Talk:1st New Zealand Parliament

Debate about provincialism

I just put a citation needed tag on this statement: "At the start of the First Session it held a debate for two days that decided that New Zealand should have a single government, without provinces."

Now, perhaps I skimmed too quickly over the first session when doing my research, but my notes do not indicate any such debate - but they do cover in depth a debate of a similar length regarding responsible government. Morrell's The Provincial System in New Zealand also makes no mention of any such debate. A quick check of the Wellington Independent on PapersPast doesn't appear to show up anything either - as a pro-provincial paper, it would have leapt all over any suggestion that there be "a single government, without provinces". At any rate, the first parliament had many pro-provincial members, including a number of ultra-provincialists, and the FitzGerald Ministry pursued a pro-provincial policy; Monro, a centralist, declined to be a part of it for that very reason.

So if somebody could produce a reference to this debate, I would be most intrigued. Axver (talk) 07:46, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• I'll have a look in the Sewell Journal. Schwede66 09:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• I couldn't find anything in the Sewell Journal. I've had a look and an anon added the unsubstantiated claim in 2008 with this edit. I shall remove this claim. Schwede66 04:31, 30 June 2012 (UTC)