MUNICIPAL CORPORATION.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 55, 25 March 1843, Page 219

MUNICIPAL CORPORATION.

To the Editor of the Nelson Examiner. Sir — By inserting the following in your next paper, yon will oblige A Subscriber. Nelson, March 23. tO THE INHABITANTS OF NELSON. Fellow Colonists — Will, you allow one of yourselves to call your attention to a subject deeply affecting your individual interests, as well as the interest of the community? In November last, a public meeting was held to consider the propriety of taking the preliminary steps necessary to secure us the power of local self-government by means of a corporation. I need not remind you that the majority present at that meeting considered that the time when the members of this community would be capable of governing themselves had not then arrived, and that, if left to tax themselves for their local wants, they would speedily empty their pockets from a mere love of expenditure : it was consequently determined that the matter should remain at rest for six months. That time has not yet elapsed, and, under ordinary circumstances, 1 should have considered it unbecoming to have sought again to agitate within that period a question so settled. But I wish to show you the danger of delay in this matter, and the necessity of at once bestirring yourselves if you wish to possess the privileges of municipal government at all. I wish also to draw your attention to some of the inconveniences arising from the present maladministration of your affairs. Within five or six months we may expect the arrival of a new Governor, appointed by a Tory Administration, in whom it would be folly to expect a violent affection for popular institutions. Do you consider it safe* then, to let slip this, perhaps the only, opportunity, when a corporate body may be got by the mere expression of your wishes to that effect, and to run the risk of its being altogether withheld, or at the least delayed so long as the future authorities at Auckland may determine ? Unless you immediately adopt measures to make your wishes known, it may not be possible to get them acceded to before a period when it will be too late. Since the public meeting held on the subject, Ihis settlement has been visited by the Officer Administering the Government. And I ask you, the colonists of Nelson, what his Excellency must have thdught of your merchants and tradesmen, when not one was considered worthy of being introduced to him ? Ido not suppose that any one personally cares a straw about the matter j but was it not extraordinary that a gentleman filling so high an office, should come here for the first time — to a mercantile community — and never communicate with one of you ? Truly, there is but one man in Nelson. The whole pack of merchants, alias shopkeepers, are worthy of no more consideration than slaves or convicts. If you were represented by a Council, the public would then be of some worth, and no individual, be he who he may, could monopolize all consideration — the whole power of doing and saying what was necessary for your welfare. Jt is not pleasant to live under any despotism, but the petty despotism sought to be excercised here, if it were less contemptible, would be irksome in the extreme. How can a man be qualified to govern you who gives such every- day proofs that he cannot govern himself? Is it not time that there should be some other authority -in Nelson besides that vested in a man who so far forgets himself as to threaten with ruin those with whom he cannot agree. in his capacity of agent for letting land, and who moreover would Check the improvement of your town if the individual who has commenced the erection of another jetty could be deterred from proceeding with it by his impotent threat to pull it down when completed ? If you prefer being governed as you are now, to governing yourselves at an annual cost of less than a thousand a year, to which the New Zealand Company and absentee proprietors must largely contribute, you richly deserve the insults which are heaped upon you. In the hope that you will bestir yourselves to acquire the freedom which is your birthright, and not suffer yourselves to be gulled by specious statements of experise, I remain Your willing co-operator, An Enemy to Despotism. [According, we will not say to our custom, but to our principle, the request of our correspondent is of course complied with. Leaving the subject matter of the letter for the consideration of those to whom it is addressed, we would just remind both the writer and others that it is indiscreet to mingle irrelevant with relevant matter in questions of this nature. What the; fact of his Excellency not thinking it proper to hold a levee 1 here has to do with the corporation, or the fitness of any public functionary whose place would be supplied by it, we are unable to discover, unless, indeed, it is proposed that the corporation shall supply a fund, and salary a master of the ceremonies, who ihall preside at dejeun&s a la fourchette, lunches, and dinners, and introduce to the public any " notable" who may arrive, and whom the reVideritd — merchants or others— riiay think it desirable to be ptese'nted to in form dad drink wine with. Such, an office is certainly not usual; and to expect such duties and such expenditure from any individual unlucky enough to hold a Government appointment, would be ridiculous in the extreme. — Ed.J

Imaginabt Wants. — If we Create imaginary wants, why do we not create imaginary satisfactions ? It was the happier frenzy of the two, to be like the mad Athenian, who thought all the ships that came into the harbour to be his own, than be still tormenting ourselves with insatiable desires. — Bulstrode's Essays.