Page:The Story of Christchurch, New Zealand by Henry F. Wigram.pdf/140

when a few days later, Mr. John Ollivier brought forward and carried a motion asking the Superintendent to place £5,000 on the estimates, to be spent on the Bridle Track between Lyttelton and Heathcote, instead of the Sumner Road, the Ministers resigned. Mr. Ollivier was asked by the Superintendent to form a Ministry, but he declined, and, after a short adjournment, Mr. Brittan announced that he and his colleagues had decided to retain office. A few days later, a series of Government motions, practically rescinding Mr. Ollivier’s resolution, were carried by narrow majorities, and the crisis was at an end.

Many changes of Executive took place in the ensuing years, most of them over trivial questions. The inability of the province to secure a really stable Administration is indicated in the long list of Provincial Ministries in the Appendix of this volume.

Mr, W. P. Reeves, in his “Ball in the Old Provincial Council Chamber,” from which the stanza at the lead of the chapter is taken, has, in a few happy lines, caught the “atmosphere” of the time:—

“And there were crises in the frayAs witness the terrific day Of “Chaos and old Knight,”When, amid wonder, fear and fret,The great Ten Minutes’ Cabinet Saw, and resigned, the light.

How small it all was—’tis confessed.Policies, parties and the rest, Laugh an’ it pleases you.Yet are we now, we numerous men,Greater indeed, with tongue or pen, Than they who were so few?

*****

Were Sewell, Jollie, Wilson, Hall,Montgamery and Tancred all So poor, so weak a band?”

The three instances cited above present distinctive