The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 1877.
When Mr Stafford delivered his opening speech to the first Provincial Council of Nelson in a sitting posture, and, on such a proceeding being taken exception to by the Council, attempted to justify it by quoting the custom of the Sovereign at the opening of the British Parliament as a precedent, he was unconsciously foreshowing one of the main causes of the unpopularity and ultimate abolition of Provincial Governments. They were not content to be frogs, but tried to assume the more lordly proportions of the bull, and they died iv the attempt. When Mr Oliver rose in the Waimea County Council yesterday and interrupted the proceedings, which were being conducted with perfect propriety and in a quiet and orderly manner, by solemnly suggesting that they were wandering from the right path in not following the course adopted by the Parliament of Great Britain at the election of a Speaker, he, too, without intending it, was pointing to one of the evils by which County Councils will be beset if they insist upon attempting to make themselves out to be bigger and of greater importance than they are or ever will be. Mr Oliver was probably too much impressed, with a sense of the gravity ,of the occasion at the time he was speaking to look round and see the effect produced by his suggestion, but, had ; he done so, be might have seen a smile on the countenances of some of his fellow members, and of the half score of individuals who represented the British public when they were told that it was necessary for the half-dozen men who bad met to transact the business of that "great and important County/ .as Mr Oliver loves to call it,, to be guided by the forms of the greatest legislative body in tbe wprid, Mr Oliver will never succeed in making the public share his exaggerated notions & **c jwpor.ta-n.ee .the body to which he has been r '*** m 'f Steffi but if he does not clip the wings of' ?* ****
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Bibliographic details
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 5, 5 January 1877, Page 2
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346The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 1877. Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 5, 5 January 1877, Page 2
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