THE SUPERINTENDENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 260, 2 November 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SUPERINTENDENTS.

SEPARATION MOVEMENT.

AUCKLAND AGITATION FAILS.

DOMESTIC TROUBLES,

[(By G. H. SCHOLEFIELD, D.Sc, F.R.,

Hist.S.)

Before the reply of the Imperial Government, to the Auckland petition ■was received Whitaker had pressed the attack in the new House of Representatives. In this debate the spectre of abolition of the provinces plainly raised its head. Auckland separation was defeated by 44 votes to 18 |(twelve Aucklanders, five Otago and one Canterbury). Auckland could not BUpport Otago Very heartily in the new movement for insular separation, because that would have harnessed her for ever with the hated province of Wellington, but it did fignt to the last ditch side by side with Otago against the growing menace of abolition of the provinces. And so the old Diehards had to acknowledge defeat.

Tliere were now separatist movements within her own borders which gave the statesmen of Auckland food for much thought. Carleton admitted that he had favoured a separate province for the Bay of Islands. Raglan petitioned for the County of Rutland to be given separate government. Poverty Bay complained bitterly that it was tied to distant and neglectful Auckland when its interests were with Hawke's Bay. Gillies and Williamson both recognised the grievances of the out-districts, but both disapproved the local boards of works, and could suggest nothing better. In the long run the out-districts were hotbeds of separatism.

The Goldfields. As in Otago and Westland, the miners who rushed into the province of Auckland in the middle 'sixties had no sooner settled down than they asserted themselves in favour of local self-government. Despite her best endeavours to settle the miners in the province Auckland in 1869 bad a concourse of able-bodied men on her goldfields on the verge of starvation. It seemed to bo always a glut of men or a famine caused bj diggings elsewhere drawing off the enterprising young workers of the province. Most of the provinces, Auckland included, tried to turn the cold shoulder to gold discoveries, but in the end they were all forced in self-defence to offer rewards for discoveries. When they came they brought their troubles with them. Gillies saw the difficulties as well as most men, but he too saw the probability that Auckland would eventually develop a steady gold-mining industry as distinguished from the outbursts of prosperity that usually followed a rush.

. Starting a City. The provinces had varying success in jfcheir endeavours to set the small communities on their feet as self-governing entities. The cities were in several instances started prematurely, and more than one had to have its charter withdrawn or in some other way suspended from activity. , Auckland had a common council in ' 1851, elected under'a special charter. Mr. Archibald Clark was the .first Mayor, and a very good type of men jwere elected to the. council. Most of them \vere found later in the Provincial Council and its executives. Unfortunately so little interest was shown when the second council was due to be elected that the matter fell through, and when the Provincial Council came into existence the affairs of the city were derelict. Water and drainage, sanitation and footpaths fell to the lot of the Provincial Government. In 1854 the Council passed the Auckland City Council Bill, which received the Superintendent's, assent in February. Things were done rather hurriedly in those days. Within less than three weeks of the bill being assented to the City Council was elected and two vacancies had occurred, and they were filled within three more weeks.

A year later, when the new Council "was being elected, the superintendent (Brown) declared the elections void on account of irregularity in the nominations. ■It was done over again and again declared void, and meanwhile the provincial solicitor (Singleton Rochfort) gave his opinion not merely as to the legality of these elections, but that the ordinance of the Council establishing the tity council was itself ultra vires as delegating powers, and, moreover, that all the acts of the Provincial Council in its first two sessions were invalid. Brown refused to go against Rochfort's ©pinion, and his superintendency came to a close in conflict with his Council. Meanwhile there were some wardens Of [hundreds functioning in and around Auckland, and in the early 'sixties about a dozen highway boards came into existence. In 1863, Graham (the new superintendent) got a City Board Act passed, tinder which nine commissioners were elected forthwith. The division of powers between the City Board of CommisBioners and the Provincial Government Mrafi never satisfactory, and finally in 1871 the chairman (P. A..Phillips) succeeded in getting Auckland proplaimed Under the Municipal Corporations Act of the General Assembly. He was Mayor for three years and then accepted office as town clerk.

A host of harbour boards (marine boards they were called) was established under an ordinance of 1863, each of three members (Auckland, Raglan, Whangarei, Russell, Mangonui, Kaipara, and Manukau). It is not surprising that the country settlers were not more forward in accepting the funds offered by the Provincial Council by way of •subsidies on local contributions. The ever-present native trouble naturally deterred them from local public works.

The Maori Question. No province was better qualified than Auckland to deal with the native question. From the very earliest days the shopkeepers of Queen Street were liable to be called out on stray afternoons for service on the frontier, which was then within a few miles of the city. From 1845 onward the militia was constantly being called out, and obviously settlement could not advance far from the protection of the main body of population. In 1863, Graham, anxious that the settlers should not be constantly distracted from their occupation by alarms of war, spent £25,000 in introducing 5000 military settlers from When the British troops were withdrawn there was, for a time, genuine apprehension, but Williamson, with sure prophecy, looked forward to a speedy Understanding between the races. He exhibited his faith in the final reconciliation by taking into his executive, as adviser on native affairs, Paoro Tuhaere, the leading spirit in the Kohimararaa Conference, several-years before the Maori had elective representation in tn© general Assembly,