The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1874.

Evening Star, Issue 3675, 2 December 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1874.

If the speeches made at the meetings oi the Harbor Board are not always of the wisest, they at least serve two purposes : they demonstrate the amount of zeal in the members and the direction which it takes. We have never found fault with the Board as a whole, nor joined in the condemnation so freely indulged in by many of our contemporaries ; for it has been plain enough the difficulties they have to overcome are by no moans few, and that these are the more annoying, as with little foresight on the part of the Provincial Council they might have been avoided. But as they have beeu left in their way and added to by obstructionists amongst themselves, the Board has met and overcome them in a very business-like way. The last difficulty is the transfer of the delegated powers, without which all the preliminary work will bo useless. It does not appear to us that there was any necessity for the remarks indulged in by Mr Reeves. Nothing can be worse than that men in public positions should so constantly threaten to forsake the work they have undertaken unless they can there and then have their own way. They have certain duties to perform, and if the execution of them requires patience, tact, and business acumen, their best elforts are all that can be expected of them. What would bo said of men commencing a new business if, because they met with opposition, they should at once give up and say, “ as I cannot have my own way I will not try to succeed ? ” What undertakings could prosper if difficulties were met in such a craven spirit 1 Yet that is Mr Reeves’s idea of public duty. • Mr M'Dekmid is a man who delights in discoveries. He has found out something new in the constitutional law of New Zealand. He has discovered that the Superintendent is responsible to the Provincial Council, and therefore cannot delegate powers entrusted to him by the Governor. This certainly is something fresh. Mr M‘Dermid, however, is a funny man, and so probably was inclined to crack a joke at the expense of his Honor ; who certainly will receive with surprise the intimation that he must ask his Council permission to deal with powers derived from the Queen through the Governor. According to the theory of the Consfcitut on, the Superintendent is, so far as they are concerned, the representative of Majesty itself, and it is too much of a stretch of fancy that the Queen, either personally or by proxy, should humbly present herself before Otago’s high and mighty Provincial Council, and say, “ Please, gentlemen, am I to delegate my powers to the Harbor Trust, or leave you to settle bow many feet of mud shall be allowed to lie in Dunedin Bay, so that Mr M‘Dermip, under a mistaken view of the effect of harbor deepening, may have the power to add so much to the cost of goods to be paid for by my people in the Province T As a matter of courtesy, the Superintendent may consult his Council on matters of that sort, but that astute assembly did all it had power to do when it made the clumsy arrangements for transforming the control of the harbor to a Harbor Trust. So far as responsibility is concerned, theoretically the Council is responsible to the Superintendent—he is not their servant. If they pass measures he does not approve, lie can veto them ; if they recommend what he does not approve, he need not act upon the suggestion. For his conduct as Superintendent he is responsible to the people of the Province, who elected him, and to the Queen, who has power to remove him. For the use he makes of the delegated powers he is responsible to the Queen or her representative, and delegation of them to the Harbor Board does not cancel his responsibility until he is relieved from it by the act of the Governor himself. One of the Governor's responsible advisers has intimated that no objection will be made to such a transfer as is necessary to empower the Board to act; and although it may deprive Mr M‘Deumid of an opportunity of enlarging upon his ideas of constitutional law, by a speech in the Council to which he thinks the Superintendent responsible, we have no' doubt the transfer will be made without asking its consent, Ihe Hon. Mr Reyno'ds intends to addrers his constituents in a few days. Mr George Lunisden has been appointed a member of the Southland Waste Land Board. Mr Allen gets the sum of 1.400, and ex- , poses, for a six nights’ season of the English Opera Company at Timaru. “Under the Gaslight” was repeated at tnc I liuoess I hc*itre last evening to a good house, “ tamille ” \v;ll ho played to-night The Presbyterian Synod met in the First \J.uroh this morning, but there was no hu?i. ness of great importance traavaettd. Our report is held over till to morrow. Ihe protest against Captain Hutchison and the ruler of that gentleman’s mare Mabel in connection with the recent race-’.reeling came before tbo committee of tbe.Jockey Club mst evening. A full report appears in thin issue. Mr Deans on his last trip distributed the following quantities of troutAka)ore CIOPomahaka, 100;. Upper Waipuhi, 300 • Branch of the Waip.dii, 100; Lower %Vai’ pahi, 400 ; Waikoikoi. 150 ; Peat bog Creek 50; Ronald’s C.eek, 50; Leitheo Creek, 100;

Crookston, 50 ; Swift Creek, 50 ; Tnlla, 225; a>jd Fruid, 225. Of 2,000 ho took with him’ only a dozen were loot on the journey. t second monthly sitting of the District Court was held to-day, before Judge Bithgate. Hutchison v. Procter, a claim of 1,200, damages sustained by plaintiffs racing m nv; s [irittail through the negligence of defendant, as contractor, in failing to provide gates at the railway crossing at Anderson's Bay, occupied the Court the whole day. The necessity for gates was amply proved by Mr M/Uitcheon lessee of the toll-bar, which is withiu a few ya’-ds of the crossing, and Mr a gßitt, tu cross-examining him, got rather more than he bargained for. Mr Barton sng ested that two or three lawyers should !’c drafted that way, as there were too manv in Dunedin, whereupon Mr Haggitt remarked that his learned friend had better carry bis suggestion into execution.

Practical joking often leads to unpleasant results, and the ‘ Wakat-ip Mail’ relates an instance in point as having occurred at Arrowtowu ;—“ Two men induced an “Asiatic” immigrant (female), the worse for drink), to enter the rear of a shop at arrow town, and showed her a bedroom. T bey then wait round to the front and commenced conversation with the genial St. Crispin who owns the premises. By-and-bye they professed to bear a noise in his room, and chaffed him with having a visitor therein. The more he denied the truthfulness of the assertion the more boldly wer-; tbor made until our cordwainer got up from his sent and. went into the room, when, to his surprise, ho found it tenanted by the fair one. His visitors in the sjuio dialling mood, locked him in both back, and front, and departed on their ways. .Eventually, the woman was handed over to the police for heiu : illegally on the premise’, and was sentenced to fourteen days’ imprisonment at the piosecution of the knight aforesaid. The woman is married, and her husband was in the loca ity. For the rcoond concert of the season, which took place last evening, Sullivan’s “ Prodigal Sou” was performed for the first time in Dunedin, but the society is too weak both in voices and orchestra to do the oratorio justice. We have not spao •, even were we fro inclined, to discuss the merits of the work, and must ’content ourselves by observing that some of the solos were ere dtably rendered, and one of the choruses and the finale were given effectively and wiih precidon. So stronger evidence of the fading off in ihe strength of the Society could have been supplied than the necessity for the contralto music b ing entrusted to a lady who has hitherto only been heard as a soprano. Not that there was any loss, for, on the contrary, the solo that fell to her, “ Love not the world,” w s capitally sung. The gentleman to whom the bass part was given appeared at the So- iety’s concerts for the first time, but has been heard in public here before. He is a decided acquisition, and has a line and more than ordinarily powerful baritone, which we have beard him use to greater advantage than he did last evening, though the very trying aria, “For this my sou was dead,” was given with proper spirit and hilly merited the applause it received The soprano and tenor solos were creditably rendered, and the unaccompanied quartette, “'lhe Lord is nigh unto me,” was evenly sung. The second part of the concert comprised two instrumental selections, both operatic, three solos, and a couple of choruses. Despite its weakness, the orchestra rendered te’eotions from “ Lucrczia Borgia” effectively, but were hardly so successful in the o'her selection. “ Hybras, the Cretan,” and one of Schubert’s songs, were the s >’os. and the latter was sweetly sung in Berman by the lady who in the oratorio gave the coi tralt) music. The choruses, “Gentle Spring ” and “ Farewell to the forest,” went remarkab’y well. We had almost omitt> d to mntiu that Miss Tewsley presided at the piano during the per ormance of the oratorio. It is almost as m. edle-s to mention that Mr Towsey conducted, and ably so. as to say that there was a crowded audience. The attendance at the opening of St. Matthew's to-morrow is likely to be large. In our icport of proceedings in the Magistrate's Court yesterday, by mistake Mr Bathgate is said to have used the term “ Res fiesta” instead of rc-s judicata-. The ‘ Evangelist’ for December contains much interesting matter in connection with the Presbyterian Church. The controversial element is more than usually scant, but we do not know that the journal is less interesting on that account.