rauxf turn Im-lo- mslnUno*, *'ur tht- wrinii; i al I.tri'.ls n'-UtUic*, *oi vh» fK'.urc In the liistiince. »^.t Hi. fond thai «» c»n in.

The new Government Buildings at Wellingon must be ever associated in the mind with politicjl turpitude. Not that there may be auythine; pjlittcally immoral or otherwise wrong in the mere fact of their being erected at Wellington, for although it is becoming for Aucklanders to wax indignant on the subject, there is no sensible man, we think, in the province who in his heart believe 3 that there is the slightest use in agitating for the restoration of legislative halls to the "ancient capital," or that wo shall ever a^ain sec the colony governed from Auckland. But the new buildings, when erected, should be ever memorable as the outward and visible sign of the secret compromise between political expediency and the claims and expectations of exacting constituents For when the resolution in Mr Vogel's famous trio affirming the permauent fixity of the capital was too tough for Auckland members to swallow, it was privately agreed that by dropping the scab of Government question, and all aoreeine; to a huge expenditure on Government buildings at Wellington, the same purpose woull be attained, while northern representatives would still be able to face their constituents and obtain votes of "confidence" and "thanks." It is not unbecoming therefore that these buildings should be further associated with Government jobbery, and it is altogether in keeping that to facilitate this object they should be constructed—not of New Zealand—but >of Tasmanian timber. We might have supposed that a desire to eocouras;c New Zealand industry, and keep the money in the colony, would have influenced a Government whose principles are, or used to be, those of " protection "to native industry. Or at least we might have expected that the freetrader's reason of "cheaper and better" ought to hold in this importation of the foreign article. In Auckland we have had some experience of foreign timbers, and that experience we think confirms the value of thejsaying, that far away hills are green. It is utterly needless to point to the forests of New Zealand aud to say that for quantity, for durability, for adaptaoility to ornamentation, and for cheapness ; for every quality in fact that makes timber desirable for the use of the builder, we have no necessity for going outside of New Zealand. Yet while hundreds of mills are daily pouring forth their wealth of kauri, totara, and numerous othe r timbers, unsurpassed for the builder's or the decorator's art, our protectionist government turn away to Tasmania for material, declaring in the face of the colonies our poverty in timber, and discouraging the enterprise of our own producers. As suggested by a Southern contemporary, " Our palaces of mental and governmental industry might do worse than make visible to the home-born and the stranger from every clime the capabilities of New Zealand herself." It would be curious to find the real motive at the bottom of this bringing of coals to Newcastle. Doubtless good sufficient reason will be adduced overtly ; but we believe that the real reason would be found to be that which has caused the import of many an article required in our public works, and other departments of Government, which could be equally well, jf not better, supplied from local sources, namely, the bringing of some small and paltry and contemptible commission to some one basking in the sunshine of governmental avour. These things are not so easily arranged among local competitors as they are with foreign exporters, and the history

of the public works in every colony of Australasia has furnished illustrations of the practice. But it is as we have said> entirely fitting that buildings which Were founded in political immorality, should be characterised by jobbery to the ridging.