THE PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4154, 6 December 1870, Page 5

THE PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE.

Yesterday, at 11 o'clock, at a meeting of the members of t'e Provincial Council who defeated the late Executive, it was decided to submit several names to his Honor the Superintendent as members of the proposed Executive. In the course of the afternoon, a Provincial Government Gazette was issued, officially announcing the resignation of Dr. Robinson Nicholson, Joseph May, Esq., Frederick Morris Preston Brookfield, Esq., and Robert James Creighton, Esq., the members of the late Executive. The appointment of the following gentlemen was also announced : — Hugh Hart Lusk, Esq., Provincial Secretary. John Sheehan, Esq., ) .., , CharlesFeatherstoneMitchell,Esq., } Wl ™ out William John Hurst, Esq., j omce - It is understood, however, that the other offices will be filled as follow : — John Sheehan, Esq., Provincial Solicitor, Charles Featherstone Mitchell, Esq., Secretary for the Goldfields. William John Hurst, Esq., member without office. One of the above gentlemen will also undertake the duties of Provincial Treasurer, but the matter, we believe, has not yet been finally settled. We believe the new Executive will have the confidence of a good working majority in the Council, and the general support of the people outside. Though new in office, there is no reason why the present Executive should not at least be as strong a3 its predecessors. They are certainly deserving the indulgence of the Council. The Grahamstown Star, referring to the defeat of the late Provincial Executive, says, " The defeat of the Provincial Executive has not been unexpected : on the contrary, it has been for some time past a foregone conclusion. For the Provincial Secretary, we. have, we confess, but lit ile sympathy. In his conduct and policy (or absence of all policy) we have never believed, and we therefore cannot do otherwise than rejoice that he has been shown his errors by an adverse vote. It is well known that the Executive have been merely so many ou'ward and visible signs of the will, the opinions, and the dictates of his Honor the Superintendent, Mr. Thomas Bannatyne Gillies. Yet it is by no means decent or becoming in those who for a year have, with one accord, sung the praises of Mr. Gillies and his Executive, to now, in the moment of defeat, separate the one from the other, and thus to blind the public to the fact that the present is quite as much a formal vote of want of confidence in the Superintendent as it is in the Executive. Yet this is exactly what some would endeavour to do. They would need persuade us that for the neglect of the goldfield; for muddled estimates, and for a total failure to fulfil the legislative requirements of the frovince, the Executive are alone responsible. n no place is this >>ad taste more conspicuous than in the columns of the Thames Advertiser This journal has leen the mouthpiece of Mr. Gillies ever since he became Superintendent : a_ such it has delighted to honour his Provincial Secretary, Dr. Nicholson. When tbe latter gentleman has visited the Thames, whole pages have been devoted to chronicling his progress, although the good he accomplished went no further than might be accomplished by a few bits of official cheeseparing. The Advertiser has, indeed, been the sole liter r\ prop of the Nicholson Executive; but on a sudden, when it finds that this Execntive has • een defeated, it makes preparations for a change of policy. The Advertiser has stuck to the Superintendent and his Ministry with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause, and of even a larger share of Government advertisements. " • > . TnM>M A MAHURANGI CORRESPONDENT^) % The news of the defeat of the Executive waf received wi'h satisfaction. The fact of ; the political Jim Crow, one of the fathers of that nasty pill, the Rural District Bill, having joined the Government, alienated the . respect of all right-thinking men. The . .honest intentions of; the head of the late Government certainly covered a portion of. ■ self-conceit, andit is to be hoped that, what--ever the material of the next Government is,' ti_«y will be leas dogmatic, and more conde-