The Star. TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1908. THE CAPITAL SITE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9323, 25 August 1908, Page 2

The Star. TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1908. THE CAPITAL SITE.

Mr Laurenson is still hammering away at his attempt to have the capital site shifted from Wellington to some State-owned position away from the seaboard, in either the North Island or tho South Island. The member for Lyttelton is always more or less of an optimist, and he has a gift of tenacity which makes it hard fox him to abandon anything he undertakes until . the last gasp. It must be admitted that upon paper he makes out a very good case for the proposed alteration, both financially and otherwise, but his agitation has come too late to be likely to bear fruit. He refers cheerfully enough to the fact that in the last division on the subject in the Housethere was only a majority of seveiiteen against this proposal, but a majority of seventeen in a House of the size of the New Zealand Parliament is not very encouraging for the minority. We are afraid that the member for Lyttelton has arrived a little too late in the day with his scheme, and Sir Joseph Ward is certainly justified in protesting that the time is inopjportune for any interference with the capital site. In view^ of the trouble experienced in the Com-i monwealth in selecting a site for the Federal capital, it can easily be imagined that the voice of parochialism would be heard loud in the land at the .first suggestion of a move. Unless the dominion wished to lodge a civil Avar, the new capital would, of course, have to be somewhere in the Auckland province, and then the wail frojtnelsewhere would be calculated to break the heart of even the member for Lyttelton. The principal objection to tho present site appears to be that it is on the seashore, but the same disability can be quoted of scores of world's capitals. If the Japanese should ever afctock.New Zealand with a view to securing the treasured "Hansards" in which Mr Laurenson's spoeches are embodied, the fact that these treasures were stored in Palmerston North or at Mount Cook and not in Wellington would not divert their ardor. Tho lack of room in Wellington its a more legitimate argument/ but the Government has ample possessions there for building upwards if necessary for many years to come. To uproot the present departments and carry them off into the country would mean a vast annoyance and trouble to the dominion and to hundreds of Civil servants who have made their homes in Wellington secure in the belief that their tenure was of greater fixity than the annual lease of a publican. But the rebuilding of Parliament House, which must be undertaken at once, will effectually dispose of Mr Laurenson's scheme.