THE NELSON EXAMINER. Wednesday, January 20.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVII, 20 January 1858, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Wednesday, January 20.

Journal! become more necessary as men become more equnl »nd individualism mure to he feared. It would be to underrate heir importance to suppose that they serve only to secure ibcrty: tt.tj maintain oiviliiation. Dr Tocqoevilli, Of Democracy in America, vol. T.,p. 230

Our legislative, we had almost said our parliamentary, campaign has at length opened in earnest. After an unexpected but not unnatural recoil from the labours before them, as sfeatlowetl forth in tlie Supevintenueul's speech, the promised debate upon it, and the notices of motion which poured in upon them " fast and furious," and from which they took refuge in an adjournment of five days, the members have girded themselves up to their work, and proceeded to business. The first subject they have considered and disposed of, is the Superintendent's speech, the debate on which we look upon f.s a touchstone of the temper and disposition of the Council. From the arrangement, or rather want of arrangement, in the Chamber, we gain no visible intimation of the fact, which is nevertheless sufficiently obvious to .even a casual observer, that our debates are to be conducted upon parliamentary principles : we are to have the Ins and the Outs ; an attacking and a defending party ; an Executive composed of, or principally taken from, members of the Council, whose duty it is to prepare, bring in, and carry through, all the measures they think necessary for the good government of the province ; and an Opposition, whose business it no less is to watch, carefully examine, and closely criticize the whole of them, to point out their defects, to suggest improvements, to rap at every link in the chain of argument, and test the soundness of all the legislative enactments by which, we are endeavouring to moor our little State vessel, and secure her a snug berth and good holding-ground for

the future, in case of bad weather. Parodying Windham's celebrated remark in the House of Commons, we are to have his Honour's Government and his Honour's Opposition ; and as the Provincial Secretary stands out, facile princeps, clearly and unmistakably the leader of the Council, so Dr. Monro may be considered as undeniably the head of the Opposition. All who know the first (and to whom can his thoughts and opinious on public men and public matters be now unknown ? — and these, for our purposes, constitute the man himself), must know that, so long as he holds his present post, he will advocate no measure he disapproves of, any more than the Superintendent would allow it to be brought forward in his name ; and they are but short-sighted and ill-judging friends of his Honour who would insinuate the contrary, whenever any measure is introduced which does not quite come up to, or come down to, tlicir own standard of political wisdom. The Superintendent, free to choose his Executive where he would, after a preliminary trial of nine months on both sides, has asked the best men he could find to help him in his task ; they have accepted the invitation ; and they come before the province " one and indivisible," like the French Republic j and so we shall always consider them.

On the other side, Dr. Monro, who prominently opposed the election of the Superintendent on the ground of unfitness, who objected to him as incompetent, and to his principles as politically unsound ; he, in perfect logical conformity with his premises, and with a staunch adherence to his conclusions, popular or unpopular, thoroughly characteristic of the man, and which all, whether friends or foes, must admire, points out in the public measures all that may seem to justify his expressed opinions, and may induce others to adopt them. Such an opposition, open, avowed, and manly, temperate in tone, fair in argument, I and decided in its character, is a real benefit to the province, and almost essential to the right working of liberal institutions. The free conflict of thought and the clash of opinions is necessary to their healthy development, and form a school wherein every member of the community may learn something to correct, modify, or enlarge his previous impressions and judgments. The fifth paragraph of his Honour's speech offered a fair field for such an inquiry and criticism. It referred to the lapsed bills, the loss of which had been productive of much disappointment ; which, among other inconveniences, had prevented the Government from taking advantage of the opening created by the influx of gold diggers to proceed with many useful works, and had crippled the Education Act in numerous and important particulars. His Honour's speech declared that the Provincial Government was blameless ; that he had only gone upon the precedent of his predecessor ; that he had followed literally the instructions sent to him ; and that it was totally impossible for him to comply with those afterwards forwarded. To all this Dr. Monro demurred, and the various documents were accordingly called for, and laid on the table.

The debate must speak for itself. There was not a little verbal quibbling on the word " copy," which some members, who ought to know better, maintained could not possibly mean an " original," although any school-boy could explain, even if we had no dictionaries in Nelson, that it sometimes means that which is to be imitated or copied. Mr. Domett took a larger view and a more sensible course. Brushing off all these cobwebs of sophistry, he allowed at once that the Executive had made a mistake, which he might or might not have fallen into himself, if one of them at the time ; and quoting many instances of much grosser blunders, left it to the Council to decide whether this was one of such a oliaiactcr as to call for their special notice. And the Council, by 16 to G, decided that it was not ; negatived the amendment, with a general admission, that, barring its censure, it was by far the best of the two ; and passed the original address, that part of it, however, which rather congratulated his Honour upon the loss of the bills, having been wisely struck out.

In the course of the debate, there fell from one or two members abundant imputations of bad feeling, malicious motives, and underhand dealing against their opponents j these, unsupported by anything like proof or probability, and flatly contradicted by Mr. Elliott, fell very dead on the Council. If they represent one phase of popular feeling, and we suppose they do, it is the lowest of all, that which has no faith in public honesty or private virtue, but takes its own suspicions for proofs, and its own low estimate of others as the standard of public morality. The attack on Mr. Stafford, the Colonial Secretary, charging him, without one tittle of evidence in support of the charge, with conduct so paltry and dishonourable, created a feeling which was only stifled by Mr. Domett's frank and straightforward avowal. It was absurd also ; for, if any one was to be blamed, it would not have been the Superintendent, who was new to office, but his Treasurer and Solicitor, who had been selected and chosen by Mr. Stafford himself when he held the post. It is another instance of the utter worthlessness of that popular favour which is only founded upon a supposed identity of interests, and which sets up the idol of one day to be pelted and pulled down into the dirt the next. [ We were no advocates of Mr. Stafford's claims to office ; but once in, he did no discredit to the choice of the majority, though he did not answer their expectations, as no one ever did, or will do. So our present Superintendent, whom his friends would make us believe to be a rampageous wild elephant, only anxious to get loose, to run straight at the flockowners and gentlemen, utterly demolish them, and divide their spoils among the people, "le peuple, pauvre et vertueux," but who is kept fettered and fast bound down by his Executive, at whom they look askance, and whom they would willingly send to the right about tomorrow, if they only knew how ; this same Superintendent we believe to be a very quiet, well-meaning individual, on excellent good terms with his Executive, and quite devoid of any such truculent intentions ; who has got some harmless crotchets in his head about Vote by Ballot, and some horrible stories about bribery and (corruption at home, which area very good stock-in-trade for any politician to begin upon ; who is well disposed to do his duty ; is not too old, too stupid, or too con-

ceited to learn it ; and who in the course of a year or two will be much better acquainted with his duties than he now is, fitter for his office, and less likely to obtain it again. When Sedgwick, Buckland, and a number of other clever fellows, suspected to have made rather too free with the first chapter of Genesis, were invited to York, the Town Council were rather puzzled how to reconcile their feelings of hospitality towards these distinguished guests with their allegiance to one of their own local dignitaries, the Dean of York, who had taken the other side of the question, and had even written a book to show that his opponents ought to have been ashamed of themselves for taking snch liberties. After due deliberation, the worthy burghers waited on the savans, and thus addressed them, through their spokesman, their Mayor : — " Gentlemen, we are very glad to see you here, and will do our best to make you comfortable ; but we think it right to tell you that we are not on your side ; we mean to stick to the Dean and Moses." In like manner, we have given fair and honest greeting to the new Colonist in Nelson, but must decline disputing with him; we intend to stick to Common Sense and the Dictionary. He is therefore at perfect liberty to assert that despotism does not mean despotism, but something else, or nothing else, as he chooses, or any other absurdity. We shall remark upon his ideas or not, quite despotically, that is, at our own will and pleasure, uncontrolled by aught, save by the respect due to our readers and ourselves. This, we trust, will ever prevent our disgracing the Examiner by personal scurrility, invective, or abuse : to this we shall ever turn a ik-uf ear ; or, if we notice it all, it will be in the words of the lady mentioned by Addison, who being attacked by a virago, noted for her slanderous and backbiting propensities, quietly answered, " Good madam, spare me, who am none of your match ; I speak ill of nobody, and it is a new thing to me to be spoken ill of." In such a contest, gui vincitur, vincit; he conquers who submits ; and the only disgrace would be in gaining the victory. In no unfriendly spirit we would give a caution to the proprietors of the Colonist. They have laid themselves open already to more than one prosecution for libel. Let them beware lest they allow themselves to be the organs of private pique or animosity under the guise or pretence of political warfare ; or even under the weak cloak of "we are informed," state what is notoriously false. When the gentleman, who long with so much credit to himself and advantage to others couducted the editorial department of this journal, in addition to his other non-political duties, became the chief responsible adviser of the Superintendent, he felt that the two positions were incompatible, and, choosing between them, to our great regret, ' He to party gave up what was meant for mankind." So much for that attempt to beget suspicion or ill-feeling. In conclusion, let us state our honest belie/ that the world of Nelson is wide enough for both : nay, that, like lawyers, newspapers thrive best in couples — where two would prosper one would starve ; and it is a fit subject of honourable ambition to strive for the mastery. Only, on this theatre, in the word* of Hamlet, " let not the fools say more than is set down to their part ; though it may make the unskilful laugh, it cannot but make the

judicious grieve."