AN OLD STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 152, 28 June 1924, Page 6

AN OLD STORY.

If the Minister of Education succeeds in getting more New Zealand history taught in the schools we hope the teaching will to some extent counteract certain prejudices and unfair selection of facts which the South Island Press habitually distributes. An impartial survey of our history must touch on the. earlier development of the South, its political predominance for many years, the way in which it used that predominance to help itself from the public funds, and especially the use it made of the public estate for provincial purposes. We wonder how much of this is known to the public that i« frequently told by the Press that the North is greedy and sellish. In an editorial on the annual meeting of the Canterbury Progress League, the "Lyttelton Times" says the Southern provinces feel that their interests do not receive just consideration from the Government. "The existence of such a feeling, for which, indeed, there is abundance of reason, is at least partly the fault of the Southern districts themselves. They are paying in these latter days for years of indolence and apathy during which the newer and more aggressive communities of the North, having a very clear notion of what they wanted, agitated until they got it. In recent years the political nepotism which favours the North has been made more, acute, and disproportionate benefits have been confined to a more restricted area owing to the concentration of most of the executive power in the hands of politicians from one province." We in the North deny that there has been favouritism, but if there bad been, would it not be fair to set against it tho years during which the South helped itself so liberally to what belonged to the whole country , ; The "Lyttelton Times,"' referring to a suggestion by the Mayor of Christchurch, made at this meeting, that there should be a reversion to the provincial type of admii. itration, says this "is not' the sort of idea that finds favour further North." There are very few persons anywhere in New Zealand who would go back to provincial government in its entirety, but there are a good many who think there should be more local control and responsibility for public works. If, however, this country did revert to something like the old provincial system, what would be the effect on the finance of the various districts? Is it not probable that Auckland to-day has returned to it from the Government less in proportion to taxes paid than it would have available for public purposes under such a system as the Mayor of C'liristcliurcli favours? And might not Canterbury find itself worse, off then than it is now? We think that so far from the South being Wed for flip sake of the North, it is the North that gets less than it deserves by its wealth and its taxpaying capacity.