THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3119, 9 February 1871, Page 2

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1871.

Whilp: the city has been engrossed with the election of two representatives for the General Assembly, a long list of byelaws proposed to be enacted by the Corporation has failed to attract the attention its publication was intended to excite. Yet these, if passed into law and stringently enforced, will greatly alter for the better the appearance of the city in the eyes of strangers, and add much to the comfort, health, and convenience of the citizens. When the city was incorporated under the Municipal Corporation Act 1867, we pointed out the necessity of exercising as freely as that Act would allow the discretionary power of making bye-laws suitable to our circumstances. The Corperation have done this, and the bye-laws proposed in our issue of the 25th ult., are framed by diligently collating all that is good in those of Melbourne, Dunedin, and other cities. We understand that the City Council have put themselves in communication with the authorities of those cities, and have in all cases ascertained not only the propriety but the practicability of enforcing these necessary adjuncts to civic government. That they are much needed every one will admit. We lately called attention for instance to several disgraceful nuisances in various parts of the cily, and our remarks were met by a non possumus pleaded by the City authorities. The proposed bye-laws will " change all that." Not only will the most glaring nuisances be at once detected and removed, but there will be such a complete inspection of premises,, that nuisances, however artfully concealed from view, will be discovered, and the nuisancemakers punished. Bye-law 46 provides a penalty not exceeding £5 " for refusing any health officer, sanitary inspector, &c, permission within reasonable hours to inspect any premises." We may expect, therefore, that pigs which have grunted in the remote recesses of some back yard, too far away to catch the ear of the passing inspector, but not far enough away from the neighbouring cotiages, will be dragged to light, and will be made to expiate their crime against the comfort and health of their inhabitants, by being transported fifty yards from any liouse, or by a violent death. From the ample power of inspection, and facility of punishing offenders now provided, great changes for the better must shortly be effected. Within the compass of 100 yards from Clay Point, more than twenty of these proposed bye-laws may be seen daily infringed, — and if these are passed into law, and rigidly enforced, the situation of sanitary inspector will be no " bed of roses.'' How frequently, for instance, does the visitor going to the Athenseum, see " sludge or other offensive matter flowing over the footpath ! " A civic authority from the South Island, last Friday was returning from Councillor Carpenter's eloquent nomination of one of the Cornelii of Wellington, when an Amazon poured a bucket of very dirty water right before his polished boot, and made him forego his dignity and the footpath at once, and incontinently betake himself to the middle of the street. Running over on his fingers the number of byelaws under which, if brought before the " Mayor's Court" in " his own city," this slatternly atrocity could have been punished, he was with difficulty pacified by the oft-repeated assurance that such a disgraceful nuisance would not long be tolerated, and by the time he would return to Wellington he would be able to avenge himself on any one again so offensively coming " between the wind and his nobility." While the bye-laws " with respect to nuisances" are very much needed, those " with respect to horses, carts, riding and driving," are scarcely less necessary. How frequently, for instance, do we see horses and cattle wandering on a public street or thorough fare," to the imminent danger of life and limb, while " furious and negligent riding or driving" is with us a vice so familiar that it has lost its terrors. The other classes of bye-laws we shall take another opportunity of noticing. Meanwhile we beg to congratulate the City Council on this evidence of their concern for the improvement of the city, and trust they will receive that moral support from the citizens, without which laws, however necessary, cannot be safely or effectually enforced. We observe that the Travers and Richmond party do not gracefully accopt their defeat. Their organ as usual still overflows with vituperation. Happily its article of last evening is so full of inconsistencies that it is very easy to answer. Whipped from pillar, or as we may rather say, from post to post, our contemporary takes refuge in a maze of inconeistencies, being, to use his own words on Monday, " &o profoundly ignorant of the rudiments of Parliamentary government that he never knows how to accept a political defeat." A few days ago we were jubilantly informed that " the great mass of the people — the independent electors, the working men — will vote for Travers and Richmond. They can do so safely now, because under the protection afforded by the ballot, their votes will remain an absolute secret, and it will be impossible for men of wealth and position to oppress and try to ruin their poorer brethren only because they have voted according to their own consciences. This has often been done in Wellington, but thank Heaven those days of corruption, undue influence, and oppression have departed for ever. The ballot-box is the sanctuary of the humble voter's liberty," &c. Now, if this is the case (as undoubtedly it is), what is the use of raving about Messrs Pearce and Hunter having " gathered all the aid that the wealth of Wellington and the influence of ihe old provincial party could give them?" Could not every voter who went to the ballot on Tuesday have scratched out every name but that of

Richmond, in spite of all the wealth | " and influence of the world ? If " the J days of undue influence had departed ( for ever " on the 24th of January, how could they have heen restored on the 7th of February ? Let our contemporary answer that. Mr. Richmond's letter is equally full of stultifying inconsistencies. " From the first I felt that the struggle was , doubtful," he says; why then did he deceive the electors by telling them that he felt sure of being elected. He speaks of his opponents usiug " official money and social influences against him." What can he mean ? Was there one voter of his who had not the opportunity, unseefi by mortal man, of scratching out every name but his own from the ballot paper ? Could he devise any fairer way, or any surer plan to defeat " money and influence ?" Had he been elected, would he not have sung the praises of the ballot ? Then, what does all this outcry against money and social influence imply when viewed in connection with the ' gambling policy' which Mr Richmond is never weary of denouncing ? Isit not very clear that " a gambling policy" would attract those who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by it? Whereas now we are told that all " the money and social influence" have been on the side of the Government. In other words, all ivlio have anything to lose have supported it. No better answer to this wild charge could be conceived. As to the charge of " Government influence," direct and indirect, wo do not know exactly what it means ; but if it implies that a single Government servant was ever asked, directly or indirectly how he was going to vote, we repel the charge as an infamous calumny. " The organ" implied in one issue that we had " the best pens in the Government service" at our command, but stated in another that our " articles had done no mischief at all." If the charge of " indirect" Government influence means anything in this direction, it therefore falls to the ground. We wonder in which of our unassuming leaders " the fine Roman hand" was suspected. It is absolutely ludicrous thus to attempt to account for a failure in a contest in which the most absolute fair play characterised. every word and action of the successful party. MiRichmond was defeated simply because, the electors of Wellington, like the electors of Taranaki, and the electors of Nelson, would not have him. They may not have such a high opinion of Mr Richmond as they ought to have, but it is their opiuion, and they have expressed it by scratching out his name in secret (no money and influence being present) and putting into the ballot-box the names of Pearce and Hunter. These insinuations of Mr Richmond are a deliberate insult to the electors of Wellington. We think he might have left Wellington without this Parthian shot. His successive defeats should have taught him more modesty and submission. | A defeated candidate lecturing the electors who rejected him, and telling them, "You should do this," and "you should do that," is an indecorum that could only have been conceived by an opinionative and unpractical man like Mr J, C. Richmond, and is as great an offence against good taste as it is a gross, but covert attack on representative institutions. The electors of Wellington having, in the most unmistakable way, declared they will not have him to represent them, it is a piece of the grossest impertinence on Mr Richmond's part " to caution them against their representatives" following any course they may think proper to follow. Who is Mr Richmond that for him the etiquette, both of private and public life should be ignored ? He is only known in Wellington as an incapable Native Minister and a disappointed candidate for the City. But surely neither his proved incapacity as a Minister nor his failure as a candidate puts him in a position to lecture the citizens.