36.
2153/
of
But the nomination of how
Salaried Officials as
Unofficial Members
is a device which deceives nobody,
while
it irritates everybody in this community; which naturally expects that it should have, in this as in other Crown Colonies, a fair proportion of independent Representatives in the Legislature. It
has indeed been remarked, with much truth, that it would have caused less general irritation here to have
abolished the Unofficial Element altogether than to have filled with Officials two of the four places,
reserved
for Unofficials according to the real intention of the Queen's Instructions.
Of the
"Colonists" it has been said, "like other
"men, will submit more readily to open
"and honest force, than to a proceeding
"which they regard as an
infringement
of
their just privileges, and as a
misult to their understandings". Here
again, it would appear that there
must have been, somewhere,
some inadvertence. For no plausible
reason can be assigned for the proceeding
in question. It certainly cannot be
alleged, with any show of truth, that
it