TO KEEP GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 166, 15 July 1910, Page 6

TO KEEP GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

CITIZENS' LEAGUE ACTS. The Citizens' League is circulating a petition asking for the retention of Government House as a place of residence for the King's representative. Many requests have been received for copies, and the petition is being signed very freely. It reads as follows; — 1. That your petitioners view with intense indignation an attempt that is being made to take possession of an Auckland domain described in the Public Domains Act, 1881, as the Government House Grounds, situate in the city of Auckland, for the purpose of erecting a University thereon. 2. That your petitioners believe that an agreement was made between the Imperial and Colonial Governments, since responsible government was given to this Dominion, that the Government House Grounds, since the year 1841, should be the residence of his ExceUency, the Governor of New Zealand, and that since the removal of the seat of government to Wellington in 1564, in every appointment made by their late Majesties Queen Victoria and King Edward VII., of Governors of New Zealand, his Excellencys appointment always carried with it a provision for two Governor's residences, one at Auckland and the other at Wellington. 3. That your petitioners have no desire to interfere with this agreement made between the Imperial and Colonial Governments with regard to the use of Government House Grounds in the city of Auckland by his Excellency the Governor of the Dominion, so long as it is his wish to reside in the residence provided for him a.c- Auckland during his pleasure. 4. That your petitioners are adverse to a proposed bill being introduced into your Honourable House of Representatives to take the Government House Grounds, or any part of them, for any purpose whatsoever. A representative of the "Dominion" who inspected Government House and grounds in Wefiington with a view to ascertaining if certain criticism was justified, wrote:—"The outlook is not what is usually provided for a viceregal residence. It overlooks a section of the mean streets of Wellington South, the foreground view being at present the j back premises of the shops and bouses facing the east side of Adelaide-road, whilst the little narrow streets, which leave that thoroughfare practically : abut on the Government House grounds. Beyond the houses, in the middle distance, rises on an untidy clay hiU the rather grim and certainly unsightly | [ Alexandra Military Depot, with a gang j of prisoners working under its shadow. The background, veiled yesterday afternoon in the smoke of a thousand chimneys, mingled with the mist of winter, consists of the densely-packed squares of Te Aro flat, and a section of that harbour cut off to the east by a line drawn from the Te Aro railway station to a point a little beyond Ngahauranga. The western outlook takes in another section of Newtown —the roofs of the Hospital, the Nurses' Home, the Homo for the Aged and Needy, and the match factory. Sot in the midst of such a collection of institutions it its to be hoped that mistakes will not occur, such as inmates for the Aged and Needy Home being deposited on the Gubernatorial doorstep, or a distinguished visitor being left by accident at the Nurses' Home when his intention was to pny his refpects to His Majesty's representative. The cabmen and motor chauffeurs will have to see to this. The south view is a green hill-top—quite a nice, near, green hill-top—which effectually blocks auything like a vista. It would form a lovely ' tee' for tho golfer, and if so used by the immature at the game might eventually be worn away sufficiently to expose Cook Strait and tho l road to the Antarctic." The new Government buildings, however, the reporter j says, should be a very comfortable resi- , dencc.