NOTES BY A TRAVELLER.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2456, 30 December 1870, Page 2

NOTES BY A TRAVELLER.

Queenstown-, Dec. 2fi. Sojourning for a few clays here and a few days there, one perhaps picks up a better idea of local polities and public opinion than a resident can form ; in one’s own place and amongst one’s own people it is impossible to avoid taking a party yiew of matters, a view necessarily distorted more or less as probabilities arc shaped into what we wish by hope and unhappy chances arc ignored. The Lake district is a very important part of oar Province, and there are forces at work there which not improbably before long will produce effects as general as they are unexpected; so much to justify my scribbling from a place so distant in miles, posts, and sympathies from the Otago metropolis, its surroundings and Government. 1 am at Eichardt’s Hotel, and as is the usual custom in small townships the notabilities drop in of an evening to the comfortable parlor and discuss the “ state of the nation.” Men of all classes seem to meet here upon common ground, and with a little private coaching by the worthy landlord I nave been enabled to follow and understand what has been going on, and so without, I hope, any breach of confidence, to communicate the same. The approaching elections, with the exception of that for the General Assembly, do not appear to excite much or any interest. It seems taken for granted that Mr Macandrew will he re-elected, nor indeed has any contrary opinion been even

started in my presence. Storekeepers and farmers, dwellers in the town and dwellers m the country, all seem to agree that he has done well for the district, and that there exists no pretext for a change. If I was a politician and so interested in the matter, I should be inclined to think that some effort will be necessary to induce the electors to record their votes at all, so certain do they seem to feel of the present Superintendent’s return. For the General Assembly there are two candidates at present in the field— Mr Haughton, the sitting member, and Mr Shepherd, a distinguished ornament, I understand, of your local Parliament. It does not appear that there is any great divergence of opinion between these gentlemen upon matters political, at least so far as Mr Shepherd has yet expressed himself ; but ho is understood to be brought forward in the interest of certain capitalists and laud monopolists, whose work he has done so well in the Provincial Council that they desire to extend his sphere of usefulness (to themselves) by procuring him a seat in the Assembly. His chances are in some quarters considered good, having influential backers, and having been carrying on an active canvass for months. He appears not to have been very scrupulous either iu his promises or assertions, and is supposed to have made a great hit with the mining interest by pledging himself to the extirpation of the Chinese, who are doubtless a great nuisance, but can hv.rdly be got rid of in the arbitrary mamur proposed. The conversations in the parlor upon the merits of this candidate have been very amusing. No oneappearr to think him a politician or a man of sense, and the strongest argument iu his favor seems to he that he is supported by a Mr Hallcustein, some local magnate, whose gratitude for favors past and to. come leads him to take this action. While the usual discussion was going on one evening the door opentd, and a stout gentleman with a very open countenance entered, smiling upon the company. My neighbor nudged me, and whispered “ That’s he ; that’s S.” My ears were at one s pricked up, listening to the words of ■wisdom which should fall from his mouth. He did not, however, upon the occasion, gratify his audience by expounding a policy or even giving his views upon the land question, but confined his attention to endeavoring to convert an unbelieving elector, who did not appear to appreciate his bland voice and pleasing manners. Eventually the voice became dictatorial, the manner pugnatorial; and as I left the room to escape being perhaps an unwilling witness, gesticulating wildly the candidate was removed by his friends, leaving the elector, triumphant and unscathed, in possession of the field. Theother candidate, Mr Hanghton, seeems to be taking it very quietly, and, if he is moving at all in matters electoral, is moving in the dark. No one seems to have a word to say against his political conduct, which is admitted to have been consistent and energetic, but ho is supposed in some quarters to have been favorable sub rosa to the interests of the squatte vs as against settlement; which does not exactly tally with his known action with regard to the extension of the agricultural loose sysiem, the Wakatipu Huns, and the Hundreds Regulation Act. The contest is expected to be a close one, but odds are at present olfcacd on the' return of the present member. There has been considerable amusement with regard to the land recently thrown open on Butemeut’s Him at the head of the hake. A 5000 acre block was proclaimed in accordance with a description forwarded from the place, and no sooner was the proclamation known than the Warden’s office was flooded with applications for 200 acre leases ; the monopolists and their dummies of course mustering in force. It turns out now that the descriptions were faulty, and that the wrong land altogether has been set aside ; consequently the matter is in a nice fix. The Act seems to be clear that only one block of 5000 acres can be proclaimed on any one Hun —this having been already done in Butement’s case, it would certainly interfere successfully iu preventing the Government from issuing another proclamation sotting aside the block really intended. Then again tin [fact of applications having been lodged, complicates the difficulty. It is a great sell to some people who hoped to get quiet possession of the whole laud, as the real settlers in the district are becoming alive to the system hitherto successfully carried on of a land monopoly much more dangerous to the permanent prosperity of the country than any devices of the much abused squatters. The r cords of the Land Transfer Office will in a very f w years show tl at sonic two or three residents in this township have made the most unscrupulous use of the agricultural lease system to acquire for themselves large lauded” estates at a nominal figure—depriving the St to of ro enne and rendering future settlement of the people impossible, except in the position of serfs and farm laborers. The conversations in the parlor have let me into these little secrets ; the sooner they are proclaimed upon the housetops the better for the district.