THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1286, 17 April 1860, Page 2

THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

In our last number we reported that the Council were improving, for that they were beginning to feel ashamed of the style of language that is used there, as proved ,by their invariably voting against allowing improper expressions to be taken down and placed on record by the clerk. In the present number, we regret being unable to report further progress in improvement ; but rather, progress in the opposite direction. Unless we had seen and heard what took place on Friday last, we could not have been brought to believe it. Let us tell it in the fewest possible words. The Speaker has introduced a fashion of leaving questions* of order to the decision of the Council, when not inclined to settle them himself. We have upon more than one occasion shewn that this cannot legally be done ; firstly, because the Council is not the custodier of its own standing orders, which, being made in concert with the Superintendent, under an express provision of the Constitution Act, have the force of an enactment ; and secondly, because the very first order is — "In all matters not hereinafter provided for, the Speaker shall decide." The member for the City, Mr Carleton, had on a previous occasion told the Speaker that if ho persisted in obtaining decisions from the Lie would ask some other member to call for a division, he would refuse to vote, and would formally call the Speaker's attention to the fact that he was present. It would then be the Speakers duty to declare him in contempt, for not voting ; and he would plead in answer that he could not be compelled to vote on a question which the Speaker had no power to put. On the first occasion that presented itself; the hon member put into practice his expressed intention. On a division being called for, he walked round to the end of the table, where he would be neither on the side of the ayes nor of the noes ; told the Speaker that he refused to vote, and said that the Speaker's duty was to declare him in contempt. The Speaker declined to notice the refusal, and members resumed their seats, Mr. Carleton observing that if the Speaker did not chuse to do his duty, there was no power to compel him. Here, it would be supposed, the matter would have ended. But, upon the numbers on the division lists being announced, it appeared that one of the tellers, Mr. Cadman, had entered Mr. Carleton's name with the Noes, apparently with the desire of foiling the whole proceeding. Why with the noes more than with the ayes, would be hard to say. Mr. Carleton called the Speaker's attention to the faot that the lists were incorrect ; (that they had been , wilfully falsified, would have been the more proper expression), and desired that hie name should be struck off. The miserable and paUry evasions now resorted to will scarcely obtain belief. The | Speaker refused to strike the name off, on the ground that when the hon member took up his position at the end of the table, ho was a little nearer to the left side of the house than of the right;— tha* is to say, a- the hon member observed, that he had had uot halvethe en.l of the taMe to an inch ! 'I he ahsurd di'y nf this w-is too much evn for the Council ; so the law officer, Mr Merri'tian, tiied his owu huud ut objection. He j,ai 1 that the nslme could not bosliuok off bocause it had heeu taken down, (he would take Mr. j i

Cadman'a word for It) before tfie hon meiffl^'" had taken his position at ihfl end ©f the table It was the seoond on the list. Setting altogether aside the faot of the hdn members announcement of his refusal to vote, which was sufficient in itself, the assertion was particularly unfortunate j for as members on division begin with taking sides, and as Mr. Carle ton, in passing from his seat to the end of the table, must have been passing towards the ayes, that is, from the left of the house to the right, had his name been written before he spoke, it would have been included among tbe ayes, and not among the noes. We are really almost ashamed of descending to such trivialities ; but a triviality may sometimes illustrate more serious matters.