The Westport Times. TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 502, 11 May 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1869.

The length of the resume which we give of the Nelson Provincial Council proceedings, and of our quotations from tho speeches at the recent meeting at Grreymouth, precludes us from doing more than merely referring to the subjects discussed at either place. Most interesting, and also most gratifying, to the inhabitants of this part of the Province is, no doubt, the fact that in tho Nelson Council itself there has been what we may fairly call an equal division on the very first suggestion with regard to Separation. Though discussed in committee, and with one of the West Coast members, Mr Donne, sustaining, from the fact of his being placed in the chair, tho unusual and enforced character of the "dumb mau,"the paragraph in the reply to the Superintendent's address, suggesting that in the Assembly he should oppose Separation, was carried by only one of a majority. Constituted as the Nelson Council is, this fact is a significant one, and its significance is enhanced by the circumstance that the minority—if minority we may call it—included Nelson men of recognised status and intelligence, compared even with the average status and intelligence of a Provincial Council. It canuot, of course, be implied that those composing this minority are purely and simply favorable to Separation. Dr Irviue, for one, has very definitely stated that he was not less a Provincialist than he had ever been, but that he objected to the spirit of the suggestion contained in the reply. His feeling was rather that there should be concession—" timely recourse to measures calculated to allay the desire, and remove the pretext, for Separation,"—while the spirit of the recommmendation to the Superintendent was rather: " Eesist Separation—honestly if you can ; but, resist Separation." But on whatever grounds the minority individually voted, there has been this admitted by a fair half of tho Council—either that there is something to concede to the West Coast, or that, in the demand for Separation, there is nothing which can he reasonably opposed. The refusal of the Council to accept His Honor's explanations aa to the deficiency of revenue will not surprise

anyone who is acquainted with the manner in which the revenue of the West Coast was wilfully exaggerated, or with the attempt which has been made to saddle the Colonial Treasury only with the blame of a gross and serious error in the accounts.

One other matter only calls for remark —the opposition by Mr lleid to the sale of tends. The grounds of his opposition, as avowed, do not include the very natural one that, in the event of Separation being achieved, the County Council might find that a considerable sum of its revenue had been anticipated ; b at, if not stated in so many words, that was, no doubt, a consideration which had some weight, otherwise our local member would not have hazarded the appearance of schism among the West Coast representatives, or the appearance of such a spectacle of mental excitement as that presented by his friend Mr Donne.

To the meeting at Greymouth, and especially to some of Mr Harrison's remarks, we must refer at another time.