The Westport Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1873.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1134, 19 December 1873, Page 2

The Westport Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1873.

The candidature and preliminary skirmishing for the Westland Superintendency is provocative of some present electioneering fun, and also much annoyance. At the meetings held by the candidates fun, of a sort, predominates. In making allusion to the meeting held by one candidate the "Westland Kegister says it partook so much of the nature of a farce, in which the " stump speech " was the most attractive feature, that the audience naturally broke into inextinguishable laughter, tho weight of which fell upon every other speaker, os well as the instigator of it. Tie same journal hints that another candidate is prone to employ to undue extent " mental sand-paper " in polishing up his valuable, and (by himself) valued utterances, before publication, and asserts plainly that he allows his hatred to blind him, and ■ permits him to approximate nearer to the svppressio veri than is quite consistent with the proud title of " Honest John." Of the behaviour of some among the audience at these meetings it is said tho noise created by profligates—whose ringleaders are wellknowu to be perfectly shameless, and who take up their position in the most prominent pare of the assemblage—is something astounding, and a fervent hope_ is expressed that future election meetings will be characterised by at least decorum, and that both Chairman and audience will promptly join to put down the rowdies who frequent such places, certainly with no better views than the infliction of-annoyance, and, possibly, with much worse. So far fun prevails, and the aspect of affairs in the new pledged province is a keen satire on Provincial Government. But from any other point of view the behaviour of the electorate in the chief town of vVestland isanuoying, as bringiug into contempt the well-intentioned efforts of the few who have wrought earnestly to redeem Westland from long afflicting evils. "So also to lookers-on beyond the boundaries of the newly proclaimed • province this electioneering buffoonery seems ridiculous and ill-advised. To tho Nelson South West Goldfields the constitution of Westlaud as a province means much,, and the election of a Superintendent for the new province

is fraught with interest second alone to the election which has just terminated within the Nelson boundaries. The idea of " unification " of all the West Coast goldfieida under one form of provincial government has. not yet died out, nor, if it shall be found that tho misrule of Nelson will yet prevail, has the hope of separation yet been despaired of. At the-present, moment the people on the South- West Goldfields are hoping fbr the hest and are patient, but hope deferred will not long endure with them, and the commencement of provincial rule in "VVestland indicates a better chance of coalition on the Coast than has hitherto prevailed. l\»r this reason alone there is cause to regret that the acceptance of new found dignities by the inhabitants of Westland, has been so far treated with contumely.