Correspondence.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, Issue 59, 20 October 1855, Page 3

Correspondence.

MR. MACKAY AND HIS LATE CONSTI-

TUENTS.

TO THE EdITOB OP THE ' NELSON EXAMINED.'

Sir — As I did not see you, or any other chiel, in the Court-house on Wednesday evening, "taking notes" at the meeting of Nelson electors, summoned together to receive an explanation from their late representative, Mr. Mackay, of his conduct in the House of Representatives, I propose to send you a short statement of what took place. As a looker-on I will furnish you with as faithful a report as I can of the proceedings, and the impression they left upon my mind. The meeting, whether designedly or otherwise, I will not venture to say, was called at a few hours' notice, and this was so far favourable to Mr. Mackay, that, with one exception, no person came prepared, out of the thirty or forty persons in the room, to question Mr. Mackay at all; and the questions which Mr. I. M. Hill had provided himself with were some of them so strange, and showed such an evident tendency to enable our ex-member to indulge in selfglorification, that, in common with many about me, I could not help thinking that the worthy ex-M.H.R. had suggested the text which he could best preach upon. In no other way can I account for such a string of questions, enabling as they did Mr. Mackay to show what a valuable member be had been. Really sir, although you may not be prepared for the astounding fact, Mr. Mackay showed that he had been the most valuable member of the house. The number of committees he sat upon was wonderful, his diligent attendance at the sittings of the house was most praiseworthy, and his presence at divisions was so regular, that he was only absent from tioo during the first session ; yet one of these was at an awkward time — upon a motion to move the seat of Government to the South, and when hisfriends and allies, the "Wakefield Ministry," marched boldly out of the house, and refused to vote at all. The reason given by Mr. Mackay for his absence on that important division was highly satisfactory. He had an appointment with the Governor; and by keeping that appointment ,he kept the sert of Government at Auckland at the same time, for the question was decided by a bare majority. "When a lady's in the case, all other things must give place." Mr. Mackay gives us a new version of the old rhyme, and for a " lady "he reads " Governor." But the vote of Mr. Mackay which has most bothered the worthy electors of Nelson, was that in the last session which he gave upon the Pension Bill. Mr. Mackay (who by the way boasts largely of his influence with the worthy Colonial Secretary, and his friendship for the Colonial Treasurer) was for giving these gen tlemen pensions this session, to save time next! What a happy thought! How the worthy Andrew, and his brother pensioner in expectancy, must deplore that the house was not composed of Mackays — that it was not, in fact, a clan Mackay. How pleasant it would have been to have got comfortably pensioned, and to be then able to quietly withdraw from office and live on the well-merited fruits of then: past services (?) and escape the perplexing questions and horrid impertinences of a Finance Committee, next year, bent upon unweaving the Penelope web in which the accounts of the colony are involved, and on learning how that large unauthorized expenditure of the public money has taken place by the Executive, of which these two gentlemen were the most prominent members. Really, the reason assigned by Mr. Mackay for this vote was most sound, and was declared by fourteen persons (the number of hands held up, as stated by the Chairman) to be "satisfactory." When the question was first put, the meeting was not quite so satisfied on the point, and a tie of 1 1 for and 1 1 against was the result; but a second appeal to the good sense of the meeting was more successful, and the " satisfactory " resolution was carried by 14 to 9. It was a pity, Mr. Editor, that you were not present. The meeting, I assure you, was not of that dry and uninteresting character which political meetings sometimes assume. To keep us in good humour, Mr. Mackay favoured us with a true and faithful account of the " umbrella" scene in the House of Representatives, and when you consider that Mr. Mackay was himself the hero in that great serio-comico drama, you may judge of the interest which attached to his revival of the performance on Wednesday last. I assure you, sir, your presence was needed also, to explain why you burked the version of that exciting incident which the friends of Mr. Mackay (E. G. and E. J. Wakefield) so carefully prepared for the New Zealander newspaper, and which Mr. Mackay told the meeting he sent you by the overland mail from Auckland, but which was to be searchedfor in vain in the columnsof the Nelson Examiner. If this is really true, Ido not know what you could have said in your defence. To refuse to publish anything prepared by such hands, I look upon as little short of treason; and I wonder you have not been cited to appear before the Resident Magistrate, charged with that offence, for you must recollect that you would .not be the first individual summoned before a Nelson bench charged with that high crime. I am, &c, Looker-on.

A parliamentary return, which gives a number of statistics upon the subject, shows that the industrious classes of Manchester avail themselves to a much greater extent thau those of Liverpool of the facilities afforded by the savings-bank.