LAWRENCE.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2516, 10 March 1871, Page 2

LAWRENCE.

(fliuM AN OCCASIONAL, CORRESPONDENT.)

March fi,

The excitement attending the Superintendent’s election can lie hardly said yet to have subsided. The vanquished have paid their bets, and try to look pleasant; but it is very hard upon their galled withers. They made so sure of. their man, and had reckoned so safely upon various little local arrangements contingent upon his return, that the shock was too much for their nervous system when, in spite of the very heavy vote for lleid in the district, Macao drew was triumphantly returned. The only consolation left is the usual consolation of the defeated in elections —the great word “ if ” : “ if it had not been for says one; “if it had not been for Dunedin,” says another ; “if Switzers had not sold us,” says a third ; and so they sing the changes. The great political firm of Brown and Bastings may rule—and perhaps does, to a great extent, rule —our district, but it has signally failed in attempting to diefate to the Province. The influence of these gentlemen is undoubtedly great, and their return to the Provincial Council certain ; and yet it is eery difficult to comprehend upon what this influence is based. Outside the Hundreds Regulations

Act Mr Brown has never expressed a politica opinion ; and while advocating the construction of a railway to this place, has by his votes in the Council and in the House of Representatives done all he could to prevent the construction of any railways at all. If he has any principle in tln-s c matters, it is simply an unreasoning hatred of Mr Vogel and Mr Macandrew, whose particular friend he was in 1867, when he made his celebrated tour through the goldfields to seize the buildings suppose'd to belong to the Provincial Government. Mr Bastings has been in politics before, and was not considered a success. He is personally very popular, and has consequently been our Mayor year after year since we bad a municipality ; he brews most excellent beer, which may perhaps be as good a reason as any other for voting for him. Mr Matthew Hay. who held a seat in the last Council, is likely, it is said, to come forward; but he has no chance whatever : his advocacy of Mr Macandrew ■' t the late election would ensure his defeat here, even if he had been a popular man before; he will therefore have to conso e himself with the now suits and hats he is reported to have annexed upon the result of tile contest. The seat in the Council for Waitahuna seemed for a long time to be coing begging, but a local man is now in the field, and there is a t ilk of others by the nomination day. Mr Bradshaw will have a close light for Switzers, as this part of the Wakaia district is Mr Dean’s stronghold, and local influences are at work to secure his return. What qualities for a legislator the electors can see in him, it is difficult to imagine. A more shallow pretentious talker was never heard even upon a Provincial Hustings. Mr Haughton, of the Lakes, has been here to make cnquiiies about the water supply in the district; and has met the miners upon several occasions. The Blue Spur men seem not at all pleased because little hope was given them of Government buying up (heir interests, and they row declare the whole thing a bit of election bunkum, in which many here are inclined t i agree with them. However it is a pleasant trip for Mr Haughton, who generally appears to come in for these kind of things.