Wellington Independent THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3250, 13 July 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1871.

We regret extremely the resignation by Messrs Halcombe and Hunter of their seats in the Provincial Executive, and still more the circumstances which have led to it. For obvious reasons we are not going to discuss the fitness of the person, whose appointment against the expressed wishes of a majority of the Provincial Executive, has led to this most lamentable result. We may even go so far, for the sake of argument, as to grant, that his moral character is unexceptionable, and that he is admirably fitted, both physically and mentally, for the office ; but the broad fact remains that his appointment has cost the province the disruption of the best Executive it has had for many years. No one showed more conclusively thau Mr Bunny, during the discussion on the item of £800 for the bracketted offices of Secretary and Treasurer, the impossibility of his being useful in his own office without Mr Hulcombe personally superintending the immigration and works now going on in the Manawatu district, clothed with the authority belonging to a member of the Government, and we are perfectly sure that Mr Bunny would be the last man to deny the able assistance Mr Halcombe has given him, and cordially given him since he took office. If, as a contemporary asserts, " the Superintendent (although we deprecate this importing of his Honor's name into this question) and Mr Bunny are perfectly competent to carry on the affairs of the province," we are at a loss to understand what he really meant on the 29th June, when he said : — " It is true enough that in the past, the duties of Provincial Secretary and Treasurer have been performed by one person; but it must be borne in mind that the amount of work to be done now is very different from what it was six months ago, when the Provincial Executive adopted a laisser faire policy, and ' let things slide ;' now, there is a real, active, working policy in existence, requiring earnest and energetic exertion to carry it out. If the Superintendent aud his Executive devote their best energies to the interests of the province, and achieve success in carrying out those plans which have been approved by the Council they will certainly not have been overpaid," When we think of the remarkable success that has attended Mr Halcombe's exertions in the settlement of the Norwegian and Swedish immigrants on the Manawatu lands, so warmly eulogised by our contemporary, and when we find it notified in its columns, the day before his resignation was sent in, as an item of good news, that he was so far recovered as to be able to set out again for that district to superintend the public works there, we can scarcely see what is meant by saying that he would probably have become "actively obstructive." In common, we believe, with the vast majority of the settlers of this province, we regretted the illness which deprived the province of his services at this important crisis {although we did not issue frequent bulletins about the state of his health,) and we rejoiced to learn, from the paragraph referred to, that he was now able to resume that important branch of his public duties for which he has already shown a special aptitude, and in which he has achieved a remarkable success. We therefore express our unfeigned regret that he has sent in his resignation as a member of the Executive. On somewhat different grounds, we deplore, also, the resignation of Mr Hunter. Our contemporary last evening insults public feeling by describing him as " in the positioa of the fifth wheel of a coach," and " congratulating" him " that he will have more time left to attend to his business." A more gratuitous and wanton insult can scarcely be conceived. A few weeks ago our contemporary maintained that his acceptance of office was a matter of congratulation, and now he tells us that his resignation " is more a matter of congratulation than otherwise." Mr I-funter's accession to office was thus announced : — " We mentioned yesterday that it was in contemplation to offer a seat in the Provincial Executive to a gentleman whom we did not name This gentleman is Mr George Hunter, who has to-day decided upon accepting the offer. Mr Hunter will add considerable strength to the Executive, and his presence in it will give general satisfaction both to town and country." Most cordiully did we agree with our contemporary in his estimate of Mr Hunter, and we are at a loss to discover why a change has come over the spirit of his dream. Mr Hunter is not so compressible as our contemporary, aud it was the very stability and consistency of his character that rendered his accession a special source of strength to the Executive, in securing for it a large increase of public confidence and respect. Mr Hunter is the same 10-day as he was then; it is only our contemporary that has been carried round in a whirligig of his own creation. Tho very action taken by these gentlemen in refusing to be any longer members of an Executive in which action was taken

without consulting them, or rather in their absence, and against their reiterated advice, only raises them in the estimation of all who regard honor and consistency. We do not profess to know the mind of the Superintendent or the Provincial Secretary so fully as our contemporary somewhat indecorously assumes to know, but this we say, that it will astonish us if it true that had his Honor known " that if he persisted in his intention" of appointing to an office a person whoso recently in a public meeting styled him " Judas Iscariot," &c, "he would alienate them," he would have persisted, and that he does not " consider thensupport worth far more than the sacrifice of his opinion" upon a subject of a vacant clerkship. We think we have said enough to show that we consider the Provincial Secretary, having done his utmost to fulfil a pledge which he had no right to give, should pause before he advises his Honor to accept the resignation of the two pillars of his ministry. Doubtless, with no colleagues he will be able, as our contemporary naively puts it, "to act with unanimity ;" but he will never be able to give effect to those wise and energetic measures, for the conception and maturing of which he has conferred a lasting boon on the province. The question is in a nutshell. Messrs Halcombe and Hunter cannot approve of an appointment made behind their backs and against their plainly expressed wishes without ceasing to be mere dummies in the Executive, and thereby forfeiting at once their own self-respect and the con fidence of their constituents. No member of the Provincial Council can take the vacant seats' without virtually proclaiming that they are mere placeseekers, and that the Provincial Executive means only the Provincial Secretary ! Mr Bunny has, therefore, to choose between throwing away all the good he has already done and hopes to do in office, and standing upon an ap pointment to which he committed the Provincial Executive against the known wishes of a majority. We regret his friendship for a protege should, for one moment, stand in the way of his public duty and the public interest, and we think any pledge he may have hastily given is already redeemed. Non possumus omiria; and Mr Bunny, whoso action in all other respects in the office he fills with so much credit to himself and advantage to the province, will, we trust, sec the folly of persisting in an hidefensible course, or of attempting to secure "unanimity" by constituting himself Executive. His 'protege, if he has a spark of gratitude or spirit, should at once relieve him from his unfortunate position.