The Westport Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 472, 2 March 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1869.

The selection of a successor to Mr Beutley, as one of the members for the Buller District in the Nelson Provincial Council, seems to excite as little interest as did the recent appointment of a successor to the other retired member, Mr J. Vassio Smith. Not even has Mr John Crate intimated to ais friends that, if elected to the office, he will esteem the honor, and endeavor to discharge its duties. The only one man mentioned is Mr Dreyer, and his recent resignation of another seat, apart from his residence at Nelson, does not recommend him to the gentle or simple senses of the people of Westport. The name of any local candidate is not more than whispered, and there are at present no premonitory signs of any other result to the election than that which happened on the last occasion. Some innocent or amiable individual will be seized by a few political Philistines some seconds before the hour of nomination, and, borne by them into the Court House, will blush to find himself famous by being proposed, seconded, and duly elected as a member of that august body, the Nelson Council. With all reverence for Mr M'Dowell be it spoken, a second sucking politician will probably be brought to premature development, and, politically, the constituency will be brought —to grief. It is really going beyond the bounds of ordinary electors' patience to have, time after time, this indifference exhibited to the duties and honors of office by men who are competent to fulfil the one, and who deserve to enjoy the other. Excuse is only to be found in the fact that amongtwenty-DneNelsonmembers —" pure and simple " in only one very limited sense —the member for Westport would be but "a drop in the bucket." He might aswell endeavour to cleanse an Augamn stable by the administration of a bottle of lavenderwater, as expect to influence the twentyone Nelson citizens and bucolics in favor of the " way-farers in the land" of whom his constituency consists. But this is not an all-sufficient excuse. There is an obvious absence of appreciation of even the little good that might be done, not so much on the part of the humbler electors as on the part of those who might reasonably be expected to become candidates. It is this indisposition and indifference on the part of local men which would alone induce us to accept a man associated with the obnoxious name of Nelson, and we presume that it is in the same apirit that some of the electors have sought signatures to a requisition to one who is nominally, and, in one sense, somewhat prominently a Nelson man.

Such a requisition, we have already reported, has been prepared, if not as yet numerously signed, for presentation to Mr Luckie, the editor of the Nelson Colonist. Now, under ordinary circumstances, we should be disposed to share in the popular feeling, and that is—to be affected (in a political sense) towards a Nelson man as a bull would be towards a red petticoat. But with the existing apathy, and its palpable or very probable results, we should be disposed to see a good man elected, whether he emanated from Nelson or anywhere else. And a good man we believe Mr Luckie to be, and, what is more, we believe he would be as little of a Nelson man, as against the interests of the South-West Goldfields, as any man that could be elected even in the district. Prom what we know of him as a gentleman and as a politician, we believe he would find congenial exercise for his cosmopolitan tastes by becoming the champion of the goldfields against rural or urban exclusiveness. A Proviucialist he is, it is true, and we only wish that circumstances permitted all of us being the same, but we have confidence thathe would not be found a Provincial centralist any more than he is a Colonial centralist. So disposed, he cannot, of course, be otherwise than antagonistic to County Separation, and his aim would, no doubt, be to lessen the desire for Separation, but the Westport constituency can well afford to survey with complacency the most earnest efforts in that direction. If he succeeded in " leavening the whole lump," by infusing the same spirit into the other Councillors, the constituency here is not so committed to Counties, or bo opposed to Provincialism, as to dissuade them from efforts to prove the latter system thoroughly adapta-

ble to the good government of the West Coast. As an idea of how far Mr Luckie's opinions agree with common sense and the practical sense of the community here, we may only add that he has from the first opposed the expenditure of revenue on the Nelson dry dock, has caricatured as freely as any one the projected Nelson and Cobden railway, and has been a consistent opponent of Mr Curtis, who has, on his part, been so consistent and open-mouthed as an opponent of the interests of the G-oldfields. We write believing that, if the requisition were sufficiently signed, Mr Luckie might be induced to become a candidate, and that he would endeavor to wait upon the electors, although he might not be prepared for an expensive contest. At anyrate, we think there is sufficient grounds for his friends proceeding with the requisition, and, without committing ourselves to his cause or his interest, we can " confidently recommend " him.