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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 277, 23 November 1874, Page 4

{West Coast Times) "What a pitiful picture is represented by existing circumstances in the contiguous Province of Nelson. There, since tbe Province was a Province, there w»#, until very recently, full opportunity for Che Superintendent to be the sole administrator, and there have been instances in which a disposition was shown to despise tbe Council, and to assume autocratic powers. With • convulsion, there came a change; and what a change! Not without purpose—and, perhaps for a wise purpose in the end, but with evil consequences ia the interval—tbe Superintendent has accepted tbe position of a cipher, and tacitly permitted the sham of responsible government to work out its own destiny. Believing, probably, tbe axiom that if certain persons are allowed a sufficiency of rope they will eventually become their osvn hangmen, he has permitted an ambitious and avaricious Executive to exhibit their natural tendencies, and they are doing it to the best of their ability, while he looks on with seeming, but, we fear, with weasel-like indifference. Upon no principle tbat is apparent, unless it is that of personal affinities or animosities, the civil service of the Province has been disorganised under the pretence of being re-organised, local government has been stifled at its birth, personal liberty has been outraged, and finally—though the end is evidently not yet — the trusted servant of several Governments, the Superintendent's own clerk, and indirectly through him the Superintendent himself, have been insulted and libelled, with a license of language which is not usual even in these days of rare enforcement of the law of libeL We refer particularly to two cases which have occupied some attentention in the columns of contemporaries —tbat of Mr Kny vett, from whom, a voucher was illegally taken, who was given into custody, and against whom the insinuation of forgery was made by Mr O'Conor, and tbat of Mr Hodgson, who has been by the same person Moi&^witbovift tittlf of evidence to

support the acoosation— -of perjury, of complicity in wrongfully obtaining money from tbe Treasury, of opening private letters, and of breaches of confidence; tbe said Mr Hodgson, as it appears, having given evidence in Court in accordance with tbe truth, but not with the wishes of the Provincial Secretary. Space will not permit us, as some of tbe Provincial papers have done, to quote tbe details of the cases referred to, but there may be another opportunity of doing so. Our purpose in tbe meantime is to illustrate bow tbe Provincial system of government may be prostituted, so long as Ibe relation ship of Superintendents aud Executives continue undefined, and how necessary it ia that there should be some radical modification in the elements of the institution. The Superintendent of Nelson is himself an advocate of tbe Bystem, bui it certainly cannot be of thst system which be is permitting to develop itself to its inevitable destruction. If it is not, bis course may be a correct one, provided there were but one object to serve — that of showing the inutility, or absolute evil,., of responsible Executives associated with popularly elected Superintendents ; but there are other and greater interests affected — the immediate and important interests of the people of the province, to say nothing of his own personal and official dignity. It may be, moreover, that tbe fault is not so much in tbe eyßtem as in the men whom its introduction has brought into inglorious prominence, and, regardless of party* meetings in Nelson, he should, if he shares a very common conviction, have the spirit to cay so to his Council. Delays are dangerous, aud the danger in this instance is that tbe next conviction may be in the direction of dispensing altogether with the office of Superintendent."