MILITANT PROVINCIALISM

Evening Star, Issue 12603, 7 September 1905, Page 1

MILITANT PROVINCIALISM

Wi are glad to observe that the Auckland Railways League have received a welldeserved snub in connection with their policy of selfish provincialism. It should be unnecessary to emphasise the impropriety of the question which the League decided to put to all parliamentary candidates —“ Will .you, in the matter of railway “votes for the Auckland Province, vote “for Auckland interests first and party in- “ teresta second?** In other words, candidates are to be invited to give a policy of provincial grab ‘the preference over considerations of general politics and national import. Mr Gerald Peacock, Ministerialist candidate for Waitemata, has resigned the vice-presidency of the League in consequence of this unjustifiable Step, and has taken occasion to give the nltra-provindah ists a piece of his mind in singularly effective fashion. The bulk of the letter which be has addressed to the League was given in our issue of Tuesday, and the excellent cogency of the argument requires no accentuation. Patty politics as well as narrow provincialism appear to be represented-in the movement of tike League, and Mr Pear cock does not * hesitate to stigmatise the question as s trap set for candidates on the Government side. Tbe Leader of the Opposition is an Auckland member, and his views regarding the prosecution of public works in the Northern province have not been widened by the observations which be presumably made during his Southern tours. Says Mr Peacock with unanswerable force:

Men with any sense of political consistency do not (support or throw over certain political principles and the par.y that advocate them simply because a branch line is, or is not, made to Waiuau, as Mr Massey desires. Candidates who are members of the party at present led by Mr Seddon are not going to make their allegiance to the political convictions of a lifetime depend upon whether there are one or two Newmarket tuqpels. A national policy you believe in is not to be cast aside for one yon do not believe in for a matter of this Kind, however important yon may regard it to be from a local point of view. Faithful regard to local interests is quite compatible with refusal to give such a pledge as the Auckland Railway League demand, and we trust that there is enough national sentiment in Auckland to prevent Mr Peacock suffering for his defence of sound political principle. Judging by the calibre of his letter, we should say that he would make an excellent representative for a self-respecting constituency. The followiug pronouncement could hardly be bettered : In any party vote he [a candidate] gives he must consider the probable party consequences of that vote, and the effect those consequences would have upon the general policy of the country. To ask him to pledge himself beforehand in the wholesale fashion involved in the League’s tost question is simply a deliberate attempt to fetter his freedom of action as a representative of the people, and to force him into the position of bein" liable at any moment to bo made a tool of by the leaders of the party in whose principles he does not believe. There are people in Dunedin who would l>e ready to adopt the policy of the Auckland Railways League, but we are glad to believe that the general trend of public opinion in this City is too healthy to tolerate such an attitude.