TO THE ELECTORS OF NAPIER.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 293, 31 July 1865, Page 2

TO THE ELECTORS OF NAPIER.

We are on the eve of another election, for the representation of this town in the Provincial Council, consequent on the resignation of Mr Colenso. This gentleman threw up bis seat for the purpose of expressing his dissent from the measures of the Government during the sederunt just come to a close, and to register his disapproval of the miserable exhibition they made as legislators and men of political probity. He reposed his entire confidence in you, and we earnestly hope that you will with equal generosity reciprocate it by returning him once again to represent you. Strange as it may appear, there would be no genuine opposition to the Government in the Council except for the town members. Government dummies are rife witnin the walls of the hous«, —men who, when a division is called for, and who, before deciding what part of the room they will go to, have first to watch how the leaders turn. It is for you to say whether this a wholesome state

of things or not. Whether a b jdy of British legislators should sink to such a level and be tolerated by a free-thinking and enlightened public. Many there are amongst us who would willingly and cheerfully aid the Government in all their undertakings, and ceaseto offer any obstacle to the ...carrying out of their measures, if we could but see them act honestly and straightforwardly;—if we could but discern that their conduct was actuated by anything but the most selfish causes. Every day, however, divulges more and more its paltry practices, and even worse than paltry, which are unnecessary to particularise —the whole having been so fully laid before the public. It is, therefore, necessary that those who are thoroughly able to keep them in check should have a seat in the Council, and there is none so much so as William Colenso, Esq., notwithstanding all the barefaced and disgracefully false statements which have been made of him by the anonymous correspondent in the Herald, who, there is no doubt, is Mr Ormond. Be it remembered that he has combated the people’s rights in many a hard-fought field. That he has acted as our champion when there was none to help, and when, but for him, Napier would have been sacrificed to the squatocratic interest. Remember that he is a scholar—a deep-read politician and an able statesman. No man has ever lost a shilling by him. This cannot be said of one whom the Government party are about to force into the Council, if they can. Deficient in ability, education, and good manners, it would indeed be a burlesque upon representative institutions if he, like Barrabas, should bo the chosen one. Remember too, how cruelly some of the working men of the town and their families were once treated by one who refused to pay them what the sweat of their brow had earned, although they were the means of his receiving payment from the Government. Be not thrown off your guard by the fact of no Government candidate yet having been publicly brought forward. The party whose interest it is to pack the Council have been for many days stealthily trying to get votes pledged. Be up and doing, therefore, and for the fifth or sixth time again— YOTE FOR COLENSO !!!