The Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, 18th DECEMBER, 1865. THE REQUISITION TO Mr M'LEAN.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 333, 18 December 1865, Page 2

The Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, 18th DECEMBER, 1865. THE REQUISITION TO Mr M'LEAN.

Exceedingly perverse is our much-respected contemporary in its misrepresentations of our statements. Unable to say one word in defence of the deceptive document by which many of the electors of Napier have been ensnared or to deny the facts we have brought forward, it accuses us of caviling at the grammatical construction of the requisition itself, which is by no means true. It may or maynotbe grammatically faultless, we neither say nor have said one word on this subject. We admit indeed that extraordinary care was bestowed on its composition, so as most successfully to disguise the iutention of its concoctors, and convey an impression very different from its meaning. This is no slender ground ; it is a rather broad basis we think, and a safe one too.

The facts are simply these, —under the disguise of a complimentary testimonial to Mr M‘Lean for services rendered to the Province, as its Superintendent, to unseat and supplant Mr W. Colenso, our present representative in the General Assembly. If those parties who wish to see such a result brought about had acted in a straightforward way, and made their wishes known to the electors and endeavored to accomplish their end by reason and argument, there would have been no ground for complaint, but it was not so. We have already exposed the deceitful nature of the requisition on several occasions in a manner as unanswerable as it is unanswered, and it is the most preposterous excuse imaginable to pretend that the reason of its Jesuitical character is to be found in its concoctors’ inability to write in accordance with the rules of English Grammar.