OUR SUPERINTENDENT AND HIS POLITICS.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 45, 22 October 1857, Page 3

OUR SUPERINTENDENT AND HIS POLITICS.

Thf. pamphlet on Responsible Government by Mr. Busbv, as one of many signs that we are on the threshold of great changes. Some shams are long-lived; but the political sham inflicted upon us by Skipper Williamson and his motley p ilitieal “ crew” is doomed to speedy extinction. The blow struck by Mr. Busby will tell. That blow is sure to tie followed by others. M n is an imitative .animal, and there is no presumption in predicting that the example of Mr. Bushy will have its effect upon many of tne educated but rather timorous politicians, a ho though .scandalized by the rule of “self-.-atisfied ignorance,” have feared to speak out. With careless indifference they have seen indignity after indignity heaped np-n this Province. But the tide is turning, and such are precisely the people to turn with it. Their cry was—- “ Oh the Province needs a lesson.” That cry can no longer be accepted as even an excuse for supineiiess. The Province lias had i’s lesson. No more lessoning is necessary. Om uneducated school-masters have left us without excuse for desiring to know more of ignorant and unbridled democracy. Mr. Busby’s pamphlet on Responsible Government may be appealed to in justification of these remarks, and also of the line I have taken with ward to our Superintendent. 'Patience is a good nag, but she will bolt, says the proverb, and in the onslaught made by Mr. Busby upon ■our Responsible Government—falsely so called, upon Pure Democracy—falsely so called, and upon the people’s Superintendent—falsely so called, L see that proverb exemplified. For a long season educated politicians of the .Busbv school have held their peace ; digested, as best they could, the venom of their political spieen, and said, or seemed te say —“Our patience is ecpial to the endurance of any kind or amount of “ indignity” which can be heaped upon us oy a party which “ seems to have adopted the term ‘ uneducated Government’ as an ■honorable distinction.” Nothing surer than that the good nag patience bolted with Mr. Busby, whose pamphlet is an opportune and vigorous protest against that mockery •of Responsible and Representative Government imposed upon us by our political Jack Carles. These notable numskulls remind one of the fanatical Commonwealthman of whom it was said that he carried a noddle full of queer notions about Government, the clearest object of which was to establish the tail upon the head. Mr. Bufoy, quite an contraike, is anxious to establish the head upon the tail ; and with this clear as crystal object ..in view, lie takes the field against “Self-Government, that is, the Government of the Majority.” Disgusted with the abuse of freedom he concludes against the use of it. But of that hereafter. My present purpose is not to find flaws in Mr. Busby’s pamphlet from which, however, I appropriate the following remarkable passages : —

“ The Provincial Council passed an Act vesting in IDO Commissioners the management of the Harbour improvements, devolving the exclusive duties upon a .committee of seven. The first committee embraced three persons whose previous pursuits might be expected to give them some knowledge of the duties to which they were called. One was an old ship master and ship owner, formerly of Liverpool: one an experienced ship master ; and ’ho third a merchant and ship owner The remaining four were a baker, a farmer, a druggist, and a printer’ vocations which do not generally lead to a knowledge of maritime affairs. Two propositions were before the Committee. The one was to carry out a stone pier from the point of land which extends furthest -into the harbour, which was »o situated that every foot

the pier was advanced it would have afforded so much of greatly needed shelter to the small vessels frequenting the haroour, and which would have been a permanent work. The other proposition was to con.inue a wooden wharf which had been begun some years before, and was already half ruined by lhe worm, from a point much more distant from the deep water. This what f being so sit’.ated that, even had it bean a solid structure, it would have left, the greatest part of the harbour without shelter. The maritime poriion of the Committee was i.i favour of the permanent structure ; the baker, the farmer, the druggist and the printer, were for the wooden wharf. Tne former resigned their office, and their resignation was followed by that of many others of the Commissioners. The four rem lined in office, and Carried on the wooden wharf. The printer, our present Superintendent, and two others of the four possessed property of which it is probably no exaggeration to sav that the construction of the wooden wharf was caiculat. d to increase its value a hundred fold, for without tie wharf it was of no value whatever. The fourth also possessed property in the near neighbourhood of the wharf, though not abutting upon it. It. would be an enquiry worthy of your Excellency's attention to ascertain how many thousands of pounds have been expended upon a structure of so perishable a character, and which at best could serve no purpose save that of a gangway to the shipping ; and for how much less a permanent, stone structure could have been constructed, extending as far into the deer) water of the harbour, and forming a permanent breakwater, as well as a wharf equally well adapted for every public purpose as the wooden wharf; but wanting that essential qualification of abutting upon the private property ef the par ins having the direction of the work “Your Excellency cannot, have been a mere indifferent spectator of the twatfie which has been carried on in votes. No one, lam sure, can have a more just appreciation of the demoralization which it has carried into the remotes', narts of the colony. The wholesale personation and corruption of voters, or pretended voters, would be incredible, were it not that neither party attempts to deny the charge of the other ; and that each o ily maintains that its own parly is the less corrupt of the two. Bribery and corruption of voters is, no doubt, a time-honoured practice in the Mother Country, and here none of our politicians pretend to be ashamed of it There are other transactions however, upon wh’i-b both parties preserve a discreet silence. I will request your Excellency’s attention to two which have never been hinted at in either paper. The first is that a writ was issued from the Supreme Court against the present Sunerintendent in conjunction with another person for a bill of £-324, for election expenses, alleged to have been incurred, in 1855. with one publican in the Pensioner Settlements. This case was not allowed to come into Court, but was referred to arbitration. The second is, that a contractor lately obtained a verdict in the same Court against the “ President of the Board of Works,” under the Progress Party, for £3OO damages, in compensation for breach of contract, subject to an arbitration as to the actual damage sustained “ Tim party who had obtained the contract was either on the wrong side of politics for the time, or, what is more probable, had no influence with the voters. One of the disappointe i tenderers for the work in question, belonging to a class of men, who are said, by those best informed on such points, to have one half rf the votes of the Province under their control And he was eminent amongst that influential body —t. publican of the publicans—whose influence was said to be sufficient to turn the scale in any election; and actually, as it is said, did turn the scale in the last election for Superintendent. “It was said that when the contract was taken from the lowest tenderer, it was riven to this publican. But whether from a just indignation against those who could thus drill with the public interests, or whether he w.is sufficient of a lawyer as well as a publican to ‘take provoking bribes with either hand and put them up,’ it is said that ho deserted from Progress, which gave him the contract, to Constitutionalism, and turned the election in favour of our present Superintendent.

“ The General Assembly sets at defiance the Act of T’arli unent which gave it existence, overleaping without scruple toe limits within whicii its powers are circumscribed by positive enactn eil. The l J rovinc : al Governments, in their turn, usurp the functions of the General Assembly, and throw in the teeth of ‘ responsible government’ their scorn of the endeavours of the individuals who constitute that abstract essence, to embarrass the Provincial Government, and the power and determination of that government to do without them ; [See the address of the Superintendent of Wellington to his Provincial Council, 2nd June. 1357.] one Superintendent having brought his Council to a dead lock by foisting a twenty-fifth member amongst the legal twenty-four, sets up for himself, and spends the public money as best suits his own views." Objections have been taken to some of Mr. Busby's statements, but these 1 have re-produced admit neither onjection nor question Thev are statements of fact, which even the Superintendent’s own newspaper dares not assail. PUBLICOLA.