West Coast Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1867.

West Coast Times, Issue 654, 29 October 1867, Page 2

West Coast Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1867.

1 It is now understood that tho County of Westland will not be created by His Excellency's proclamation, until the first day of the new year. In the mean time the district will continue a part of the Province of Canterbury, with Mr Moorhouse for its Superintendent, and Messrs. Stewart and Williams for its Executive. The five members for •We&tland in the Provincial Council will also continue to hold their seats for the tenure by which they are entitled to them. It is almost certain that a session of the Council will be held between this and Christmas. What course ought our members to pursue ? Should they go over to Christclxurch to take any part in the deliberations of the Provincial Council, and record their votes on any of its divisions ? Most undoubtedly they should not ! No Westland Estimates will be submitted to the Council. No West' j land questions will be entertained. The fact of Separation will be recognised. The Eastern members will pursue their deliberations with an equanimity of mind undisturbed by the presence of a foreign and alien element. They will have obtained the object at which they have aimed — the exclusion of men from the Council who had the power of influencing appropriations of revenue by their votes. Under all the circumstances, it would be an impertinence if the five gentlemen who still retain legally their seats in the Provincial Council were to present themselves in the chamber, and take part in the discussions and proceedings of the House . Nor would such a course be consistent with self-respect, with personal dignity, or with tho duty they owe to their constituents. It is, however, a not at all easy to decide what immediate action they should take. Ought they to remain, even nominally, members of the Council ? Ought they to wait for any contingency that may possibly arise, requiring them by their personal presence to repel the aspersions that may be cast upon the district in consequence of the recent agitation ? Or will they not best consult their own dignity and that of their constituents by at once tendering their resignations to his Honor the Superintendent. There was one memorable cccasion during the Jast session, on which the five Westland members retired from tho Chamber in a body. Mr Travers hud carried by an overwhelming majority a clause destroying tho right of the digger to enter for mining purposes upon any purchased iand, even under conditions most fully securing the equitable rights of the holder. The demonstration w.-is somewhat impressive — the more so as in a House of forty -four members, only five had the opportunity of thus putting oti visible record their protest against a great practical injustice. The five empty seats lately occupied by men who all took an active part ' in the business of tho Council, will be perhaps a more impressive demonstration on the occasion of tho next session of the Council, than any display of repro-iehf.nl eloquence that could be made. We consider, therefore, that the five Westland members of the Provincial Council could not do a more proper or more dignified thing, thau to at once tender in a. body their resignation of their seats. Their doing so will be a public endorsement of the action the district has taken in demanding Separation from Canterbury ; and it will establish a claim to the future confidence and support of the people. We have now the knowledge that the Separation Hill has been assented to, and is statute law: we have the assurance that this law will be rendered operative by proclamation in about two months from the present date. When that proclamation appears our members will lose their seats — by no act of their own, but by a law of deprivation. Anticipating before that date a session of the Provincial Council, we must say that their position will be a most anomalous one if they allow the House to meet with their names still recorded on its roll. Mr Moorhouse has not yet given any intimation of his intention, with reference to his seat for Westland in the General Assembly. We regret that he has not done so. As the representative of the district, Mr Moorhouse has used his position to oppose the unanimous wish of his constituents. Ho altogether lost sight of the fact that he sat in the House of Representatives not as Superintendent of Canterbury, but as member for Westland ; that it was tho prayer of his own constituents that lie was opposing, against the special trust they had reposed in him. If it had been in Mr Moorhouse's power when the Westland petition was presented, to surrender his Westland brief into the hand of some successor aud fall

back upon the representation of Mount Herbert, he might well have used all the arguments he did use against the Separation Bill. They might have been adjudged to be sound, or unsound. But they would not have been out of harmony with his position aud his responsibilities. When Mr Moorhouse was a candidate here, he justified his abandonment of his Mount'llerbert constituents on the ground that as member for a populous and important district like Westland he would have infinitely greater weight in the Assembly. It is this political influence he has now used against the very district which conferred it upon him. He has not only opposed the prayer of his constituents for Separation, but he has succeeded in inducins a majority of the House to agiee to a financial settlement between the two districts of the Province, in which the Canterbury of which he is the Superintendent is all the gainer, and the Westland of which he is the representative and special trustee, is all the loser. We do not think the principle on which Mr Moorhouse has acted in this matter is one, or that it would be well for the interests of political morality, to find generally adopted by our public men. Mr Moorhouse's course has been inconsistent with his position as our representative. His present attitude is inconsistent with, the political relations he sustains to the district. His resignation of his seat ought not to have been so long delayed. If our members in the Provincial Council, by their timely retirement from a position that has now become unnatural, mark their sense of the cessation of all political union and identity the settlements on the two sides of the " intervening ranges ;'' the hint may not be without its practical effect.