THE SUPERINTENDENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 230, 28 September 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SUPERINTENDENT.

DAYS OF THE PROVINCES. FIRST AUCKLAND ELECTIONS. -, IRISHMEN PEE VAIL, TCf; publish to-flay the second of a EerißS of articles on the Auckland provincial period by Dr. G. H. Scholefield, D.Sc, F.R.HistS., Parliamentarian Librarian. These articles "will cover <ibe main features of the province's history down to the abolition of the provincial system in the 'seventies. The nomination of the Superintendent took place on June 30 at Auckland, Onelunga and Bay of Islands. A good deal of party feeling had been engendered at the previous contests, and it was renewed with interest when the candidates were announced for the new offices. The candidates for the chief magistracy were William Brown (a partner of John Logan Campbell), and Colonel Wynyard, officer commanding the 58th Regiment, and shortly to be called upon as senior military officer to assume the government of the colony. According to the "New Zealander," Hie nomination in Auckland was not associated with that decorum which was observed in some of the other provinces, on the contrary there was "a bearwarden uproar and trampling under foot of all fair play" when the nominators of Wynyard endeavoured to get a hearing. Wynyard, a stout honest soldier of"the old school, felt it to be beneath liis dignity to appear on the hustings and submit to the possibility of unseemly heckling. proposer and seconder had to brave the storm of opposition and strive hard to be heard above the shouts o_f the supporters of "Brown. So upset were they by the scene that they felt it their duty to the constituency to "issue without delay a brief account of the proceedings, knowing that they could not trust to the fidelity of impartiality of the report which would appear in Mr. Brown's own paper." At Onehunga the proceedings were somewhat more friendly. At both places the returning officer declared Wynyard elected on the show of hands, but, of course, a poll was .demanded. In those days the show of hands was a pure formality, the verdict of which was very rarely accepted by the crowd, unless, of course, the crowd did not exceed one glector, as once occurred in Taranaki. "Wynyara Elected. The poll took place "on June SO, resulting in a win for Wynyard by 922 votes to S2O. It was a victory for the Irish, though an Englishman won. Six years earlier, in dose proximity to the city of Auckland, four settlements had been established of N<§e Zealand Fencibles, a body' of retired soldiers of the British Army who emigrated to New Zealand as military settlers to guard the frontier against Maori attacks. A great majority of them were Irishmen; indeed one shipload came direct from Galway. Brown had a majority of 90 votes in the city of Auckland, and 70 in the Bay of Islands; but thY loyalty of the veterans of Otahuhu, Panmure, Howick and Onehunga .carried the day, and the gallant colonel was safely returned. Needless to say, this disclosure led to charges of intimidation on the part of Wynyard. The high feeling engendered during this campaign did not end with the declaration of the poll. Brown proceeded for libel against the proprietors of the opposition journal, of which Williamson, a future superintendent, was one, and was awarded £20. V The Council Elections. •.A month later came the election of the Provincial Council (August, 1853). Auckland at that time contained about 10,000 whites, or a third of the whole white population of New Zealand, and the Auckland Provincial Council was to be the largest in New Zealand. It had twenty-four members, compared, with Wellington's eighteen and Nelson's fifteen. Under the constitution all men over twenty-one years of age who held leaseholds' or freeholds enjoyed the vote; so the pensioners, who had allotments as.a condition of their emigration, had a very solid weight in the voting. Some thought that the power they ■wielded was out of proportion, since there were many industrious and deserving artisans in the city who had no vote simply because they had no property of their own. That election resulted in another triumph for the Irish element in the population. Though much less than onethird of the people of the province were Irish, fully half of the members of the first Council were Irishmen, and some of them very good Irishmen, too. Not even in Westland was the Irish element so strongly represented as in those early days of Auckland. The personnel of the first Council was:— City of Auckland.—Thomas H. Bartley, James T. Boylan, James Derrom, Robert Mitchell, Andrew O'Brien, James O'Neill. Suburbs.—John W. Bain, William Connell, John Anderson Gilfillan, William Field Porter. Northern Division.—Patrick Dignan, Patrick Donovan, James Carlton Hill, Allan O'Neill. Southern Division.—James Dilworth, James Macky, Joseph Newman, William Innes Taylor. Pensioner Settlements. —Joseph Brenuan, Francis Charles Lewis, William Powditch, John Williamson. Bay of Islands.—James Busby, George Clarke. Twelve Irishmen, eight Englishmen, four Scots. The Council Meets. The meeting of the Council was the next step in the establishment of government. The Superintendent announced in the "Provincial Gazette" that he "purposes to meet the Council assembled at the building in Official Bay called the Council 'Chamber, on Tuesday, the 18th" (October). Taranaki. and Canterbury had held their inaugural meetings in the previous month, and Canterbury, led by the dignified Fitzgerald, had pointed the way to most of the provinces in the due observance of ceremonial to inspire the public with a sense of the solemnity of the occasion. Not that Auckland was likely to be lacking in. this respect, for it,had battened for thirteen years upon the varying punctilio of a succession of governors and legislative councils until the man in the street had a very good idea what to expect.