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Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 26, 19 October 1848, Page 2

De la moindre vétille i fait une merveille, Et, jusque au bunjour, il dit tout à l' oreille. Le Misanthrope. A census has been ordered to be taken, and various statistical accounts to be collected, about which we perceive that the police are already engaged. On this subject there are a few words to be said. It must be remembered in the first place, that no one is obliged to make the required return, unless a compulsory ordinance to that effect be passed through the Council. It will be likewise observed that the Southern Colonists have objected to affording any such information. Now we are unable to perceive any real objection to calling for a census ; we should be even glad to see it taken over and over again, at the shortest convenient intervals—provided, only, that the Colonists be suffered to partis cipate witb his Excellency in the benefit to be derived therefrom. Such enquiry is of an inquisitorial nature, no doubt, but its advantages outweigh its inconvenience, if we be permitted to enjoy them. Let us, therefore, turn our vantage ground to account, stipulating that the result of the enquiry be made public, and not collected solely for the Governor's private satisfaction. In the South, Mr. Eyre makes a point of publishing, at once, all th*» statistical information that can be acquired; while the earliest knowledge that we are able to obtain of the state of our own Settlement, is mostly derived from the Blue Book. Such playing at hide and seek with harmless information is worse than ehildish ; it is an affront to the common sense of Auckland,

We have now the opportunity for once afforded us of breaking through that systematic affectation of mystery about trifles, more diplomatic than statesmanlike, and which, after all, is only one of the many forms that selfishness assumes. "To keep a thing to is an idiomatic phrase, pregnant with more( meaning than it is always perceived to bear. We can now oblige his Excellency to engage to make public, or foil his attempt to gain, the information he desires ; if we be not suffered to derive advantage from it, neither then must he.