CORRESPONDENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 78, 3 July 1852, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times.

Sin, —As I do not agree with many of the remarks contained in your Leading Article of last Saturday, and certainly am not prepared to act on your advice " to abstain from inscribing my name on the Electoral Roll," as directed in the Proclamation just issued by the Governor-in-Chief, you will perhaps allow me briefly to explain the reasons that have led me to arrive at this decision, and why I would venture to lecommend my Fellow Colonists to adopt the same course. And first, lam anxious that I may not be misunderstood on this question. I will yield to no one in my attachment to the cause of real freedom. I am as anxious for representative institutions and for real SelfGovernment as you, Sir, or any one else can he. I have already protested against many of the provisions of the Provincial Councils' Ordinance, nor am I any move prepared to accept it now than I ever have been. Once for all I may be allowed to say that I shall never be content ■with anything short of the Representative institutions to which we have been accustomed in our native country, and I shall always be ready to take part in any well matured movement to secure this object. It is because Ido not consider the course you recommend as at all calculated to attain that end that I decline to adopt It.

What is it we are called on by tins Proclamation to do ? As I understand it, nothing more than to qualify ourselves to vote—it may be under the obnoxious Provincial Councils' Ordinance, or it maybe under such a Constitution as the Imperial Parliament shall decide on giving; us. To quote the language of the Circular Letter addressed to the Resident Magistrate, and accompanying the Proclamation, " The only object at present contemplated is to secure the formation of the Electoral Roll, and to give all persons in each Settlement, entitled to such a privilege, an opportunity of having their names placed upon such Roll in time for the approaching Elections; and every requisite arrangement will have been made, to prevent delay in the introduction, on the arrival of the Instructions before alluded to, of Representative Institutions in the precise form which Parliament will have decided upon giving them." Thefranchise fixed is liberal, and on the whole I believe is admitted to be unobjectionable. Then what harm do I do by registering and qualifying myself to vote ? lam under no obligation to use the power thus acquired if I do not like ; and it is simply absurd to say that my inscribing my name on the Electoral Roll commits me to an approval of all the provisions of the Provincial Councils' Ordinance. I take the power and the privilege that is offered me, and I shall use it, or not,~as I think right, and as I shall consider may best promote the cause I have at heart.

But what if, on the other hand, like petulant sulky children—(who can't have all they want at once) —we stand up in a comer and say we won't have anything at all to do with it? Whose nose do we bite but our own ? You will get no unanimous concurrence in such a course, and if not unanimous your object, such as it is, is frustrated. The Electoral Roll, whether many or few, will still consist of those who have inscribed their names, and no account will be taken of those who have failed to do so. You will in fact have plaoed yourself in a false position, and will allow yourself to be stalemated.

Let us suppose that about the middle of August next, Instructions come out horn home giving us a Constitution such as we desire, but leaving, as is not at all improbable, the details for working; it, such as this Proclamation proposes to deal with, entirely with the Local Government. You have neglected to qualify, and therefore you cannot vote. In what position are you ? You will clamour and make an outcry of course ; but what reply will you receive, or to what other, indeed, will you be entitled, but a polite conge from the authorities, reminding you that you would not qualify when you might, and therefore if you cannot vote, that you have only yourself to thank for it. I say nothing of the manifest duty of all loyal and peaceable citizens, not to say Christians, to yield due obedience to the laws and to the powers that be and not to take part in any movement even for the redress of grievances, that does not confine itself to the use of constitutional means. I say

[ it is our best policy and our greatest wisdom j under the circumstances, to obey this Proclamation. Let us not show ourselves boys and children in playing out the great game that is before us. It was not thus that the great cause of freedom and constitutional liberty was fought by our fathers. Let us fight, if indeed we must needs fight, with constitutional weapons. There will be nothing gained by an attempt at factious opposition. There is another view of the subject. If we are indeed to be disappointed in our justly raised expectations, if the Provincial Councils' Ordinance, with all its obnoxious provisions, is to be forced on us, and if we must needs have recourse to an organized system of agitation to gain our rights (which I hope and believe there will be no occasion for) you have in this Electoral Eoll, ready provided for you, the basis on which to form a legally constituted Society, with which, better than any other you can devise, you will be able to work. In the recent attempt to establish a universal Colonists Society for this same end, the Council of the Society of Land Purchasers found their great, indeed insuperable, difficulty to lie in fixing the franchise. This difficulty is now removed, and an expression of opinion on any public question emanating from a Body so constituted could no longer be ignored by the Government. The proper time for action against the Provincial Councils' Ordinance, if it is attempted to be carried out, would I conceive be the day of Nomination. Then if, as is by some thought probable, no person can be found who will allow himself to be nominated, your Protest against such an Ordinance, which virtually disfranchises a whole Constituency, will be; a powerful and unanswerable one. If, on the other hand, it shall be determined to return as Representatives men who will consent to stand, take care that they are such as you can depend on. And I confess I have a higher opinion of the men among us than the " Guardian" seems to have, and do not believe, as that Paper appears to think, that there are none among us who may not, and will not be " bought over." Let these members, if it shall be so decided, go to the Council. They will at least be to the Nomiuees as 2 to 1; and if they are honest and true men it can hardly be but that they will in the end secure by a course of legitimate opposition the objects for which we are struggling. At all events there is something manly and intelligible in a course of opposition such as this. The mode of proceeding you recommend appears to me crude and childish. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your very obedient servant, W. G. Brittan. Christchureh, June 22, 1852.