The Westport Times. TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 499, 4 May 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1869.

The speech of His Honor the Superintendent will, we think, be hailed by the district as the most convincing proof of the reality of its claims, and the almost certain evidence that those claims will be recognised. Had the movement been destituto of weight—had the allegations of the petition been so wanting iu truth as the Superintendent and his immaculate Executive would suggest —no such labored paragraphs as the seven devoted to the subject would have teased His Honor's conception or taxed his hearers' patience. The conspicuous prominence given to the movement, and the tu quoque line adopted in treating it, demonstrate that of all the business of the session this is the most vital to the interests of Nelson, and most requires the energies of its officials to combat. We are not disposed to criticise the speech as a whole. It is neither necessary nor would it be magnanimous to comment upon the financial

ill which has characterised the last two years' Provincial operations. The proposed reductions, whether real or simply fictitious, interest us not. The success or non-success of the management of the Brunner mine we can afford to pass unnoticed ; while the Nelson and Cobden Railway, and Mr Morrison's efforts inJEngland, may be consigned to the limbo of abortive projects, in company with the Nelson Dry Dock and its cognate, but unhappily, enacted folly, the Nelson Hospital. To trace these several evidences of the ability of our Nelson statesmen might eliminate some few reasons in justification of our presuming to ask for Separation/md perhaps at another time we may thiuk fit to recur to them. At present we have to do especially with the

seven paragraphs to which we alluded, and we think that their consideration will support the assertion with which we started—that His Honor's speech is a signal service to the cause of Separation. The good taste or the dignity exhibited by His Honor, although commented upon by one of our Nelson contemporaries, is a matter of little importance to us. "Whether good taste or dignity, any more than statesmanlike ability, can be expected from the present Executive is a question too occult for us, and we doubt whether its discussion would present any features of interest to our readers. We prefer rather to take the published statements of the Superintendent, and test them by the simple test of iudis putable facts. After referring in paragraph four to the retirement of Mr Kynnersley and the determination to dispense with the office of Commissioner," the Superintendent admits that the goldfields have lost some of the migratory characteristics which once he so fervidly dwelt upon, and he therefore compliments us with having acquired a more " settled character." He theu calls to the recollection of the Council the fact that works for which monies were appropriated had been unavoidably postponed, hence the dissatisfaction which at the West Coast culminated iu the Separation movement, which is so fiercely attacked in succeeding paragraphs. So far the Superintendent has confined himself to fact, and possibly he would have better served the purposes of his party had his reference to the subject stopped there. But no ; the subject is too sore—the saddle presses too heavily —" the galled jade winces," and his Honor flounders, from the safe and dignified course in which he had started, into a dangerous slough of misconception, misrepresentation, and puny attempts at scattering broadcast I the seeds of dissension.

First and foremost upon the devoted head of West-port is poured the vials of his Honor's wrath. Although the ink was scarcely dry which asserted that dissatisfaction was caused hy the postponement of works already voted, the Superintendent is rash enough to attribute the agitation to his " refusal to expend a large sum of money without aiunonty n/nrl directly contrary to law." Now no one knows oetter than the writer of those words that they arc not in accordance with fact. The agitation he well knows has not sprung up of a moment. He well knows that it is the result of a deliberate opinion that the wants of this district have always been made secondary to the real or fancied requirements of Nelson aud its suburbs. He well knows that during two years a slumbering fire bas more than once nearly broken out, when want after want bas been disregarded, and claim after claim refused.

No one here need be told that nothing but Mr Kynnersley's aggressive attacks upon the Executive would have secured for us even those works which are now paraded as if they were the considerate and gratuitous offerings of an indulgent government. How long has Giles Terrace been opened — how long have our miners had to pay the exorbitant prices inevitable where bogs, and rock, and fallen trees have to bo traversed by the storekeeper—how long since the Provincial Secretary yisited that and adjoining terraces —and what has been done ? Is this one of the works clamoured for which was not authorised? Our readers know better. Agaiu, the Buller Road was one of the same works authorised but "unavoidably postponed." The river protection has never been the main cause of agitation. It has of course been referred to, and we contend properly referred to, as illustrating the utter indifference of the Executive to the wants and the rightful claims of the district. A more prolific cause of the agitation may be found in the fatality, to use no harsher term, which has attended much of the expenditure which has been vouchsafed. Wherever private enterprise has constructed bridges or wharves they have invariably withstood the attacks of flood and storm. With the Government, on the contrary, despite the engineering skill of Nelson, despite the supervision of Nelson officials and all the circumlocution inseparably attendant upon Nelson operations, the first flood levels the works, and leaves alone the structures of the unassisted residents of the coast. With this paragraph we exhaust every semblance of argument adduced against the petition. The remaining paragraphs are little more than an attempt to set Westport in antagonism with Charleston and the Grey. This attempt willmeet

with the signal failure it deserves. The whole South-West Coast is unanimous in the opinion that Separation , from Nelson is indispensably necessary ; in the present condition of things. There may be some trifling differences of detail admitting of easy solution, but on the one vital principle there is no dispute. The incredulity of His Honor as to the tendency of the people to " commit political suicide " will soon be set at rest. It is painful to contemplate so fearful an alternative. It may from a Nelson point of view seem like the sacrifice of all constitutional privileges, and even the destruction of our political rights, to withdraw from the fostering care of Nelson. But from a West Coast point of view those results do not present themselves as so palpably imminent. His Honor will, perhaps, be startled, but he may take our assurance that already over four thousand benighted and demented beings have signed the warrant which they are told is to involve them in irretrievable political destruction. The evidence furnished by the inexorable logic of numbers will, we trust and believe, weigh more with the House of Representatives than all the wordy opposition of even so eminent a statesman, so practised a financier, and so able a debater as His Honor the ' Superintendent of Nelson.

Ms. G. W. House's constituents will learn with regret that he has resigned his seat as member of the Provincial Council. They will learn of the fact also with some surprise, and probably with not a little indignation. It is to be regretted that Mr Home should, at this particular time, have resigned ; for, with all respect to the other members for the district, they lack the qualifications which more especially fit Mr Home for the duties, and, inexperienced as they are, either as public speakers or as members of the Council, both they and the district are likely to suffer by his absence. However much we might be disposed to banter Mr Home on his disapproval of the Separation movement, or on his mode of expressing it, we should be the last to withhold acknowledgment of his fitness for his position as Provincial Councillor, and, indifforontly represented as the district must be by gijuwoiucu niiu iiuena the Council for the first time, and who are consequently new to their duties, we cannot but entertain the opinion that, in absenting himself at this present juncture, Mr Home is acting wrongly and unfairly towards his constituency. Of course any member is at liberty to resign, but Mr Home has had a whole year to decide whether he should again attend the Council, and he must at any rate have known of his inability to do so soon enough to have given his constituency an opportunity of electing his successor before the commencement of the current session. The fact of his resigning immediately as the session opens is, to say the least somewhat illustrative of the eccentricity with which he has been charged but that he should do so because of an " abusive letter " to which a contemporary merely alluded, and which, so far as we can discover, was never published, is decidedly eccentric. In venturing some time ago to compare Mr Home to a comet, we did not anticipate that he would so soon and seriously illustrate what was said more in joke than I in sober earnest.