THE NELSON SUPERINTENDENCY ELECTION.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1648, 15 November 1873, Page 2

THE NELSON SUPERIN TENDENCY ELECTION.

MR O'CONOR AT COBDEN.

On Thursday evening. Mr P^C.onor,.one of the candidates for the Superintendency of Nelspn, addressedf jthe electors of Cobden district, for the second time, at the Schopl -House, •.Gobdeja.— rl^«E|^?»-" a good attendance. Mr: Tindali was called to the chair, and introduced Mr' O'Conor, who-said that when he last addressed the electors in that room he did not intend to come before them again until after the election, but circumstances had since transpired which convinced him that it was.his duty to do so. He had found the opportunity of paying them a hurried visit, in. order to make certain explanations, jbecauße he found that in contesting thjs election, the ordinary weapons' used on' such occasions were not employed. His opponent, had adopted the courseof making statements about him, ■< which were lUtterly. at variance, with the -truth, , and y the ? Press , of Nelson, with ihei exception ( .;9f ro| the " Colonist "— which.had acted throughoiit this contest 'in 'a manner creditable'to- it as a newspaper— had done everything in their power to injure and misrepresent him. The ; " Examiner"' arid :"Mail" were at the beck and call of Mr.'.Cui^u, and would go any length to injure ;him. He. did think, at the commencement. jot this contest, that these papers would, have given both: sides J of , the;question,-!and<at the same time expressed their own viewa on the election, which he ; expected ; would be against him in every possible way, but he never imagined that they would go the length they had done to injure his chances in this, contest. Those were the weapons Mr Curtis was using iii this election. He also noticed that the Pres'froi Greymouth wAsfollo wing the same"coTirse. They charged him "with beirig "personal and abusive, and did so ia, language which : ; was not gentlemanly He Had only to refer ■ them to an article' in the "Evening Star" of that night, copied from.the Nelson c Examiner" of , the 7th November, which showed the length these people would go to support their candidate. It was an article that stopped to low personal , abuse, that attempted to raise a feeling of nationality, putting man against man, .which fneyer ought r tp be done in such a community as this. He V strongly condemned such a course, and % was sure that hundreds would, withdraw their support from Mr Curtis : for adopting such a line of conduct. The conduct of the Nelson "Examiner " throughout this contest had been very"bad, ; and ; he could only characterise^ the r chariacter; of the editor of that •journal as a political bully. While in Nelson he held : the largest meeting ever held there. The " Colonist' jr said the, numbers present were from 300 to 400, but~he~was sure there was over: 1000 •> present, as the hall was measured the .. following, j day, and there was ; not standing I room enough for the 'people. jJdi ! these facts ,were suppressed by ; the Nelson papers, they were misrepresented !in order to deceive people at a distance, and that was the reason why he came to caution them against believing the. reports ithey saw in these.: papers...., .A. large.. ma-, ijority of those present at that meeting.

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were in his favor, and he referred especially to the remarks made on that occasion by Mr Harley. -Referring to the meetings he had held throughout the Pro- , yince, he said that at every one of them, •with the exception of the Ahaura, he had received either votes of confidence or thanks. Even at Richmond, where Mr Curtis could not find, a person to move a vote of confidence in him; they passed a vote in favor of him (Mr O'Cdnor), and everywhere he had been well received. Buttheso facts had been suppressed, and when the Press of the country stooped to misrepresent matters of thab sorb, he thought it was his duty to call the attention of the electors to it. They were supposed to be the recorders of public opinion, but it was his duty to point out that they were not faithful recorders of public events as they occurred. With regard to the Grey River Argus, the' editor, Mr Alexander Reid, had long been a political enemy of his. He did think that in this contest that gentleman would 'bury his personal feelings, and he cer- ' tainly never imagined he would support Mr Curtis ; but now he found that he was not only a supporter of Mr Curtis, but also of Ms Ring. Let them read the Argus of yesterday or the previous day, and they would find plenty of quotations in favor of Mr Curtis, but not a ■word in his favor. These were not exponents of public opinion, they were conducted under personal feelings, not on public grounds, and that accounted for the foul venom with which they chose to cover him. Mr Alexander Reid had been writing against him for the last four years. On the occasion of i the last election for Westport that gentleman said it would be a public calamity if he (Mr O'Conor) was returned. His constituents did not think so, as they had rejoiced ever since that he had been returned. But it was an unhappy day when Mr Reid was elected. After the session that gentleman did not dare to come before his constituents. Mr Reid tookabillet trader Mr Gwrtis's administration, outof which he(MrO'Conor)snon dislodged him. He cautioned his hearers not to accept the newspapers as exponents of public opinion, because he found that in every, instance in which his name had been mentioned, they had not been truthful hitherto, and he could not expect them to be so now. They dare not publish his speeches delivered in the House of Representatives. He had always been misrepresented by them ; it had become a habit with them, and he supposed they could not help it. As a sample, on the previous night he held a meeting at Charleston, #at which he received a unanimous vote of confidence, nut in the telegrams published that night, curiously enough, the word " unanimous" was left out. The agent of the telegraphic association in Nelson, Mr Blundell, he had stigmatised on several occasions, because he had. always sent false reports cf his meetings in Nelson. They could hot depend upon the reports in the Nelson papers or the telegrams sent here ; but as he said before, the " Colonist" had taken the only true side in the contest ; there ■was nothing untruthful to be found in their, reports. He congratulated Mr Curtis on the support he was receiving from the Press, but with regard to the Aegus and "Evening Star" of Greymouth, he would tell them that they could not influence the election by ten votes. He defied them to do their worst, but he hoped that they would do so in an open straightforward manner, and not in the underhand way in which it was at present being done. He then referred at some : length to extracts which had been given from Mr Curtis's speeches, published in the local papers, regarding the now famous Westport Land Purchase case, the facts in connection with which have been frequently published. He detailed the whole transaction, and complained of the mannar in which he was treated throughout it by Messrs Reid, Donne,, Luckie, and others, so far as the Provincial Council was' concerned. In that case J. M. Langdon made a statutory declaration which Mr Reid brought down to Westport after him, but the price of that declaration was the Inangahua Ferry. It was Mr Reid's conspiracy to deprive him of his good character and good name. When he brought the matter before the House of Representatives a committee of 13 was formed from both sides of the House to investigate it. Messrs Reid and Donne then telegraphed chat they had evidence to give, in order to prevent the committee from coming to a decision, and a lawyer ■was engaged to prosecute him before that committee. He produced his evidence and papers, and the result was that the committee reported that there was no blame attached to him in the matter, and in the House even Mr Luckie expressed himself satisfied with the result. It was no time now for Mr Curtis to turn round and rake this up against him, when 13 of the most prominent and honorable gentlemen in the House 1 of Representatives had fully investigated the facts and had exonerated him from all blame. He then referred to another statement made by Mr Curtis regarding his (OCbnor's) application for a coal lease at Mount Rochfort, and denied the statement that his application ever went before the Waste Lands Board, or that it contained anything in his handwriting with , regard to the request to retain the whole 114,000 acres in his hands for two years to tbe exclusion of all others. The notes to that effect were in the handwriting of the Superintendent. Mr Curtis had asked at a meeting if that affair had been cleared up, and he would ask had the Wangapeka affair ever been cleared up ? In order to show that he was free of all blame in this matter he read a report regarding it which he brought before, the Provincial Council. Mr Curtis had also charged him with something which, if true, would prove that he was a very unjust man, when ite said that he (O'Connor) would take the whole of the revenue from the other side of the Province and speud it on the Gold-fields, but in order to show how utterly, false this ■was he read a series of resolutions he had moved in the Council last session regarding the appropriation of the revenue It was' not fair or just for the Chief Magistrate of a Province to go on a platform and make. statements such as those he had leferred to, and he would not be doing his duty if he allowed such imputations orihis character to pass unchallenged. Mr Curtis had said at his meeting at Motu.eka that he (O'Conor) had advocated that miners should have a vote for the Superintendent, but. would he tell the electors in the Grey Valley that? Mr Curtis had always opposed that, and also the reduction of tne gold duty. Would he tell that, and also that he would not support the Provincial Loans Bill, and

rather than vote on it walked out of the House. He had been blamed by Mr Curtis for having no policy, but his policy was to obtain an honest and energetic Executive to assist him in administering the affairs of the Province ; he would give up his whole time to the duties of the office, and would endeavor to obtain money by loan for large public works, and to carry out small works out of the ordinary revenue. He would look after the interests of the majority of the people instead of a select few. If elected, he would endeavor to see that the miners should nob have to do so much dancing attendance on the Wardens. He would sorapel the Wardens to do their dutj. Mr Curtis had promised that if re - elected he would re - construct his Executive; but the reconstitution by Mr Curtis and by Mr O'Conor meant two very different things. At present the Executive consisted almost entirely of Mr Curtis and Mr Greenfield, and both of these would go out, but Mr Curtis would simply add some element to his Executive which, like a bad team of horses, would not pull together, or even keep the traces tight. As the Press had not reported his meetings, he would mention that since being last in Cobden, he had visited every district between Cobden and Nelson, and everywhere, with the exception of Ahaura, he had leceived either votes of con Gdence or votes of thanks. In conclusion, he would say that he was now placed in this position — he was dependent upon the people, and Mr Curtis was dependent upon the Press. He was quite willing to accept the position, but he asked everyone at the meeting to remember what the conduct of the Press had been. Had it been just to the public, or useful to the country ? He had been called a political charlatan, a caliban, and many other names, but he defied any of these newspapers to show in what manner he had ever departed from his allegiance to his constituents. He accepted their opposition in the same light as the scurrility that would flow from an old hag. He asked them to take his speeches from "Hansard" and judge for themselves by his past conduct, and also by the past conduct of Mr Curtis. He did not ask the support of any" man on the nationality cry. He would be the last man to raise such a cry, and if he thought that his election depended upon it, he would not accept the position it gained in such a manner. (The speech was frequently interrupted by loud cheering). After a number of questions had been asked and answered, Mr Stone moved a vote of confidence in Mr O'Conor as Superintendent of the Province nf Nelson.

Mr Boase seconded the motion, because he thought that for the future they wanted a reality, not a sham ; and they had had a sham for a Superintendent for the last seven years. The vote was carried unanimously. Mr O'Conor returned thanks, and moved the usual vote to the chair, after which the meeting dispersed.