THE HUB OF NEW ZEALAND.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXV, Issue 13058, 28 April 1910, Page 4

THE HUB OF NEW ZEALAND.

Someone ought really to talk seriously to Auckland, and impress upon it, if that he possible, that it is not New Zealand. There is not in tho whole of the Dominion a more' parochial crowd than the Aucklanders, nor one with so little sense of proportion. Their papers once, made very merry at Wanganui for its jubilation over the result of a world's sculling championship. Then, a few months later, the American fleet happened along into the Waitemata, and Auckland nearly shifted its position on the map. ft fed ns up with high-falutin telegrams about its tinpot decorations —mean and tawdry beside those of Sydney—till all New Zealand was heartily sick of it. It boasted of its own advantages as contributing to its special selection as the fleet’s port of call, till we began to suspect that President Roosevelt himself was buying sections at Hern uera, and thinking of settling there. Periodically Auckland went mad over several other matters, until the Knyvett case arrived, and over that it made several sorts of a fool of itself, imagining the whole Dominion was ramping oyer the wrongs of its pet, when as a matter of. fact the Dominion was yawning, and voting all the fuss no end of a bore. Now Auckland weeps bitterly, and tells ns it is heartbroken because Government House there is being sold up. The Governor occupies the house about’ two or three months in the year, and apparently Auckland thinks tho whole- of New Zealand should be saddled with the cost of its upkeep so that the northern city may bask in the gubernatorial smile for a few weeks annually. Why not issue a Gazette notice proclaiming Auckland’s new mime to be Zealandia, and constituting tho rest of New Zealand as its suburbs? ■ Then would the parochial Aucklanders’ cup of joy be full.