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The Westport Times. TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1869.

Little more than a year ago a faint and feeble attempt was made in Vestport with the object of instituting a Municipality, and the attempt, thus faint and feeble in its character, proved to be not even the nucleus of success, but rather the acme of failure. The scheme began where it ended—at a meeting small in its attendance and lukewarm in its enthusiasm. As it usually does, " time wore on," and public feeling underwent a change—a change to the extent of favoring a compromise between utter atrophy of public spirit and the extravagant liveliness of that spirit which some suppose a Municipality would only represent. A '• Progress Committee " was this compromise, and, compromise as it only was, the Committee began its " career of usefulness " with what may bo figuratively described as a " flourish of trumpets," and with some amount of what the French would probably designate eclat. The sounds of the trumpet had scarcely subsided over the ushering into existence of this somewhat mythical body, when, notwithstanding the proverb that out of nothing nothing is made, it gave birth to a body just a shade more substantial in its character, which body was in due time christeued, if not re gistered, as the Separation Committee. It was the unfortunate characteristic of this creation that, instead of complying with the proper Darwinian rule for the " development of species," it unkiudly and unnaturally swrdlowe 1 up its immediate progenitor. Thus was there lost, even to the future student of historical fossils, the species Prr. gress ; there remaining only, as the representative of the genus, what contemporary historians are pleased to speak of as a very specious sre2ics, Separation. At anyrate, and apart from metaphor, while the Separation Committee advanced (though not yet altogether " to victory,") the Progress Committee paradoxically retrograded towards non-entity, until its existence, or its re-appearance in it 3 primitive

form, is now only believed in, among the faithless many, by a faithful few. Thus have passed away both the glory of Westport's first representative institution, and—as we also, being of little faith, begin to fear —the institution itself.

With the Progress Committee thus distraught, if not defunct, and with the County Council, at its very best, only a future contingency, the time seems apposite for an agitation in the direction of another compromise, the compromise being this time a Municipality. To this consummation the Progress Committee may, at least, claim the credit of being the initiatory step, if it has been nothing more, because it has

exhibited, by its innate want of coherence and esprit de corps among its members, the particulars in which it has fallen short of the requirements of the place. And with the County Council so distant and uncertain as the desiderated climax of the necessary mechanism for local self-government, it would well become the community to adopt the next best and most available substitute. Between the two extremes of a deficient representative body and a body sufficiently powerful for the government of the district, a Municipality takes its place as an institution efficient, at least, for the management of the affairs of the town. Iu its establishment, the townspeople may, therefore, fairly interest themse'ves, leaving it to the contiguous districts to initiate for themselves, iu proper time, and in the form of Eoad Boards, the local bodies through which their interests may be represented or supervised. To enlarge upon the necessity for the existence of some local representative body would be, at this time of day and under existing circumstances, simply to enlarge upon what is amply, if it is yet only tacitly, recognised. Evidence of its necessity is exhibited by nearly every passing incident, and by nearly every existing feature of our social condition. And how the adoption of a Municipality can be so charily treated is only to be accounted for by the fact that the majority of the population have only a theoretical idea of the taxation by which, in some instances, the institution has been accompanied, while they have had no practical experience of the advantages of which, in many parts of this colony itself, it has been productive. We sincerely believe that it requires only n little homely discussion on the subject to produce a wholesome eft'ect, and, in the interests of all, we shall hope to see the few more earnest spirits revive both themselves and the subject by encouraging a public meeting at which it may be evenly and openly debated. In the same interests our columns are always at the command of those many anonymous benefactors whose attention to public matters has lately, we are sorry to say, becu more honored in the breach than in the observance.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WEST18690720.2.6

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 532, 20 July 1869, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
790

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1869. Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 532, 20 July 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1869. Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 532, 20 July 1869, Page 2

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