Nelson Provincial Gazette – 1866 – No. 6

Page 15

✨ Provincial Council Opening Address



15

NEW ZEALAND
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE
(PROVINCE OF NELSON).

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereunto annexed, are to be considered as Official Communications made to those Persons to whom they may relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.

By His Honor's command,
ALFRED GREENFIELD, Provincial Secretary.

VOL. XIV. NELSON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH, 14, 1866. No. 6.

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL,

TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1866.

THE Fourteenth Session of the Provincial Council was opened this day at One o'clock, when the following Address of the Superintendent was delivered :—

MR. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL—

  1. In meeting you for the first time after a general Provincial Election, I may be permitted to express the gratification it affords me to again observe such a large proportion of those who have represented the various districts of this province for many years, and whose re-election proves how generally satisfactory their proceedings in Council have been to the majority of the electors, whilst it also demonstrates in the most conclusive manner how little is to be feared from any love of reckless innovation or any deficiency of a judicious amount of the conservative element amongst a settled community where the suffrage is practically so nearly universal.

  2. I have called you together before the expiration of the financial year, and I fear a little before the arrival of that season most convenient to a majority of the country members, but the important alterations in the population, the resources and requirements of the Province, the wide deviations I have consequently felt myself called upon to make from your last year's appropriation of the revenue, and the very great responsibilities which I have in various ways incurred, would no longer permit me to proceed with the government of this Province without seeking your advice and your sanction.

  3. Immediately after the prorogation of the Council in July last year, the discovery of gold in large quantity in the neighborhood of the Grey attracted a population of several thousand persons to the south-western extremity of this Province, and the satisfactory yield of the Gold-fields in that portion of our territory has caused a steady increase in the mining population of the West Coast up to the present time. Not less than from six to eight thousand persons are now occupied in gold-mining pursuits within the Province, and the population for which you have to legislate is probably greater by at least fifty per cent. than that which has demanded the consideration of any previous Council in Nelson.

  4. Having satisfied myself by personal inspection of the gold-bearing territory of the Province that a large gold-mining population could be maintained upon it for many years, I did not hesitate to take upon myself the responsibility of promptly expending all the revenue derived from the Gold-fields in the construction of roads and such other permanent improvements as were calculated to render them



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✨ LLM interpretation of page content

🏘️ Opening of the Fourteenth Session of the Provincial Council and Superintendent's Address

🏘️ Provincial & Local Government
13 March 1866
Provincial Council, Nelson, Superintendent, Gold-fields, West Coast, Infrastructure, Population
  • Alfred Greenfield, Provincial Secretary