To the Electors of Lyttelton.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 126, 4 June 1853, Page 11

To the Electors of Lyttelton.

Gentlemen, X would not intrude on your attention at -*- .' the present time, only the report of the " Great Public Meeting" of Saturday fortnight, as published in the Lyttelton Times, renders it imperative (in self-defence) my ansAvering the same, or my silence might be construed into an admission of the state- . ments ingeniously set forth in the report to give a false colouring to the meeting, to mislead the absent electors and persons in other parts of the colony. A Meeting was called by Mr. White, the Secretary of Mr. Fitzgerald's Committee, of to- hear Mr. Fitzgerald give his :.viewsipri'various important public matters. "With this meeting me or my friends had ''hothilig'whatever to do with, and my pre^'V^^'e^c§vq'.^.,interference with it would properly be considered as indecent. However, this view did not please Mr. F. or his chairman, who made illiberal remarks on my absenting myself from the meeting, more particularly ,my acceding to the requisition to come forward as a candidate without writing to Mr. :F. and 'obtaining his sanction to my so doing first. "From, the unjustifiable remarks made against me, some of my friends sent forme, and acquainted me with the proceedings. On entering the room, I perceived about 30 persons assembled, and Mr. Birch, the chairman of Mr. Fitzgerald's Committee, presiding as chairman over this Public Meeting. Mr. F. was speaking, and he repeated some of the charges he had so considerately made against me .in roy absence —that I had acted dishonourably by appearing as a candidate, having signed his Requisition, In reply to this part of his attack, —when his Requisition was signed, he did not announce his intention of seeking . .the paid office of Superintendant, and so .hold,the two offices." It is well known the ■. duties of the Executive and Representative v are wholly incompatible, and ought not, on any pretence whatever, to be filled by the same gentleman. If the Superintendant can leave this Settlement for two or three months at a time, there can exist no necessity for the office, as, during the absence of the Superintendant, no officer of the Government can receive his salary or tradesman his bill. Our representative would be attending a " Divan" of Superintehdants at Wellington or Auckland, instead of attending to his duties; where, if his services are of any value, they would be required; but by what reasoning Mr. Fitzgerald can arrive at the conclusion that I have no right to appear as a candidate lamat a loss to guess; or, by •^ the same reasoning, what right has he to the services, of half of his Committee, Messrs. Allwright, Deny, and Pratt, those persons haying, signed my Requisition ? At the meeting Mr. Fitzgerald used these remarkable words ; (he told them fairly and frankly).-—" he would not be their representative iif he was to be fettered and hampered with,,pledges.:", immediately after, in reply to a question-from Mr. Wright about the completion of the Sumner-road, Mr. F. said it wpuld rest with the Members of the Provincial Council to complete that work; and he recommended the electors to vote for no man unless pledged to that object : he then entered into a considerable amount of twaddle about my being one of Sir George Grey's nominees. Gentlemen, I have no wish.or desire to say anything disrespectful of .Mr. Fitz Gerald, but the Chairman of his Election Committee and his Public I Meeting, having devoted three columns of the paper to Mr. Fitz Gerald, generously bestowed eleven or twelve lines on me to place me in a contemptible light before the electors. I do not feel much surprise at his doing so, when it is considered that Mr. "F. was a] long time the editor of the paper, and is at one of the trustees of the

same ; but common fairness ought to have induced the present editor to publish what I did say on the occasion, or, omit any mention of me at all. But Mr. F. charging me with being a Nominee, comes with a bad grace from a man who has held a situation under Government in London, and under Sir George Grey in Lyttelton, was Emigration Agent to the Association, and is a Candidate for a paid and an unpaid office, while your humble servant never received one shilling from Government, only for goods supplied, and refused a . valuable appointment for his son. I commenced my political debut 24 years ago, as a citizen of London, and a Member of Bridge Ward Inquest (who hold office 12 months), and singly defeated the attempt to handover some poor families to the Court of Aldermen, they being non-freemen, for prosecution, their having infringed the charter by selling milk, &c, a portion of the inquest being common councilmen, and refused to include the wholesale dealers in the presentment. I was President of the Engineers, Smiths, and Machinists, of the Western District of London. During the - existence of the Trades Union, I was also a Member of the National Union to carry the Reform Bill, and assisted by every means in my power, in the popular movements to obtain the abolition of slavery and Catholic emancipation, with the exception of chartism,which I always considered as a disgraceful scheme of the Government to keep up excitement, to prevent the Liberal Members of Parliament obtaining reduction in the oppressive taxation of the country. The limits of a letter will not allow me to go into particulars. Perhaps the following may be deemed sufficient.

Nearly 13 years since in Wellington I called the. first public meeting in consequence of the treatment the emigrants received, and the meeting succeeded in improving the condition of the newly arrived emigrants and getting a drunken Emigration Agent discharged. -

' Mr. John Wade and myself collected the evidence of the outrages of the police office when New Zealand was a dependence of New South Wales, and this colony was ruled by the laws of a penal settlement. Few of the Canterbury settlers have any knowledge of the oppression under which the earlier settlers laboured from both home and local Governments, and privations they were subjected to by fire,-earthquakes, and native rebellion; as a member of the community I did my duty to advance the condition of. the working classes and the best interests of the settlement, assisted at every meeting to obtain free institutions, with the spirited and unflinching men of Wellington.

In taking leave of Mr. Fitz Gerald for the present, I again repeat, from the latest information from the other settlements, there is the gratifying fact of the Candidates in every instance advocating cheap land. ' ",

Should the Canterbury Province be deprived of the benefits resulting from the stream of emigration of a superior character, which the reduction of the price of waste land will create, the older settlements will reap the benefit; instead of a large influx of people and property, this settlement^will remain stationary, while the other Provinces are reaping the fruits of their good sense and liberality. Monopoly will exist under any system, however good, but its evils may be warded off by enforcing a beneficial occupation in— : say 18 months— and a tax or rent charge on all lands of 4d. or 6d. per acre, according to situation and quality.

Having entered into greater length than I intended, I conclude by again alluding to the public meeting, at the deep mortification Mr. Fitz Gerald's Committee must have experienced on the motion being put from the chair, " That this meeting consi-