The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echs. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1916. THE DRIFT NORTHWARD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 30, 4 February 1916, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echs.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1916. THE DRIFT NORTHWARD.

For the oauae that lacks tsiistanoe, For the wrong that needs reeietanee, For the future in ihe And the good that toe oan do.

The figures brought forward by us, showing that owing to the drift northward, the Auckland province will be entitled to more Parliamentary representatives at the next general election, have attracted the attention of the Government, and our Wellington correspondent states to-day that as a result of an exhaustive investigation by the Minister for Internal Affairs, it may be taken for granted that the proposal to postpone the census until after the war has been rejected by Cabinet. To make this important question quite clear wo may remind our readers that the census, in the ordinary course of events, would have been taken. in April of this year, but it was suggested last session that, for the sake of economy the census should be postponed, and Ministers made do arrangements for taking it at the usual

time. The ''Star" showed recently, however, that the postponement would seriously affect the just apportionment of Parliamentary representation in the Auckland province, because it was clear, on the figures available, that in the election of 1917 the province would be entitled to three or four additional members. But these figures revealed, only part of the facts on which next year's representation should be based. They were obtained from a comparison of the electoral figures of 1911 and 1914, after which date it is impossible, without a census, to do more than guess the changes of population. It is reasonable to assume, however, that the drift northward, which is revealed so strikingly by the electoral figures of 1914, has been continued until now at the 6amc rate at least, and wHI so continue until next election. The probability is that the movement has been accelerated. The Minister at first thought that he could avoid taJdng the census by making an adjustment on these figures, but he lias now come to the proper conclusion that this is not fair to Auckland. Wo believe that in deciding to take a census in time for it to affect next year's election the Government hae done the right thing. The method of readjusting representation was framed on national linns, and its maintenance is a national I affair. The figures w e publish this evening, showing an increase of 27,949 in the population of seventeen constituencies in this province, deal only with the three years between the general elections of 1011 and 1914. To show the full extent, of tho increase that may be expected during the quinquennial period from April 1911 to April 1916, we must add to the figures the averago annual increase for two more years, making a total of 46,581. This would be sufficient to give Anckland three additional members without taking the large increases in some of tho other northern constituencies into account at all. In Taumartinui, which our correspondent includes in a division he calls North laland Central, the increase between 1011 and 1914 was fully 5,000, or more than twice as great as the increases in all the rural districts of the South Island put together. There seems to be a belief in the South Island that the country north of Auckland is composed almost entirely of g\im lands and bush, carrying a most scanty population, composed mainly of frum-diggers. The three North of Auckland constituencies, however, show an increase of population during the three years of 2,011, and if we add the average annual increase, the population will have risen to 4,851. A recent visitor from Canterbury declared there was enough good land in the North of Auckland district to maintain tho whole of the population of the South Island in comfort.

Another point we may be allowed to emphasise is that the inerenee of population in this-part of the Dominion provides a very urgent reason for the vigorous prosecution of necessary public works in the Auckland district. The drift northward is saddling the local authorities with additional responsibilities and additional expenditure, and they cannot make adequate provision for the new settlement without reasonable assistance from the State in the way of railways and other means of communication. We have no wish to eec the opinion of thie Southern visitor translated into fa.ct by our Southern friends abandoning in a body tho comfortable conditions they now enjoy in a muchfavoured part of the country. ' But the opinion of one of themselves ought to help them to realise that public works for the promotion of proiitable settlement is not a parochial question in any sense. Unfortunately, a demand for public works in the Auckland province ii generally regarded in the South as simply the outcome of a parochial spirit. This convenient way of receiving our demands is 'born of ignorance of northern conditions, and 'hae become a habit' of miud. The necessity for "settlement,! more settlement, and still more settlement," if we, too, may be permitted to quote Mr. Massey's sweet-sounding I phrase, has been made greater than ever by the obligations cast upon tho Dominion by the war, and the problem ought to foe faced in the broadest national spirit, without local jealousies or party i recriminations, and with a single eye and purpose to the general welfare.