THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, JAN. 15, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 81, 15 January 1863, Page 2

THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, JAN. 15, 1863.

Our General Election of members of the Provincial Council is at an end ; and we have to chronicle that that event has passed off in a manner showing, at a time when we should have been roused into energetic action, the apathy and indifference engendered in a people by long familiarity with good and sound Government. We cannot, however, join in this indifference on the part of the electors, neither can we find the cause of it in the contemplation of a successful past, a satisfactory present, or a still more hopeful future. This cold indifference to the result

of the elections is bad, and indicates a more unhealthy and disordered state of the electoral body, to which the powerful remedy of Provincial difficulties amassed into a prodigious heap will alone afford a cure. This sleepy state of affairs, when we should be wide awake, makes us look very absurd to say the least of it, for no sooner is the election over and the Council met, than to our horror and dismay we discover that in the most unaccountable manner just the very fifteen men we Lad most desired in our waking moments to see anywhere but in the Council, have stept in to our undoing. Under these discouraging circumstances, the eyes of an influential section of this community are turned with confident expectation to Mr. McLean, of New Zealand notoriety, as the pilot to weather the storm ; and as our esteemed contemporary the Herald, as the organ of that class and to his own entire satisfaction has settled that that gentleman shall be the next Superintendent, it becomes of some interest to discuss the claims of the fortunate individual to our confidence, and to discover, if possible, the grounds upon which that enlightened journal founds its high opinion of Mr. McLean. Taking, as we do, another view of the case, and looking back through the longvista of past years, we are compelled to confess that we cannot discover any great incident or number of minor incidents in the public career of Mr. D. McLean which can identify him in our own mind as possessed of those qualities which would entitle him to any special note as a ruler of men. True, he has for many years governed the Natives of these Islands, or at all events he has administered such government, or form of no government as has been ingeniously devised by a succession of astonishing statesmen for the utter and hopeless confounding of this interesting race; and has further, for the matter of that, when he found it practically convenient, purchased from these same Natives, when in a sufficiently confused condition to warrant the attempt, sundry blocks of most unagricultural land, and in fact has been the great paying medium between us and them. In that responsible capacity, lie appears to us also to represent a system of reckless extravagance which lias often astonished, but more generally utterly bewildered, the beholders, rather than an enlightened and wise system of Government, which would have entitled him to the admiration of this and succeeding generations of both races. It would, in our opinion, be difficult to find any other branch of the public service in which so lavish and prodigal an expenditure of public moneys has been unrestrainedly carried on, with so little to show for it, and without even the gratification of having made an impression in the obdurate mind of the Aboriginal Native, or rendered the department in anyway remarkable for its efficiency and zeal in the discharge of its duties. That department, on the contrary, has become a bye-word in the mouths of men, and the finger of scorn is pointed at it as the most lamentable specimen of helpless languor to be found in a land abounding in that cheering article throughout all its public departments. We have no wisli to be severe upon Mr. McLean and his administration, cither past, present, or future ; but, wc by no means think it a desirable state of things that a a man should be chosen to take us out of the land of Egypt, without his qualifications for that arduous task being well ventilated, for should matters after all turn out unsatisfactory, it would be small comfort to assert that we were quite sure that a disastrous state of things would of necessity result from our blindly following, nothing doubting, the individual in question. And yet again, seeing that we are not unanimous in hailing Mr. McLean as the realisation in the flesh of the coming man, it is well for that gentleman, before entering upon the duties of the office already cut and dried for him, to bear in mind that he is carefully and critically

watched by a large and important section of the community, and that that section is by no means disposed to bow down and worship the golden image which the Hawke’s Bay Herald in print hath set up.