AUCKLAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 19, 17 May 1851, Page 6

AUCKLAND.

Our Auckland news date to the 22nd April. A bridge is in course of erection over the Taniaki Creek, on the -great Southern road, by which a saving of about three miles will be effected between Otahuhu and Papakura. The piers and foundations are of scoria, with wooden spaces between the piers. Since the bridge was commenced, upwards of two thousand acres of land have been sold by Government in the district, at one pound per acre; an additional proof (says the Neiv Zealander) of the certainty with which such works repay their own cost. The " William Hyde " sailed for London on the 9th April, taking as passengers the widow and family of the late Lieutenant-Governor General Put. The following account of a demonstration by some natives at Auckland is quoted from the Southern Cross: — " Auckland, at the moment at which we write, presents the warlike attitude to which, for the last five years, her inhabitants have been totally unaccustomed. From a state of the most peaceful repose, she has started in an instant to one ] of martial activity. To understand the cause of this metamorphosis, it will be necessary to ac- j quaint our distant readers that on Monday evening a native having been taken into custody by the police, for stealing a shirt from a shop in the town, a rush of the Ngatipoa tribe, with whom the thief had been abiding, took place. Whether the police were under the apprehension of an attempted rescue of their prisoner does not appear; this much is certain, that a fierce struggle ensued, that several of the inhabitants flocked to the assistance of the police, and that in the melee a principal chief, who it seems was tapued,ox rendered sacred fo\" thetime,was knocked down and beaten by one of the Maori police, and lodged in the lock-up, but afterwards liberated. Ere this, however, numbers of his people had taken to their canoes, threatening vengeance on their return ; but, as Tuesday and Wednesday passed by without any appearance of their return, and as the thief, Ngawiki, had been summarily convicted and sentenced to three months imprisonment with hard labour, it was imagined the affair had been consigned to oblivion. From an early hour of yesterday morning, however, the native canoes began to pour into Mechanics' Bay, until by noon a vast body of men, fully armed, and amply supplied with ammunition, had assembled. The war dance was danced at an early hour, and, as we hear, was after wards repeated. Measures to meet the emergency were taken with calmness, decision, and promptitude. Orders were issued to the oSth Regiment, the Artillery, the Sappers and Miners, and the Pensioner force to hold themselves in readiness ; the like instructions having been given to Captain Oliver of H. M. Ship Fly. About noon, His Excellency the Governor, with most of the principal Military and Civil OflScers of Government, proceeded to Mechanics' Bay, where His Excellency, having assembled the tribes, demanded of them the reason of their unlawful assembling under arms. In answer to this, they stated that a native policeman had grossly outraged a native chief, and that the aggressor must be surrendered to his particular tribe to be dealt with according to native usage. To such a proposition His Excellency, of course, could not for a moment listen. He had but one mode of action left, which was to warn them that if, within two hours, they did not launch their canoes and return home, the Artillery should open their lire upon them from the land, and the guns of the Fly be directed upon them from the sea. The command was us peremptory as it was prudent. The heavy war canoes were dragged down the beach, and by three o'clock Mechanics' Bay was freed from the presence of the natives.

The affairs of the settlement having thus returned to their wonted pacific channel, there is one thing to which the attention of the Executive should at once be directed, and that is, to the remo\al of the native policeman, who not only wantonly, but we believe wilfully, and with a vindictive knowledge of his identity, struck the chief. Uuera, aggravating- the blow, moreover, by the plentiful application of the most insult-ing-language. The dignity of the law having been completely vindicated, it would be a wilful and a wanton act to endanger tbe future peace of the community by retaining- this policeman

in a force in which we contend no native should

ever have been enrolled. We have been upon llic"poilif of"payfii'g-vevy~(learly for sucli fatuity, ami we may be liable at any moment to be

plunged into difficulty, if not destruction, by confiding to natives a power which requires the utmost care and discretion in its exercise. What will the good folks of London say when we tell them that not only fveeborn Englishmen, but thehighest and most influential native chiefs, are liable to experience outrage and insult at the hands of the meanest native slave and savage P. If this be a wise discrimination, Heaven help us from its infliction. The sooner the police is purged from such adjuncts, the I>e;ier i'or the peace and security of New Ze.shiixl. To i retain them longer is now proved not only expensively useless, b\it positively dangerous." The "New Zealander" of the 23rd April, gives the sequel of the affair. " The threatenings of disturbance which, a few days since, excited some alarm in the minds of the timid and apprehensive, have passed away without leaving any result behind. On Friday the Rev. Mr. Kissling, (who, for several hours, was amongst them, exercising that invaluable influence by which the missionaries have, in so many instances, proved the best peacemakers and peace-maintainers in this country,) left them disposed to submission, and most anxious to " shake handstand be reconciled to the Governor. This spirit was satisfactorily manifested on Monday, when they came to town, laid their meris and a spear at the feet of His Excellency and afterwards departed to their homes with, as we have little doubt, not only feelings of amity towards the authorities and the European population, but also with impressions, both as to their own proceedings and as to the manner in which they were treated, which are calculated to exercise a permanently beneficial influence on their minds." OTAGO. We learn from the " Otago Witness" of the 3rd instant, that a meeting had been held for extending the purposes'of the " Otago Horticultural Society," and placing its various objects under the superintendance of separate Committees, viz. a Committee for Agriculture, one for Horticulture, a third for Live Stock, and a fourth for Mineralogy and Agricultural Chemistry. We make also the following extract relative to an institution, a similar one to which we should be glad to see established in our own colony. uln to-day's paper there appears a statement of the revenue and expenditure of the Dunedin Property Investment Company, and we would take the present opportunity of calling the attention of our readers to the working of the scheme, and the advantages it confers on contributors. Considering the small community, the Society appears to have been eminently successful, the sum advanced to shareholders being no less than £302, 10s., the arrears only amounting to 245. The shareholders who have taken advantage of the advances have made purchase of sections of land, on which some have built comfortable houses, and made improvements on their lands, which, in all probability, would never have been done but for the .instrumentality of the Society. Those again who have not taken advances have reaped a corresponding benefit, inasmuch as the profits on each share amount to 7s.2t\. on the 275. paid up by fortnightly payments of Is.

" it is delightful to contemplate this result, and strikingly shews that ouv industrious mechanics and labourers are in pretty comfortable circumstances, and accumulating property. We consider the Dunedin Property Investment Company to be an excellent Friendly Society, and worthy of every encouragement ; combining, as it does, both a Savings' Bank and a Loan Society."

{From the ' Government Gazette? April 28.) PROCLAMATION. By His Excellency Edward Jolin Eyre, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor of "the Province of New Minister, in the islands of New Zealand, &c, &c. Whereas by an Ordinance enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand, by and with the advice of the Legislative Council thereof, Session 8, No. 9, intituled ' An Ordinance for Registering Births, Deaths, and Marriages in the Colony of New Zealand,' it is enacted that for the purposes of the said Ordinance, ' it shall be lawful for the Governor (or Lieutenant-Governor) by Proclamation, to be for that purpose issued,_to divide the_Colony of New Zealand into such and so many districts as he shall think fit, and every suck district shall

be called by a distinct name, aud shall be a Deputy Registrar's District -.'

And whereas by a Proclamation bearing date the fifteenth day of May, one thousand*ei"ht hundred and forty-eight, the boundaries of die District of Akaroa for the purposes of the aforesaid Ordinance were particularly described : And whereas it has become necessary to divide the aforesaid district of Akaroa into two Districts, to be respectively named the Akaroa District and the Canterbury District:

Now therefore, I, the Lieixtenant-Govevnor, in pursuance of the power and authority in me' vested by the said in part recited Ordinance, do hereby appoint that until further notification the district of Akaroa shall, for the purposes of the aforesaid Ordinance, consist of that tract at country lying to the south-east of a line drawn from the Western Headland of Pig-eon Bay, on the north coast of Banks' Peninsula to Waikakahi on its southern coast, and that the Canterbury District for the purposes of the said Ordinance shall consist of the whole of that tract of country lying to the north-west of the said line and heretofore included in the District of Akaroa, as appointed by the Proclamation hereinbefore in part recited.

Given under my hand, and issued under the Public Seal of the Province of New Munster, in the Islands of New Zealand, at Government House, at Wellington, this twenty-sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one. E. Eyre, Lieutenant-Governor. By His Excellency's command,

Alfbkd DoMKTr, Colonial Secretary, God save the Queen !