Page 5 Advertisements Column 1

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 132, 16 July 1853, Page 5

To the Electors of Canterhury. Gentlemen, IT has been suggested to me that I have not, as a Candidate for the honour of being Superintendant for this Province, sufficiently madeknoAvn what are my political views. I imagined I had said enough as to this in my •address to the Electors, when I assured them that in whatever position I might hereafter stand among them while maintaining that independence Aye all have a right to, I would yield to no one in earnest endeavours to promote what I might consider would be to the advantage of the Canterbury Province, and likeAvise to acquire for it in due course of time, and as its resources became developed (I kneAV the. time for this was at hand) a more full and necessary measure of Self Government. I Avould not pledge myself, as I saw this could only be mischievous, to any particular or presented line of policy, or to take prematurely any steps to have parts of our untried Constitution at once altered to suit my oavii fancies or views. I engaged that on every fitting occasion I would do all I could to frustrate any attempt to diminish the resources of the Province, and therefore to prevent the NeAv Zealand Company from receiving in respect of sales or alienations of Avaste lands anything more than it may be satisfactorily proved they are justly entitled to towards the liquidation of what seams to be their most preposterous claim. I also engaged that nothing should he Avanting on my part to urge the adoption (and this I have already done) of a plan based upon liberal and sound principles for the future disposal of waste lands of the Crown and to bring them Avithin the reach of the working man. My letter of the 21st April is in some measure explanatory of what I meant by this. But since I addressed the Electors in general of this great and important Province Avhat I have been most particularly anxious-for is, that they will upon no account elect to the office of Superintendant, (and this is now all important) to the house of Representatives, or, to the Provincial Council any one who may not pledge himself, as I now do, to be an advocate for cheap land, and to have nothing whatever to say to the Canterbury Association's debts or liabilities of any kind. Let any one read the 76th clause of the New Zealand Constitution Act, and he Avill see the necessity for this. Those who contracted these debts should arrange—as the Secretary of State for the colonies lias justly decided—for.their liquidation. I have been much amused at the self complacency Avith which Mr. Seweli—the Avould-be Attorney-General for the Canterbury Provhice-T-AYX'Hes in a letter to Mr. Fitz Gerald