THE Grey River Argus PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1345, 20 November 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus PUBLISHED DAILY. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1872.

Nearly a page of the Nelson Colonist of the 15th inst. is devoted to a reproduction in print of the speech made to hi 3 constituents by Mr Joseph Shephard, who occupies, as we begin to think, the irreconcileable positions of member of the Waimea districts and Treasurer for the entire Province of Nelson. Received only at a late hour last night, it has been impossible for us to make more than a hurried perusal of this lengthy report, or to completely master the peculiar logic of Mr Shepherd's arguments on subjects which are of some interest from a purely Wesb Coast point of view. We discover, however, sufficient in the speech as reported to confirm an early expressed opinion that Mr Shephard was only capable of showing a very weak case in defence of his antagonism to Mr Fox, and in defence of the vote by which he assisted to oust the Ministry cf which that hon. gentleman was Premier. There are but two salient points in what we shall call Mr Shepherd's apologies for the coutse he pursued on that occasion, and these are Mr Fox's alleged desire to disrupt the Province of Nelson, and some mismanagement and delay in matters preliminary to the promotion of that doubtfully profitable undertaking the Foxhill Railway. Mr Sbephard, fortunately, and wisely does not dare to repeat the ridiculous and unjustifiable insinuation that Mr Fox -visited the West Coast in the character of a firebrand, and for the purpose of stirring up strife between the people and their so-called Superintendent. He is now cool enough, though not more correct, to say that " pernicious and {also views were forced " upon Mr Fox, not forced by Mr Fox upon the inhabitants of the South- West Gold Fields, aud he is courteous enough to confess, what he should never h&ve questioned, that " Mr Fox's integrity of purpose was undoubted, and that all must admit that his mistakes (?) were honest mistakes." This is refreshing and somewhat sweet unction to the soul after the bitter statements made by Mr Shephard regarding Mr Fox at an early stage of the session. Mr Shephard, however, still bases his estimate of the grievances of the inhabitants 'of the West Coast upon such defective examination as a man is capable of making who prepares himself for the task by quietly closing his eyes, stuffing his ears, and imbuing himself with the belief that all men with a grievance are given to acting "insidiously and from interested motives." Imitating the precedent of one of the West Coast members, he illustrated his speech by a map of the Province, exhibiting Nelson and its surroundings in ruby red, the Amuri district in sugges.tive blue, and the West Coast districts in still moro suggestive yellow — indicative of their forsaken or infected condition, according to the lively fancy of ' the rustic audience to whose mental capacity he adapted himself by this mixed form of ocular and aural demonstration ; and he moralised upon this map by stating, or implying, that to have divided the Province into these red, blue, and yellow spota would have been incomparably worse than to have maintained it under the dull leaden hue which would so appropriately represent its condition of enforcod depression. As Mr Shephard literally put it, to have permitted either of these divisions would have been to have allowed the virtual extinguishment of Nolson, and, " as it seemed quite clear to him that if Mr Fox were removed from power their Province wa3 comparatively safe, thus it waß that he had voted against Mr Fox." Put it as he might! it was impossible for Mr Shephard to exhibit that the "extin-

guishinont" would have been other than that of a mere name, and, though guiltless of any originality in asking the question, we imagine that in this case we can with propriety and pertinence ask, " What's inanrme?" It is unnecessary to follow Mr Shephard through his remarks on the subject of the Foxhill Railway ; as member for Waimea he was entitled to make much of it before a Waimea audience ; but it is anomalous, though nothing new, that .neither he, as Treasurer, nor Mr Curtis, as Superintendent, is ever given to making much of the Mount Rochfort or Brunnerton Railway ; it is Nelson that receives consideration, and Nelson in the most limited sense of the name. Referring to his second anti-Ministerial vote, Mr Shephard makes a fair enough explanation, such as we had anticipated, and he has been sufficiently apt in me- 1 raory and ingenuity to discover a precedent for the course he to<Jk in a vote by Mr Oswald Curtis. His explanation commences with words so closely resembling what we have said on the same subject that, in compliment to our own opinion, we are entitled to quote them. "Many persons," he said, " seemed to think that those who voted against Mr Fox were bound to vote with' Mr Stafford, but that was a position which he (Mr Shephard) had set hia foot against. He did not and could not admit that New Zealand had only two men fit to hold the position of Premier, or that the Government must, necessarily pass into the hands of one or the other on the occasion of each political defeat. But this had been assumed and acted upon for so many years that people had really bagun to think there could be no one else fit for -the position of Premier, and these two gentlemen had also come to think the same. In rejecting one he had not by any means said he was prepared only to receive the other, because he objected equally to both." Upon this subject, Mr Shephard elaborated, as he did on others more intimately connected with West Coast interests, and, occupying the position he does, his remarks deserve further notice which for the present we must postpone, premising that, while he makes what may be a sufficiently satisfactory statement to his Waimea constituents, he is far from satisfying us that he is not too much a member for Waimea and too little of a minister of the interests of the Province as a whole.