LAST NIGHT'S TELEGRAMS

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1275, 20 April 1878, Page 2

LAST NIGHT'S TELEGRAMS

[eboteb’s special teibgbams to the PRESS AGENCY.]

[BY SUBMARINE CABLE.] AUSTRALIAN. Sydney, April 18. Case brandy, 325. All other quotations unchanged. The Q-overnment of Queensland have asked for the postponement of the cable conference for a fortnight. . . The Board pf Enquiry into the Chimborazo accident suspended Captain Vine Hall’s certificate for six months ’The cape of the third mate is postponed for a week.

INTERPROVINCIAL.

[EBB EBiiaa AOENOY.] Auckland, April 18, Te Wheoro isuqtown interviewing Mr Sheehan respecting the approaching native meeting Tawhiao is still ill. A Native Act will be introduced by the Government next session. The Bill passed last session enabled the Government to ascertain its position respecting land purchases. They find that Government will lose largely on blocks which have been acquired. In some cases they yill lose 15s in the & The new Act will appoint a native assessor to investigate titles. Having settled the ownership, they will call in a European who will register their decisions, when the lands will from time to time be put up in small blocks, not exceeding a thousand acres. Provision is made in the Act to prevent acquirement of large blocks by monopolists. Government will probably abandon a large amount of unprofitable speculations entered into by their predecessors. ’Wellington, April 18. The Hon. J. Ballanco, having received the application of M? Ciawfoydj and M?

Buker, clerk of the Court, for inquiry into allegations made by Mr Barton against the officials of tho jR.'jVT. Court, communicated with Mr Barton on the matter. In reply Mr Barton says —“ In making these charges I carefully abstained from pointing out a certain individual, lest I might hereafter bo forced into tho position of defending myself before Judges whom I have charged with fostering in the inferior Courts a state of things of which I complain, I remember too well the Bridges scandal, and how certain powerful gentlemen dared Mr Bridges to the proof, and in tho same breath threatened him with prosecution for perjury if he opened his mouth, I note also that, when Mr Jones boldly persisted in charging the Attorney-General with corruption, and when Parliament, at the expense of the taxpayers, directed the prosecution to clear the Attorney-General’s character, Judge W illiams, with the assistance of Judge Johnstou, contrived to exclude all truth of the proof of Mr Jones’s charges, and thus endeavoured to reduce tho jury to the necessity of finding Mr Jones guilty. I also note that this judicial juggle was perpetrated under cover of a repealed English statute, only capable of being treated as law in New Zealand in case the judge should consider it applicable to the circumstances of the colony.” Mr Barton then goes on to say, “ George Jones only escaped the destruction intended for him because the jury, drawn from the middle class, was bold enough to fling to the winds the direction of judges and acquit Jones of libel. With these beacons before me, I cannot but believe that the intention of Mr Crawford and Mr Baker was not so much to vindicate the R.M. as to secure the opportunity of silencing me by civil or criminal proceedings. In Dunedin in 1866 I had unfortunate experience of trial formalicious prosecution before Justice Richmond and an “assorted jury ” and haA T e no desire to repeat in Wellington a similar trial before the same judge and an “ assorted jury,” picked from the list of ninety-one (dead and alive) of the gentlemen whose interest it is to keep things as they are. I beg therefore to decline to place myself in the position of a private prosecution.” At the Supreme Court to-day an important decision was given in a Westport mining case. Seaton, a shareholder in the Halcyon Quartz Mining Company, limited, having been ordered by the Court below to pay certain calls, appealed against the judgment of the Court. After argument the appeal was upheld and the Court below ordered to enter up judgment for defendant instead of plaintiff. The Supreme Court upheld tho appeal on the ground that, after the lapse of twenty-one days, calls could not be sued for. Nelson, April 18.

Sir G. Grey addressed a crowded meeting at the Provincial Hall last night. The substance of his speech was the same as of those delivered in Wellington and elsewhere. At the close of the meeting a vote of confidence was proposed and carried nem. ran., amidst the most enthusiastic and prolonged cheering. Wellington, April 18.

The Immigration Officer sends home this mouth nominations for sixty-seven persons, being the largest number for some time back.