LATE SHIPPING.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1710, 11 August 1875, Page 3

LATE SHIPPING.

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The following is a list of the passengevs per s.s. Ladybird from Onehunga for bouthern ports :-Cabin : Wouids, Russell, O Malloran, Bethel, Strange. Steerage : Mrs Baker and 3 children, Glisson, Peat, McEwen, and 24 navies for Oamaru

EXPORTS. Per Ladybird, for the South : 6 packages, T. and S. Morrin; 25 boxes, 28 cases, 309 bars, 41 pieces iron, 4 jacks, 1 portmanteau, 3 bundles, 3 trunks,,and 18 cases —W F Wheeler, Agent, N.Z.S.S. Co.

present Chief Justice, and we have seen Jam under, vhit I consider, a serious error. For the first time in this country, we have si-en, from our own Bar a Chief Justice selected, righteously and with the ■unauioaous coostnt of all who believed him to be worthy of the position in which he was placed ; and I should, therefore, have liked to have seen him set an example which should, have been written in every history read in every school in New Zealand, Would that, his answer had been given when the Ministry asked him for his opinion. "You have my opinion as Attorney-Gleneral. If you desire my opinion as Chief Justice, I shall be found at all proper times seated on the Bench of Justice." (Applause.) Sir George proceeded to say that it was wellknown that legal proceedings must spring from the action of the Government; if they carried thir me.uure, and that was a strong reason why the Bench of Justice should nos have been approached in the manner it was. It was a dangerous doctrine to lay down that the present General Assembly, the Governor, and those nominated to the Upper House should assume full power to deal with that question. He denied that Parlir.ment would follow the course which it was said they intended to pursue. He still believed, such was his confidence in the B. jnch of this couutry, that they would find the opinion of the AttorneyGeneral and that of the Chief Justice upon the Bench another thing altogether It v a,, laid down by the greatest lawyers, thai; no power is ever to interfere with, representative privileges once conferred, and the Governor should not have broken through this salutary rule. Is was a great mistake to mix up abolition with a money bill, as the Legislative Council could not amend it. Such a thing was never heard of before. The telegraph wires had been, set to work, and a new Constitution was to be adopted by the number of bands held up in public meetings of persons anxious to get money. Such a mode of consulting the public was unconstitutional and unheard of. They should have consulted the elected Superintendents and representatives of the people in the Provincial Councils. By whom were the changes now promoted ? By rejected Superintendents, who no doubt had a strong feeling against the people, who were blind to their merits. The Premier had stood for Superintendent of Auckland, but had to crawl back, like a snail, into bis shell; and Major Atkinson hud sought the Superintendency or Taranaki. Was it right that these rejected Superintendents should now be the leaders of the onslaught on the liberties of the people ? This House was a glorification of ihe provincial system, for it was filled with men who would never have be; n heard of but for them, but wl o now had names which would live in the history of the colony. As to Piovincial Councils spending money of which Parliament knew nothing, every pecny so spent was the subject of the widest and irosf. zealous sciuiiny. Was it so with money f pent by the Colonial Government? Wlia. bad Income of the £550,000 for the purchase of nativel ands ? Had not many private estates and foi tunes been realised out of it? How much p,;sstd for allowances and expenses? he had also seen a yum of £90,000 for expenses on the sale of debentures. Where were the particulars of this, and who got it he would like to know '! The provinces had been accused of scrambling on the flooi of the House for money. Why, because instead of it being distributed according to population and principle, it had been spent in buying votes That was the cause of the scramble. After contrasting the philosophy of the pig, quoted by Mr Atkinson, with that of Bacon, Sir George Grey turned to the question of finance. The Treasurer had told them two stories: one, that there would be a surplus this year ; the other, that there would be a deficiency.- He preferred to believe the latter, feeling that there would be a deficiency, though it Avas very difficult to find out how much, from the way the accounts were kept. Nothing was easier under such a system than to make any surplus they pleased. Their very war medals, and the seats in which hon. members sat, were charged to loan. He never sat in one of the seats without thinking whether he was nob dealing too hardly with the public creditor by sitting in them. Tine country was a mass of debt, and he was confident that the promises made by the Government, to deliver them into approval of its returns, could not be fulfilled This was capable of the most complete demonstration. Every element of true statesmanship was absent from the Government proposals. It was not a noble plan carefully matured to reduce the burdens of the people, or to equalise them, which the Government brought forward. There was no such object. The most obnoxious tax—that on the gold earned by the pioneers of civilization, the miners—was to be continued ; the miners were to be sacrificed to the squatters, and be shorn close. The reason there was no valid argument in favour of the Government proposals was because they dared not tell the real meaning of the Government proposals, which was that we are a governing class and we will govern the country. A democracy of the worst kind was what the Government arrived at, and they would ultimately repent it in sackcloth and ashes. Had they finding : reform necessary, begun by reducing the expenditure and distributing taxation so as to yield a larger revenue ; had they broken up large runs and replaced sheep by men ; had they formed an'educated and intelligent democracy, a great contented community able to subsist without .foreign capital ; had they put forward plans to attain such ends, and submitted them calmly and deliberately to the judgment of the country, then they would have pursued a course.calculated to promote the welfare of the country, instead of with mischievous monkey-like malice, proposing to knock everything down and to set up;nothing; in their place. They proposed to call a new Parliament to find everything in chaos and out of chaos, to build up something or other instead of leaving it to the new Parliament to replace existing institutions by others. more suited to the Government, of the country. It was not yet too late, and he would be amp iy gratified to find them even yet pursuing it. If they did not, then the collapse which would ensue—the shock which the credit of the colony would sustain— would be atiaibutabla to themselves not to him. They would have themselves to blame if, as he was certain would be the case, that Afct was disallowed, and they, dragged before the Courts of law, would have themselves to blame. He earnestly implored them to pause in their rash course, for they would gain nothing by thtir haste.

SHOBIiAKD -BTRKkr.