AUCKLAND VIEW OF SEPARATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 162, 23 May 1862, Page 5

AUCKLAND VIEW OF SEPARATION.

It is rather an amusing occupation just now to turnover our Southern files. They teemwithSeparation articles ; and the Otago Daily Times, in particular, is prolific on the subject. An element apparently of Australian origin, is influencing' men's minds in that whilome canny Caledonian city where the Times is published, and we recognize no longer in the press the spirit of the men of a few years back. Truly, other prophets have arisen ot late, and the spirit of Dr. Lang hovers, smiling over the quagmire streets of Dune.'lfn. h"' " Separation" is the great cry. " Otago has . come into a fortune, and so justice must be done her," is the great argument of Dunedin politicians. "We are no longer pauvres diables as we used to be, and you must treat us no longer as such," says the indignant " Jennies," proud, of j his lucky hit in gold dust. "We have-got much, and therefore more should be given us," chime in the lucky speculators. /Now, really nothing gave us in the North greater pleasure at the time than hearing of the discovery of gold in Otago, and of the subsequent progress of the place. We had been long aware of tho hidden wealth of our own province, and^felfc no jealousy when the red gold was dug up in the far South ; the colony gencVajiy, we concluded, must benefit by the discovery, and we knew that, for a poor country like Otitgo an extraordinary accession of wealth was a perfect godsend. We remembered, too, that the whole Customs' revenue of that province for the year ended December 31, 1860, amounted to .£28,708 Is. 2d. aiidno more, and S3 it was gratifying to think that the good, people of that province would at ! last be in a. position to- pay their quota of the | general revenue, and thus though tardily, commfinceidischargingtheir obligations to the Northern Island. We are now happy to be able to say that unless they choose to repudiate they may soon succeed in doing so. Biit our contemporary the Daily Times takes •a different view of the financial question and harangues us thus:—"The novel position which Otago has assumed as the wealthiest province of New "Zealand is likely to receive a very welcome exemplification at the hands of the other provinces, in the shape of a liberal uso of its money." And then he proceeds to lay down the law at great length and with great originality. There is.no good in going through his figures here, for we purpose to put the same figures into another shape soon, but we need only say that the argument amounts to this, that Otago having or expecting to have the largest Customs' revenue of any province in New Zealand is very foolish if she remain hr partnership any longer. She imagines herself the richest province, and so conveniently forgets the day when she was the poorest. She resembles a greedy school boy who, having partaken for a long time of all his school fellows' plum cakes, receives a hamper at last himself, and is determined to keep it all tor his own, consumption. ,A 1 least we know of no other wayr of interpreting the following table given us, we are told " for the sake of the argument." It purports to be an estimate of the probable contribution to the revenue of the several provinces during the current year : — NORTH ISLAND. Auckland 75,000 . Wellington... ... ... 35,000 Napier and Taranaki ... 10,000 120,000 KIDDLE ISLAND. • ■ • • £ Otago 160,000 Canterbury ... .. 40,000 Nelson, Southland, nud Marlborouuli .. ... 30,000 . . 330,000 :'■■-' £350,000 Ajid the writer proceeds to argue thence that Otago will be victimised. Conceding that the aboye iis a correct estimate,^-which we do not believe,—the argument goes to prove a great deal more than the writer eycr dreamed of, namely, that Auckland has been victimised during the last few years. The Customs' revenue of Auckland in 1860 was L 57,340 14s. lid., while that of Otago during the same period amounted to only L28.7Q8 Is. 2d. j whilst, notwithstanding the gold discoveries in the South, Auckland contributed not less than 1,72,928 7s. 9d. as contrasted with L 69,737 ss. 2d. by Otago during the year 1861. If, therefore, the rule holds good that the largest contributor is (under our present financial system) necessarily the largest loser, as our contemporary attempts to argue, there must be along balance in Auckland's favor on the credit side of the book, and it has bean going on accumulating up to the 31st December last. Otago, according to its own showing, therefore, has not yet commenced paying off its liabilities, and, notwithstanding its gold fields, is still in our debt. It would be well for Otago men to remember this before talking of separation, and indeed they should be glad of an opportunity of at last being able to pay what has been long owing, without at once agitating for repudiation. They must not forget either that we have gold fields in Auckland, and that it is already very problematical whether our revenue for the current year will not be in excess of theirs for the same period. The figures above given may be very remarkably changed, and the £160,000 appear in another place; but, whether they are or not, there can be no doubt that the sudden impetus given to Otago has been of a spasmodic nature, and that the revenue is already falling off. Summer diggings, without firewood, can never compete with Coromandel, as the diggers have already discovered. It is to be hoped that our representatives in the General Assembly will devote themselves to the task of maintaining the rights of this Province with determination and spirit. The Otngo men seem bent on business, if one may judge from the . Times, and are already bidding for support. We are told, in reference to separation, that— 'ijn Nelson and Canterbury the feeling is unanimous on this question. Both these Provinces are waiting for Otago to take the initiative, and it is all the £more necessary, therefore, that this Province should show tliat it considers this question the paramount one. Let it, be the test of every candidate for Eublic honors; let the representatives of the people c clearly pledged to support the movement; and if, added to this, there be the unmistakeable and determined voice of public opinion, the victory must be gained. Without these means, if the colonists of the south are simply content with talking about, ifi, so, long as no positive, glaring injury is inflicted, upon them by the' pfeseut Government, they must accept the alternative of seeing Otago forfeit its true position," and Eaye its " progress retarded by defective legislation..'*' ' V , ' Our public men must be up and doing. The true spirit of democracy is abroad in Otago ; men are exhorted, not to wait for positive glaring injury, but to strike at once ; not to consider how engagements are to be kept, or honorably broken off, but to pledge themselves to break them at all costs, and immediately ; and tho "true position" of Otago is incidentally alluded to as an expression which needs no. explanation, but must bo intellU gible to every one. Truly, men appear to t^nk; there that we are all worshippers of the golden

calf: and- thnt when-, ,niifjp-(,s arc, there must be trathercd together the wisdom, and the pride, and fie greatness of mankiitttI."'"'''" * " — -''"" "a

Our contemporary, the Nelson Examiner, treats the same qii6stidh'frdirfa diflereiit off view," a,nd with its usual moderation"'MbrV'farsighted, ,'s, sees that the great, arjjjiiricjrit fj»r gcpii\n!.jon is ;not {o be fouml in revenue tul'los, "butin t!ib p'oli■^itwil uspeot.of.the populations of the.Jtwo. Jsjands* ComrnuuitieSi _di(remitly;c6nstithtetl reqiiirfs diffe-. -rent governmental 'institutions ; "Ahia "isVtlijs'load-J ing idea* nnd-,t}jt! "same will he found in one issue of theJTth ultimo^ in'iconiieetion .with,this much, vexed question:,: •■'Rfij>flriled . frour,this1 point the , suhjectj is 6nefraught;with great interest,'and lfAs not" yet lf>een exliaiistdd.■ ;• Unlike' tlie addressed Wttie pockets of the" one pitrty only which seems to find favor at Otago, whenever, the subject Js.mpoted, that of ..the Examiner ati r dresses itself "to-tlie North and ■South,-'as botlr must be sufferers by a -compulsory fidlierehcc to a form of governments suitable* for. neither.';<Oric(s ' prove that different institutions"arc necessary here and in the Middle Island, and you will have done nearly everything necessary to prove' that Separation is called for ; whilst questions, of revenue prove nothing. Tho master and the slave, the oppressor and the oppressed—in short, men with unequal political riahts can scarcely ever live in amity together, whilst rich and poor may easily associate on terms of the most intimate friendship ; and the real reason why the idea of Separation has been entertained by many sensible men, has been because rights respected in the Middle Island cannot be and are not respected in this island, and thus a conjoint assembly composed partly of men representing a country where the law of England is the liw of the land, and partly of men representing another country where the Queen's writ does not run, is a bitter mockery and a delusion. At the same time we can only work with tlie materials at our disposal, and our representatives must not desert their po9t, more particularly at a time when men are pledging themselves to injure us. We say injure us, for the Otago men seem to be quite oblivious of the existence of* any claim against themselves, and unless we insist on their recognising them, we shall probably be the sufferers. -If they are determined on separation let them have it, but it is for Auckland men to let them know the exact sum which they will have to. pay for their whistle, and show them that we shall insist on seeing it pnid. At present they saem to be laboring there under the happy delusion that they may sheer.off at any moment and leave us. They have had a good pull at the 'Northern mivse, and will not produce their own now ; acting, we suppose, on that well-known principle in conjugal politics embodied in the expression, "My dear, what's your's is mine, and what's mine is my own." We trust that there is no truth in the report that an agitation is afoot to induce Auckland members not to go to Wellington. They must go, only to keep an eye upon certain people.— 'Southern Cross, April 29. . j