MR WOOD'S REPLY TO THE REQUISTIONISTS.

Southland Times, Issue 1259, 31 May 1870, Page 2

MR WOOD'S REPLY TO THE REQUISTIONISTS.

The following has been handed to us for publication :— " " ' '■ * ' ' _ . InvercargiU, May ,26th, 1870. To the seventy-six gentlemen whose signatures are attached to the requisition calling Jupon ." me the representative of InvercargiU to resign my seat in "the Q-eneral Assembly. GEim/EMEM", — I regret that a difference of Opinion .ou.the . question of the re-union of this -Province with Otas;o should have caused you to deem my resignation desirable. You state in your requisition that this question is of yitalimportance to the Province of Southland. In this opinion 1 fully concur, while taking an entirely opposite view as to its desirability. Without such union I can see no honorable mode of escape from our present difficult : and humiliating position, nor has any one of the opponents of re-union yet solved that problem. You state you consider the result of the recent Invercargill election for -the Provincial Council has established the fact that a majority of the electors of the town are against re-union, but, as the leaders of both parties were then returned, arid the number of votes for eaGh so nearly equal, I trust I may be pardoned for doubting this j and it is gratifying to me, both in a political and private sense, to know that so many of the 154 electors who then recorded their votes in favor of an anti-union candidate, refused, when solicited, to sign this requisition, 'On the above grounds you request that I will, in accordance with pledges given at my election, tender my resignation. • I have referred to the local papers published at that date, but cannot find that I am reported to have given any pledge on that subject. I remember no such pledge, nor am I aware of any member . resigning his seat by the request of one-fifth of the electors of his district ; nor have I departed from the line of policy I then publicly proposed to follow on the question of re-union. Having fully considered your request, and, keeping in view what I believe to be my duty to those of my constituents who think with me on this question, I feel bound to decline compliance. Having arrived at this conclusion on the matter, .purely as a question between my constituents and myself, I feel doubly justified in my decision by the recent elections foe the Provincial Council resulting in so decided a majority in favor of reunion. When the question of re-union comes before the Q-eneral Assembly, I will in my place inform the House that I received' this requisition. — I have, &c, William Wood.