The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1868.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 214, 7 April 1868, Page 2

The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1868.

The first step in the election of a member to serve in the General Assembly for this portion of the West Coast Goldflelds was taken on Saturday last, and as our readers will see by a report of the proceedings in another issue, three candidates, Messrs. Home, Gallagher and Donne, were nominated as fit and proper persons to fill the position. We have already pointed out the vast importance the present election is to all interested in the prosperity and advancement of the New Zealand goldflelds, and cannot impress too deeply on the electors the necessity there is for the greatest care and most deliberate judgment being used in choosing the man most calculated to do them good service in the more widely extended field of usefulness to which he will be sent. As yet, beyond experience gained in another colony, we have no criterion by which we can judge of Mr Home, for this gentleman has been singularly reticent. He has, however, ample time yet to speak before the polling day, and will no doubt give the electors an opportunity of hearing him before that time. His address, spoken on the day of nomination, was an honest and straightforward one, and, at a time like the present, when outspoken loyalty is a sine qua non with the electors, he is the only man we can conscientiously commend, and he further is worthy of confidence from the fact, that he stated openly his intention of resigning in favor of any bona fide miner, if such had come forward. Mr Gallagher is also a stranger to Westport, though he has ventilated his opinions in Charleston and at Addison's. Last on the list—as we most unfeignedly hope he will be on the poll—comes Mr George Donne. With reference to this candidate, as tried and most emphatically found wanting, we have something to say. We have repeatedly expressed an opinion of Mr Donne, and it has been so far unfavorable that he has lost no opportunity of pouring out the vials of his wrath upon us, and calling us naughty names, of which he has a long string at command. With reference to his general unfitness for any legislative position whatever, our ideas are shared in by the press of this Coast and Nelson, with the bright exception of the Charleston Herald; but the Westport Times is his especial bete noir, and has the same exciting effect on his modest nervous system as a display of red cloth has on a turkey gobbler : indeed his strutting, fretting and fuming when this journal is on the carpet immensely resembles, and is quite as reasonable as that of the bird in question. If unbounded conceit, combined with unparalelled impudence, unblushing misrepresentations—not to say lying—and almost inconceivable stupidity are qualifications Mr Donne is pre-eminently fitted to fill the office to which he aspires, and where such qualities are essential, is likely to graduate with the highest honors ; not later than Saturday evening last at Stephenson's Assembly Rooms, he had the assurance to tell a meeting, that four years ago, he contributed with his pen to promote measures beneficial to the country, and identical with Sir J. Munro's lately declared policy. This is iust as true as many other statements he made in reference to himself and his doings. At that time he was attached to the Telegraph newspaper in Dunedin as a business manager, and he managed so well that the paper went quickly to smash, and the plant was sold to the opposition paper. He had nothing £to do whatever with the literary department or the political conduct of the paper—his only office was to drive it to the bourne of departed journals. Mr Shaw, now of Hokitika, started a paper in Picton, where Mr Donne assumed the literary charioteership, and his success was as marked as his business relations with the Telegraph the paper passing out of his hand. His next venture to our knowledge, a as theatrical managership in Dunedin, ' nd from his short reign in that vocation, we may conclude it was unprofitable.

He next turned his attention to law, and at Brighton commenced practice as an articled clerk, under the shield of a friendly barrister, Mr O'Loughlin. He then amalgamated law and politics and emerged a full-blown member of the Provincial Council, when that body bestowed representation on the Coast. We cannot possibly imagine that the public can place the slightest confidence in such a man, for he does not possess one single attribute that could fit him for the General Assembly. The assertions he made about being the means of obtaining representation in the Asssembly are purely false and ridiculous, ami so ridiculous as to be scarcely worth contrauicting. In the Provincial Council, even where few sages are found, he became a laughing-stock and an insufferable bore. In season and out of season, he dosed the unhappy members with twaddle, till the patience of the very dullest was worn out. So far from accelerating any reforms, his inflated impertinence disgusted even friendly members, and the opponents of goldflelds' expenditure too gladly held up that man as a sample of the intelligence of the Coast like other light substances, he was ever rising—ever making useless motions—ever patronising those infinitely his superior in intelligence and education. There is, we are told, a time for silence and a time to speak, this wiseacre never recognised this, hut brayed continually under the impression that he was thereby showing his wisdom. To dwell on his condnct is a thankless theme, suffice it to say, that during his career, he did the district more harm than any good his exertions, when well directed, would counterbalance. If he became a bye-word in the Provincial Council, what would he be in the Assembly, where the interests dealt with are unmeasurably greater, the class of members infinitely superior, the very cream only of the various Councils finding seats. What a figure would " our member " the Pantaloon of a Provincial hody cut in such company may well be guessed, and what attention would be paid to motions, even if good in themselves emanating from such a source. We do not want as our member a man who would be looked at with contempt and treated as a nuisance, a compound of mercantile subordinate,theatrical manager, literary adventurer, and present lawyer's clerk, ready for a wardenship or any other Government appointment at a moment's notice. Mr Home will doubtless meet the electors here and gain further confidences, but for the credit of the community in which we live, we beg the electors to save the district the disgrace of placing George Donne, Esq., any where else than at the bottom of the poll.