Correspondence.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 1001, 25 April 1871, Page 2

Correspondence.

[We do not in any way identify ourselves with the opinions of correspondents.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HAWKE'S BAY TIMES. Sjr,—T am not a little surprised in reading in your paper of yesterday the following, viz. ; <' According to the custom of the Hawke's Bay Council, (which we believe differs in ihis respect from every other Assembly in the Colony) the first part of the business was conducted with closed doors, and it was not until after prayers that the public were admitted."

Surely j r oii, both as an old Journalist and settler, ought to know, that the contrary is the case ! That the Legislative Council, the House of Representatives, and the other Provincial Councils, where there is (mark!) Daily Prayers, never open the gallery to the public until prayers are over. Even members and officers of the Assembly, if they are not in their places when the Speaker quietly takes the chair without any notice, are also invariably locked out.

There, immediately after Prayers, is daily to be heard, the sonorous voice of the Sergeant-at-arms to the A r arious doorkeepers, "Unlock the doo.s" Just so, heie, the messenger of our Provincial Council was directed by the Speaker immediately after prayers to throw open the doors to the public. Of course, the gallery here on this occasion might have been at first thrown open, to enable the public to hear the Returning Officer in a very few words tell the members that all was right; and to see a temporary Chairman and the Speaker elected, (which might Jiave also been done in equally as shoit and as formal a manner,) —but, would such have been altogether a wise step, seeing that the gallery would then have to be cleared for so short a space as that of the offering of one short Prayer?

I am, <fec., William. Colenso. Napier, April 25, 1871, [We have been misinformed, it appears, regarding the practice of other legislative bodies in this Colony, and the precedent above quoted is certainly sufficient to show that the business was not conducted in an irregular manner. But we still fail to see the object of the exclusion of the public during the preliminary service.—Ed.]