General Summary.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 365, 7 April 1866, Page 2

General Summary.

- POLITICAL. Undoubtedly the interest of the past month centres in tbe result of the general election for the House of Representatives. These are now completed, and wo are in a tolerably good position to estimate the strength of parties. We conclude, from a careful survey of the election proceedings throughout the colony, that the new Ministry may be said to be firmly established, although this, of course, depends very much upon the development of measures that are at present barely indicated. Some of the Colonial papers—particularly those of Auckland and Otago—give, as we believe,undue prominence to what is called the Separation movement; in fact, it is well known that all the representatives of Auckland Province go into the Assembly pledged to a man to support the dismemberment of tbe Colony, yet we do not attach any importance to it. The Premier, Mr Stafford, has informed tbe country that he will not be a party to such an act, and we believe that the Auckland party know better than to upset his Administration, which must result should they be able (which ws do not believe) to defeat him on that question. He has, however, stated his intention to effect an amendment in th e Constitution, and this will prove to he one of the greatest of the difficulties of the new Parliament, for the fullowing reasons Parties are by no means agreed as to what changes are desirable; and let the present system be disturbed (as it must be), it affords ground for the display of all the antagonism of the two great divisions of the anti-Separationist party— the Centralists and the Provincialists. The first of these, disgusted with tbe miserable doings of nine Governments in what after all is but a small Colony,—with the excessive costliness of so cumbex*ous a machinery,—would abolish the present system, and establish a strong Central Government, converting the px-eseut Provinces into counties or municipalities, with exceedingly limited powers of legislation, extending to the merest localisms, reserving to the General Government almost all that is now undertaken by tbe existing Provincial Governments. On the other hand, the Provincialists would extend the powers already possessed by the Provincial Governments (or some of them), and restrain the action of the General Assembly to those few things that directly concern the Colony as a whole—'as for instance the Postal, Judicial, and Customs Departments.

Of these, we believe the Provincial party are the strongest, and that whatever changes may be made in the Constitution will lie in that direction; but there are yet serious difficulties in the way of their scheme, not the least of which is the weakness of some of the existing Provinces, rendering pleneray legislation undesirable, if not impracticable, for them and at the same time there is the jealousy each of these would feel at any attempt to deprive them of powers now pos. sessed.

To meet the above difficulties, we have been favored by a member of the new Ministry with the x outline of a scheme for the consolidating of the Provinces, reducing them to six in number instead of nine, viz. a Northern, Central, and Southern in each of the two islands of New Zealand. This approaches somewhat to the ideal of the framers of the original Constitution of New Zealand, and in fact to what was the actual state of things previous to the first meeting of the General Parliament, and especially previous to the blow dealt to Provincialism by the passing of the new Provinces Act, and the severing of Hawke’s Bay from the Province of Wellington. But it is not proposed to re-annex Hawke’s Bay to Wellington, Adjoining that Province on the .West Coast is that of Taranaki, one of the original Provinces of the and which, but that it lacks a harbor, should have

grown to one of the principal districts of the Colony; but it has been blighted by the grossest mis-government. Here it is that the fatal effects of a foolish temporising policy in dealing with rebellious savages have been produced in their full extent, and it has been cramped and crushed instead of having play allowed for its powers of expansion. . This is the Province it is proposed to annex to that of Wellington, in order to constitute one of the three strong Provinces of the Northern Island. Hawke’s Pay, the first of the separated Provinces, it is proposed shall form the second of these. Since its severance from the parent Province, it has shown marvellous capabilities of progress; so much so, that even the ultra-Provincialists hesitate at the idea of proposing re-annexation. But it is still weak, and of far too limited an extent in its present state to aspire to the title of a great Province ; but on its Northern border lies an extensive and fertile district that in future years must become of the greatest importance—the district of Poverty Bay. This is actually cut off from the Auckland Province, in which it is supposed to lie, by the well-marked geographical features of an alpine range of mountains, and even at present Hawke’s Bay is its natural capital. The inference is plain '• this district of Poverty Bay will, if annexed to Hawke s Bay, elevate it at once to the desired rank of one of the three proposed Provinces. But what of Auckland ? Auckland already covers about one-half of the Northern Island, and it is supposed can well spare the small piece of territory referred to, if she can be persuaded to do so.

the war. Teebe is but little to report on the progress of the war. On the East Coast there has. been a few slight skirmishes, which we do not believe greatly affects the question. The principal event of the month has been the re, raoval of a portion of the prisoners to the Chatham Islands, which we believe would ere this have been followed by a second batch but from an accident to the machinery of the St. Hilda,’ s.s., which has prevented it so far. On the West Coast we hear of friendly tribes going over to the enemy, and of troubles consequent thereon. There have been also some submissions on the part of ceitaiu rebels. In Auckland, the murderers of poor Folloon and the crew of the Kate, who were found guilty by court martial, have been re-tried by the civil power and convicted, and sentence passed upon them. WAIROA. From this district we learn that there has been an engagement between the friendly natives and rebels at the Wairoa Lake, which might have ended in. the capture of the latter, but was frustrated by the firing off of a rifle on the part of one of the friendlies, which gave the enemy the alarm. As it was, three of the Hau-haus were killed. The remaining chief, Te Waru, has surrendered.

LOCAL. Of local events, the principal has been the election of members for the House of Representatives, reports of which we give elsewhere ; and, we may add, the testing of the new Native Lands Act, which proposed to discover the true claimants of the wild lands, and confer Crown titles upon them, with & view to their exercising the rights of ownership, by a duly qualified Court, and its failure, it being the sheerest folly to try to discover a title when none exists, or to decide between the numerous claims of opposing parties, of which one is almost as valid as another. When the power of purchase vested in the Crown alone, the simple plan was to buy the particular piece of land of each of its claimants, and so satisfy them all; but this plan will not act when the end in view is the confering of a title. We give some remarks os this subject in another place.