THE ELECTIONS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1122, 7 November 1873, Page 2

THE ELECTIONS.

[obey river abgus.] " The ill that men do lives after them ; the good is oft interred with their bones." This is an accepted axiom, comiug from a great master in the study of the common characteristics of humanity. What may be applied to men generally may, by a process of reduction, be particularly applied to the Superintendents of Provinces in New Zealand, Most particularly it may be applied to the present Superintendent of the Province of Nelson. Supposing he were to die politically to-morrow, there would be abundance of room in his coffin for all the good that he has provincially and actively promoted. He would rest in death as he has done in life—in peace; the good which he has done being just sufficient to become decent covering for his bones, and to justify the erection of a modest headstone over his grave. But the ill that he has doue—is it not living now in the presence among us of such a man as Mr E. J. O'Conor soliciting to be his successor, and might it not, by the accidents of an election, live for a longer time and in a more ugly form, than any of us would remain to appreciate ? If there is any oue person in the Province of Nelson guilty of the charge of contributing to Mr E. J. O'Conor's candidature for the Superintendency it is Mr Oswald Curtis. Sleeping and slumbering as a sluggard—sleeping not even the sleep of the weazel—he has allowed the supervision of Provincial affairs to drift to such an extremity as to invite the appearance on the platform of the most aggravated form of political charlatanism. After the manner of the ostrich, he has buried his head in self-contentrnent and contemptuous. ness of public opinion until he has found that fbe enemy is upon him, and not upou him alone, but upon all the honor and respect in which the office which he occupies should be held. Mr Curtis is not deserving of much commiseration if he should suffer from what he has invited—the contumely of contesting an election with a opponent who,through overweening conceit and a low conception of popular judgment, now comes forward with very questionable credentials, and with not a tithe of the ability which Mr Curtis possesses did he but choose to exercise it. If the present Superintendent should pursue the contest, as he promises to do, he will have little pity if he is dragged through the dirt; and, however tenderly he may pretendedly be treated at present, he will prove to be an extraordinary exception to the rule if, in a contest with Mr O'Conor, he be not compelled ultimately to go through more mire than ever he did in his political experience. But the questions raised by this contest are not questions which solely and wholly affect candidates. The constituency are also interested, and they are interested especially in selecting a man who, while discharging the duties of his office, will command respect both within and beyond his Province. Mr Curtis is quite capable of of discharging those duties, while he also commands the necessary respect, but the mere negative qualification of possessing capacity for good is not enough. He must give some practical indication of action, or, at least, some promise which shall imply performance in the matter of reconstructing his Executive, and of considering the mining interest of paramount importance in his distinctively mineral Province. If he do not both promise and perform under such public rebuke and shame as are involved in the pretentions to his seat which have been put forward by the one other candidate in the field, he will have a sorry conception of the sorry pass to which he, and no other, has brought the Province of Nelson. If out of the evil of the present opposition to him there should arise this good, the embodiment of that opposition will, at least, deserve a medal of commendation, even if it be conveyed by that incomparable medium—leather. As to hia opponent, much might be said, but those who are sensible of the best interests of the Province, and sensitive with regard to their own position as items cf a community, can surely appreciate how little competent he is to become the chief, it may be the only, administrator of their affairs—affairs concerning mining interests of every description,

the disposal of the landed estate, the promotion of public works, and, last, not least, the character of the community us a whole. Unquestionable as it may bo that Mr Curtis has made the sitaation, and that his accepted calamitous career as Superintendent has culminated in the invitation of a greater calamity, it is to be hoped that the community will avert calamitous consequences by, out of two evils, choosing the least, or by searching for some one whose election will involve the smallest proportion of evil and the largest promise of good. It is by no means a necessity of the situation that Messrs O. Curtis and O'Conor should be the only condidates for election to the most honorable public position in the gift of two and twenty thousand souls.

The Nelson Evening Mail of Wednesday last has a long and forcibly written article against Mr O'Conor's candidature for the Superintendency. It reviews his speech to the electors at Suburban north, and describes it as spicily got up, and representing but one conclusion—no case for the plaintiff, abuse the other side. It says that in endeavouring to catch every gale to favor his approach to the Superintendent's chair, Mr O'Conor has shown his utter unreliability. Forgetful of his antecedents, he is prepared to promise everything that he thinks is expected of him, notwithstanding that it is in direct violation of his previously expressed opinions. " Need we say then to those whose support he is so humiliatingly seeking that, like —and yet so unlike—the " maiden fair to see," he "is fooling thee ?" The staunchest and most determined opponent our railway has met with, Mr O'Conor has yet the audacity to come forward and ask those he has been endeavouring to keep in the background to give him their support—to ask them to place him in a position to defeat the scheme they have most at heart. He really must underrate the intelligence of the people of Nelson and the surrounding districts; he must look upon them as a community of Little Red Riding Hoods, ready to leap into the deadly embrace of the wolf, who for years past has been lying in wait for an opportunity of devouring them, simply because he has for the time being arrayed himself in a motherly, looking nightcap and pair of spectacles, assumed a kindly maternal aspect, and, by a strong effort, summoned up sufficient self control to restrain himself for a time from smacking his lips over the meal he is so greedily anticipating.