The Westport Times. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 567, 14 October 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1869.

At the risk of doing some injustice to the general reader, we do Mr Akersten some measure of justice by reporting at length the remarks he made on his first appearance on any platform on the West Coast. In consideration of the comparative ignorance which prevails as to the merits of the two candidates who may be said to be really contesting the election with Mr Curtis, we imagine it is better to devote more than ordinary space to the description which they have to give of themselves, than to become the medium of any prejudiced views which may reach us privately with regard to either of them from the City of Nelson, or which may he hastily formed among soft-hearted or soft-headed suckingdoves of electors who are here for the first time exercising that noble privilege—the franchise. On the same footing Mr Gribbs will be treated, and if with that treatment either the candidates or their friends are prone to find fault, we can only say, in extenuation of their uncharitable conduct, that they "maun be bauld to compleen." There will be time enough, when both have been before the constituency, to do that which has been so amply done for Mr Curtis—to " speak of a man as we find him." if, after that time, electors in certain situations or in au uncertain state of mind desire advice, the necessities of their case may encourage us to say what may be said with regard to the respective merits of the men, with the aid of that information of which the individual voter may fail to be possessed. Meantime, we cau only echo the hope, or, rather, the suggestion expressed at the meetirig, that Mr Akersten and Mr Gibbs will, as soon as practicable, arrive at an understanding as to the withdrawal of one ortheother; unless, indeed, it be the case, as Mr Alcorn suggested, that the votes may be so divided as to afford to each a fair field. Should there be any chance of that being the case—of Mr Curtis, Mr Gibbs, and Mr Alters con being all nearly equally Bupporl id in urban and rural Nelson—the West Coast might then have the more;': aatisfaction of putting in a man according to his merits, and not through opposition to Mr Curtis " blind and. undiscerning." Until some understanding bo arrived at, and without prejudice to either, it would be well for the electors to listen to Mr Akersten's or "any other man's " narrative of their numerical support cum grano salis. Mr Akcrsten says he can command the greatest support elsewhere. Need we state that Mr Gibbs says quite the opposite? Candidates, as doctors, differ. But there is another statement, special to Mr Akerstei! which, without at all reflecting on his merits, and chiefly for the information of the Nelson electors, we are bound to contradict. By his own account when in Westport, he has come to the West-Coast distinctively "the adopted " of Nelson. By his own account when in Nelson, he was going to the West Coast eminently " the adopted " of the Coast. Now, whatever may be the fact as to his support elsewhere, his adoption by the West Coast is as yet pure fiction ; and the report must have been as gratuitously as it has been industriously circulated in Nelson. With apologies to the candidates for the comparison, we ui.vy say that the disposition of the West Coast electors, so far, has been to " let each tub stand on its own bottom." They have no affinity with the war-horse that they should sniff the merits of a vandidate " from afar."