✨ Government Speech and Notices
NEW ZEALAND
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.
(PROVINCE OF WELLINGTON.)
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 relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.
WILLIAM FITZHERBERT, Provincial Secretary.
VOL. VI.] MONDAY, 5TH SEPTEMBER, 1859. [No. 20.
SPEECH OF HIS HONOR THE SUPERINTENDENT of the Province of Wellington, delivered at the opening of the Second Session of the Second Provincial Council, August 30th, 1859.
MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL,--
Having prorogued you, by Proclamation, on the third of last September, I have convened you to-day, in obedience to the Constitution Act, which requires that a session of the Provincial Council shall be held at least once in every year.
You are aware that since the commencement of 1858, the expenditure of some portion of the Provincial Revenue has been effected without the sanction of an Appropriation Act. It is unnecessary now, I hope, to refer to the circumstances which led to that course, further, than may be requisite to place the events on record, in order that the responsibility may attach in the proper quarter.
When I met the Provincial Council, after the general election of its members, and of the Superintendent in 1857, it became evident, that the constituency had made a mistake, either in the election of a majority of the Council, or in the election of the Superintendent. For while the principles on which I had offered myself for election, and had been for the second time elected, were well understood, I found a majority of the Council, elected immediately afterwards, directly opposed to those principles.
My Executive advisers, in consequence of some of them having failed to secure seats in this Council, tendered their resignation, when I invited, as you will remember, the leader of the majority to form a ministry:--a task which he vowed himself unable to accomplish, unless I would consent to a legislative alteration in a fundamental law, by which the form of Provincial Government had been settled in 1853,--a proposal to which I felt myself compelled to refuse my assent.
The difference between the Council and myself on this and other matters appearing irreconcilable, I conceived it to be my duty, to afford to the constituencies of the Province the opportunity of declaring whether the mistake had been, in the election of myself or of the opposing majority; and I therefore resigned my office and offered myself for re-election.
I was opposed by a candidate who had the full support of the majority referred to--who appeared in the field as its candidate, and the exponent of its policy. I shall not further allude to the result than to observe, that the issue
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Wellington Provincial Gazette 1859, No 20
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
🏛️ Speech of His Honor the Superintendent
🏛️ Governance & Central Administration30 August 1859
Provincial Council, Speech, Superintendent, Wellington
- William Fitzherbert, Provincial Secretary