WESTLAND MEMBERS OF THE CANTERBURY COUNCIL.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1373, 23 December 1872, Page 4

WESTLAND MEMBERS OF THE CANTERBURY COUNCIL.

Using the phrase " The Irish Brigade " to represent a number of district representatives, voting in a block, the Lyttdton Times nay b: — In a small way— very small comparatively — the local Legislature of Canterbury has had and has its Irish Brigade. When Westland was an integral portion of the Province — with wants peculiarly its own, and a population between whom and the people on this side Of the range there was and could be little or nd sympathy— the four members who represented it in the Provincial Council were the Irish Brigade of the period. If the Province had been in a highly prosperous condition at the time, instead of being just the reverse ; if the Treasury had been full, and the Government benches worth, storming for, the votes of the Westland members would have been angled for by contending factions with the greatest eagerness and the utmost ingenuity. As it was, whoever happened, so to speak, to be in power had to conciliate the Westland members and to make at least a show of consulting their particular wishes. That period of our history when the Provin.

easily port and the Colonist, lo secure the settlement lands, not the small Hope valley merely,' but the large and promising tracts which lie beyond. Nelson requires a little more alacrity,- for it is a painful fact that while something approaching six thousand immigrants are being despatched to the shores of New Zealand, the name of Nelson does not appear in tho list of Provinces to which those immigrants are accredited. ...