WEST L A N D IN THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

West Coast Times, Issue 346, 1 November 1866, Page 2

WEST L A N D IN THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

(FItOM OU» OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Christchurch, Monday Oct. 29.

In my notes of Council proceedings « sent by the last mail I endeavored to keep you well posted up in affairs, so far as they had any direct or indirect interest for your side of the province. I closed the nairative up to Thursday night last. The House met the following day at noon for a short sitting, in accordance with its usual custom on Fridays ; and as soon as the prayers were over, and the minutes of the previous meeting confirmed, the member for Hokitika took occasion to correct an exceedingly inaccurate report in the '•Times" of that morning of some remarks he had made the previous day, in putting a question about the gaol to the Provincial Secretary. The remainder fif the day's proceedings you will find in a condensed report, which I collate partly from the local papers, and partly from supplementary notes furnished me from the gallery. During an early part of the sitting an important statement was made by the Provincial Secretary, in reply to a question put by Mr Hargreaves, as to the intentions of the Government with reference to the endowment of Municipalities. It was to the effect that no such intention was entertained. I presume, therefore, the hopes of your Corporation for some grant from the General Revenue, in aid of Municipal purposes, will not meet with a very favorable reception. The most important topic that engaged the attention of the House during Friday was the question of the sale of Crown lands in Westland. It had become known that some conferences had taken place on this subject between his Honor the Superintendent and tho members fov the district, but nothing was known of the result beyond the bare fact, which might have been learnt from his Honor's opening address, that the Government contemplated the introduction of a measure on the subject as soon as they could mature one likely to meet the concurrence of the principal parties concerned in the settlement of the question. I may mention here that I have heard it made a matter of complaint by more than one of your members, that they are left with the responsibility thrown on them of dealing with many public questions of the most momentous importance without any explicit declaration of your views and wishes for their guidance. I tlvinkitouly due to them to remind the people of Westlaud that if many and grave mistakes are made during the present session th°y will be the consequence of the total absence of a decided and actively expressed public opinion. Had the people borne in mind that their representatives were coming over here to exercise a va*»t influence not only in determining the fate of particular measures, but in determining to a great extent the nature and tone of the relations to be established for the future between the two sides of the province ; between the governing power which must always lie there, and the interests in your district to be governed — they would have furnished their members not only with fixed principles and a correct knowledge of the public will to guide them, but also a moral weight which fails to back them now. Strimgc to say that at this moment so little certainty should exist as to the public opinion of the district on what is now being pressed into the front rank as a public question — the extent and conditions of the sale of land in Westland. Putting together little bits of disjointed rumor, I come to the conclusion that a great system of public works would be likely to be at once proceeded with, were the necessary funds forthcoming, to be supplemented in an equal proportion by a charge upon the provincial loan. But who wil 1 take the responsibility of action if Wetland is silent — trusting even on the most momentous matters to the happy-go-lucky piinciple, instead of relying upon its own clearly-defined opinion and firmlyexpressed will ? It is quite possible the people will wake up some fine morning and find things done for them or against them — as it may be — for which they were little prepared, but for which they will (honestly speaking) have nobody but themselves to blame.

In anticipation of the announcement of the land sale scheme promised by Government, but understood to be not yet matured, you will see that Mr Johnstone proposed on Friday a resolution of a general character, proposing to throw open to selection under the Waste Lands Regulations " all " the land in Westland not at present actually occupied and worked as a goldfield. "Mr Johnstone spoke with becoming pathos of the unhappy fate of his poor brethren on the West Coast who were deprived, under the present system, of taking up land when and where they pleased— a right which he had enjoyed to his heart's content, and would be glad to enjoy still, and in a new sphere — (He did not say this). .A Mr Malloch formally seconded the motion, after a pause of a few seconds, but nobody rose to support it. It was too preposterous altogether. It had one good eifect. It gave Mr Whall an opportunity ; f making his first appearance as a speaker in the House. Mr Whall proposed an amendment in favor of agricultural settlement v der certiin guarantees for the protection of auriferous land. He- spoke very briefly but . very well," and in a thoroughly practical spirit, with which the -House sympathised. His amendment was seconded by Mr Hoos, and supported by Mr Barff, who stated his wish, however, to substitute another amendment for it. Mr John Hall made a short but very sensible speech, preferring the amendment to the resolution, but expressing a hope that both would be withdrawn in order that the House might wait for the Government to unfold its proposals. Mr ttes>yick followed *uit, and

Mr Blight deprecated any attempt to dispose of a matter involving such large interests, by the hasty adoption of any binding resolution upon a mere cursory discussion — especially as \e understood the Provincial Secretary was prepared to make a statement on behalf of the Government. Mr Stewart made the statement, which was in effect that the Government would make proposals of their own. The matter rested here, to the great relief of all parties — resolution and amendment being withdrawn.

On the same clay, Mr Barff obtained leave to introduce a Bill to provide for the leasing of Ferries on the West Coast, which was read a first time and ordered to be printed. It is a measure of a purely practical character, and likely to prove of great public utility, both in facilitating travelling and in protecting life and property on your numerous rivers. On the motion for the introduction of the Bill there was a little discussion, but only sufficient to indicate the interest of the House iv the measure, and to afford promise that its passage will not be checked by opposition.

Mr John Hall called for returns of stock which had crossed overland from the plains to Hokitika ; and in at once laying them on the table, the Provincial Secretary congratulated that hon. gentleman upon the. success of the great enterprise, with -which his name would long remain associated.

I have only one more Council note for the day that would be of the slightest interest to you. Mr Hargreaves proposed a resolution declaring that the Provincial Treasurer ought to be a responsible political officer, and hold a seat in the House. Mr Bright spoke briefly, but strongly in support of the motion. Beyond this there was no debate, the Provincial Secretary stating that some modification of the present Executive arrangements was in contemplation, and the House generally showing an indisposition to 'embarrass the Government after this statement.

T referred in my last to a second Bill, of which Mr Barff had given notice, the title of which had missed me. I am now happy to supply the omission. It is a measure for the leasing of terraces on the goldfields.

It has been my fate in the course of a pretty long and varied colonial experience to be present at the deliberations of many legislative bodies of greater or less pretensions ; but for solemn dullness and utter want of interest in the proceedings, commend me to the Canterbury Provincial Councils. What the members meet for day after day is a puzzle to an outsider. The sittings of a parish vestry are an embodiment of the very life and soul of public business, compared with the prosaic proceedings of this dull decorous specimen of a legislature. Remembering the excitement attendant upon the contest for the Superintendency, it is amazing to note how completely extinct political life appears to be. So far as the state of affairs has yet developed itself there are no parties in the House ; and no questions that could be made the basis of party organisation with the exception of one to which I will presently refer. -And if there are no parties it is equally true that there is no •' Ministry " in the sense in which that term is ordinarily understood. The Government is represented in a House of forty-four members by two gentlemen, one of whom, Mr Ga trick the Provincial Solicitor, is avowedly not a politician, and limits himself to answering question? about the administration of justice. All the other heads of departments are non- political officers without seats, and of course without the ordinary ministerial responsibility — with the exception of Mr Stewart, who comhines in his own person the two offices pf Provincial Secretary Secretary for Public Works, and who promises to become also Provincial Treasurer — representing all three departments in the House, and exhibiting a phase of parliamentary administration probably unique. Mr Stewart himself is a most courteous gentleman, a most hard-working and painstaking minister iv his departments But in the House Mr Stewart has an easy time of it. fie has no policy to propound; no enemies on the other side to do battle against : no masterly argument to sustain ; no heigth of eloquence to soar to in order to keep his pai'ty in, and some other party out. The honorable and pleasant-looking gentleman takes his seat on the Ministerial bench, admittedly and consciously, the monarch of all he surveys. He has no measures to introduce on behalf of the Government. The country is getting on pretty well, and why not let well alone. If the House likes to amuse itself by mooting public questions, by all means let it enjoy the pastime, but why should he trouble the waters by his unnecessary stirring of them? ' If any gentleman likes to ask a civil in a civil way, he is therf* blandly to answer him. Sometimes he goes to the extent of laying a few papers on the table. If hon. members have a fancy for studying them they have his permission. Such is literally and without exaggeration or false coloring, the attitude of the Government in the Provincial Council at a time so critical, at all events, to one-hiilf of the district. I will tell you what the Ministerial measures have been : —First, the appoint-, ment of a Standing Orders Committee ; secondly, of a Printing Committee ; thirdly, of a House Committee; fourthly, the passing of a resolution concurring in the nomination, by his Honor, of Mr Ollivier to the office of Provincial Auditor ; fifthly, the introduction of a Bill to give somebody a bit of land somewhere ; and sixthly, the appointment of a Select Committee to take into consideration the question of pre-emptive rights on runs. I give you my word that this catalogue of business exhausts the Ministerial programme, as far as at present displayed. There have been two little spurts of discussion — one on a clause in the reply to the address, which specifically promised justice to Southern interests, but which was allowed to pass under protest j and a second upon

the constitution of the Pre-emptive Rights Committee, which resulted in the election by ballot of the whole of the names proposed in the first instance by the Government. And there has been one division on some small point which has really escaped my recollection. And so they go jog-trot along, slowly and cozily. ' I can well understand the disappointment of men who came up to the House with some earnest purpose in hand, at finding themselves living and moving in such an atmosphere of sloth, and the feeling of utter discouragement with which they betake themselves to a task, which the circumstances iiud associations surrounding them, necessarily make a hard and ungrateful one. It has often struck me, as I have gazed upon the dull spectacle, that any new man in the House must be restrained from showing himself too much in earnest, or being too active, by the very lear of being thought a bore.

If you realise the state of things I have endeavored to describe, you will have no difficulty in understanding the extreme disadvantage under which Westland affairs and Westland men necessarily He in this Council. However tolerant, courteous, and wellmeaning, the vast majoririty of the Couucil may be towaids the new men and the interests they are understood to represent, it is no easy thing for such a body to work itself up to the point of sympathy with the aspirations arid claims of a community so exceptional in its conditions, and ni the circumstances of its history as yours. Your members would stand a far better chance of securing justice and a wise legislation for the district, if there were a larger amount of political vitality on this side. The humdrum character of the proceedings of the Council, the absence of any " policy " on the part of the Government, the monopoly of the tirtai of the House in matters, which seem to a stranger, to be of the most trivial importance ; are all indicative of that marked contrast between the social and political conditions of this side as compared to yours, to which effective reference was made the other day by the member for Hokitika, when he protested against the proposal to close the busiuess of the session as soon as the Estimates could be got through the House. It is a Council, on the face of it, belonging to a people for whom all the more important work of legislation has already been done, and who only require, now, to have the machinery of government from time to time adjusted and oiled, to have the wear of friction repaired, and an occasional slight alteration effected in its working gear. Such a body is, surely of all, least fitted to work sympathetically with j'otir members in legislating for the government and development of the West Coast, goldfields. It the four men who are over here from your side, and the fifth who may be shortly expected, desire to do much good for you, and to realise for you any of the expectations you have been indulging in, they mtist display a spirit of self-assertion on behalf of their district that will almost inevitably make them unpopular and obnoxious, or they must receive some larger measure of support from their constituents than has thus far been accorded to them. If they are left to wage the warfare unaided, they will have to fight a losing battle. I must say I consider these gentlemen to be placed in a most unfair position — the more so that they have not even an' apology for seeming to be in whilst their constituents remain so immovably apathetic.