THE NELSON DIFFICULTY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XII, Issue 721, 5 October 1859, Page 5

THE NELSON DIFFICULTY.

. '{sFrom the 'Examiner,': September 21.) His Excellency's responsible" advisers decline to recommend;his Excellency to dissolve the Provincial Councilr .of- Nelson. A regard for principles upon which they-have consistently acted in similar eases prevents them, so they say; from advising the Governor to,accede-to the prayer of the Memorial of *the Council.' The province may suffer; its resources may remain undeveloped j indolence, stupidity, and obstruct.ivenes's may sit at the helm, and the community may drift into the .whirlpool of bankruptcy, o£ the ;l)ead. Sea of .stagnation; the kelson Government may he a byword and reproach throughout the colony"; the people of Nelson may be the involuntary recipients of the disgrace brought ■upon the whole province by the total want of selfrespect shown by their rulers; public spirit and public morality may be outraged and debased by the existing order of- things; but the consistency of- the General Government' with those _principles which have hjtherto guided the exercise of his Excellency's power of dissolving the Provincial Legislatures must be maintained. It is to be regretted thathjs Excellency's advisers have pot told us what these principles are, and upon what reasoning they are based; and.that in the absence of all such information, we are left to.infer them ag well is we can, from what has taken place.' We may perhaps be doing his Excellency's Government an injustice, but,-having nothing else to go upon we feel constrained to come to the conclusion that their great, principle,.-, in . all, such question*, is that of absolute npn-intervention. But whether tin* principle is adopted as* a deep stroke of pliey,. or simply because it gives the least troulle, may be a matter of opinion. The existing Geniral Governmentj however, is generally believed not © favour the provincial element' in' the constitution of the. colony, and may possibly derive a certan amount of satisfaction from the internecine struggles of Superintendents and their Councils. It may Relieve that the public, while looking upon theaeithings and suffering from them, is receiving an infective practical lesson-in favour, of contra-

ihzatiotu It may see in them the weakness of tho Provinces and tiro strength of his Excellency's responsible advisers. 11l natured people might even 'go the length of supposing that the further the Provinces rinbroil themselves, the better will the 'General Government be pleased. All this may bo .true, or it may not be true; but this, at all events, isclear, that so long as his Excellency's advisers will not make use of the means placed in the Governor's hands by the Constitution Act for rectifying the balance of the Provincial machine, their conduct is open to/ the most unfavourable construction. . .

We have never been of the number of those who have blindly worshipped our existing constitution. ■ We have always believed it to contain blemishes and omissions palpable to the veriest tyro in political science, and have foreseen that until these are remedied it could not bestow upon the people of this colony those advantages of good government which they had. a right to look for: still -lessi could it in its present shape ever give the provinces real local self-government. It has been in operation five years, and during that short time we ask what fruits of this nature has it borne.

In Auckland we have seen a Superintendent, without the sanction of law appropriating the public money* In Wellington, during the last year, the same state of things has prevailed. The Provincial Council there has been utterly without influence in the • body politic. All has depended on the will of one man. In this province the Provincial Government in in a humiliating minority. It is the object of votes of censure which would drive all men of ordinary self-respect out of office. But it holds on in defiance of public opinion, in defiance of censure, iii defiance of defeat, and with a full knowledge that its continued existence as a. Government. is injurious to the credit and to the interests of the province. It is in fact ? for the time, a despotism. Thus in three provinces, we have seen Superintendents, after a struggle with the provincial legislatures, obtaining the mastery, and acting with absolute authority. ,

Ah, but Say some, this ta Representative Government. This is self-government, The>Superintendent is elected lay the people: he is their representative. Whatever he does, is therefore : done with the sanction of the people. And this is seriously the best and strongest* and ' the only argument which can be used in the premises. Well, if people are prepared to be satisfied with this, and to accept this as local self-government, we have nothing further to say; only let the principle be" logically and sensibly worked out. Let us choose one Dictator, if 'the republic demands it, and don't let us lose anytime and money with the foolish palaver of Provincial Council. But don't let us be illogical and illnatured, and say that they have not got liberty in France. They ■have chosen their Dictator there by universal suffrage, just as we have done ft here, and as the people of Wellington have chosen Dr. Featherston: and the money is spent without leave asked of the Legislature; though when they are.iit an acquiescent mood, they are smiled upon and encouraged as a not unbecoming appendage to Emperors <and Superintenclents. , There is owe point of difference perhaps between, us. Our Superintendent ha^ a Governor above him. The Emperor of Prance has none. But outGovernor won't interfere.. So that after all we are very much on a-par. With a,general Executive of the very best disposition towards Provincial Governments, and with the aid of every .rectifying power which the Constitution Act provides, conflict and bad government in the provinces must necessarily result: and we look upon a demand for organic modification of the Provincial Constitution as a thing which will, necessarily sooner or later arise. It is therefore rwithmuch regret that we observe the course taken' 4 by the General Government with regard'to the memorial of-the Nelson Provincial Council.

The tendency of that course is to destroy the value of the bitter political lessons 'winch more than one.community in New Zealand has of late been receiving. It affords occasion to the admirers of the present constitution to say, you havei .worked the machine in an unfriendly spirit: you .have soughb to increase confusion by abstaining from the use of remedies which were within your reach. You are like an engineer who should screw down the safety valve of a steam engine, and then declare that he had discovered that it was a- machine which inevitably burst its boiler. It cannot be necessary that we should explain to oar readers the political position of the Province of Nelson as exhibited by the proceedings of the last session of; the Council.. Suffice it to say, that it was and is a position full of injury to the interests of the province, as it is of humiliation and discredit to the holders of office. The Council sought to extricate the province from this position by a. proceeding temperate, reasonable, and dignified. The law places- within its reach the power of, at any time, calling upon her Majesty as represented by the Governor to remove the Superintendent, and this course the Council might have taken and would have been justified in taking. But the Council looked upon the matter thus:—" There is a cbnflict of opinion between the Superintendent and the Provincial Council, both elected by the people of this province. In that conflict the public interest* suffer. A mistake has evidently been committed. A Superintendent holding 'certain views has been elected by the same constituencies which have elected a Council holding opposite views. Weakness and indecision result. We will not anticipate the decision of the electors. We will not assume that we are in the right, and-at once call upon, the Governor to remove the Superintendent. We will not embarrass the public interests by stopping supplies, nor do we wish to throw any obstacle in the way of the construction of the necessary public- works. But it is desirable that this state of things should terminate, and we therefore wish to place it in the power of those most deeply interested, the people of the province to wit,_to rectify it. If their verdict is that the Councif is wrong, let them elect a different set of councillors. If, on the other hand, they think the Superintendent in the wrong, lot them elect a different Superintendent." This is. a course the reasonableness of which it is impossible to impugn ; and it is, moreover, a course apparently contemplated by. the framers of the Constitution Act. The fourth clause gives .the Governor the power of removing Superintendents, on the petition of a bare majority'of the Council. We do not say that the exercise of this power would always restore the balance or healthy working of the machine. The people might, elect the same parties again, and-the condition of things might be the same as it had been. But the opportunity of remedy is at all events afforded, arid if'it be neglectedj then those who neglect it must be satisfied to take the consequences. Had this remedy been placed within the feach of the people'of Nelson, ' and had the result been to perpetuate the existing state of things, we should have, been in the position of a patient afflicted by a serious disease which has resisted every known mode of treatment. But now we are in the position of a rfickitian labouring under a fever, which might possibly yield to quinine; but his doctors won't give it to him. It says very little indeed, for the public spirit of our officials, and quite as little for their confidence in the1 verdict of public opinion, that they should have opposed : the adoption of such a course. An appeal to the constituency, if *uece«slul, would have placed them in the position 'of J>. Eeatherston, at Wellington. They might still have been in a minority in the • Council, bnt they would have been able to sny, we

have the support of the majority of the electws. .' But in shrinking from tlio teat the legitimate inference is that they dreaded the result. lho mon who could hold office in the circumstances of,the Nelson Executive are anything but. objects cither of envy or admiration. There is ' only one thing than can possibly siihtiiin them, and ' that is a total disbelief in' representative institutions. A set of officials honestly endeavouring to work out local self-government could never defy the censure of the legislature, or shrink from the verdict of public opinion.as these men have done. But the contempt of legislatures or the opinion of constituencies are indifferent to men who either use the cry of local self-government without knowing what it means, excepting that it is a stepping. ■ stone to office, or who have a total disbelief in the value of the system they, are working, or an utter ' want of faith in anything but quarter day. New Zealand has been said to be distinguished among , colonies by laws and potatoes. Nelson may claim distinction among provinces by the hardened man-, ncr in which its Executive defy public opinion, aud the reckless tenacity with which the.y. cling, to' official position. . „