Page 4 Advertisements Column 3

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 98, 20 November 1852, Page 4

the Provincial jurisdiction'. I would support, to the utmost of my ability, any measures of the General Assembly involving such an abdication of their powers as would amount to the adoption of this principle. The retrenchment, if not the entire abolition, of the Civil List, appears to me next in order of importance. Although there can be no doubt that it is highly essential to provide ample salaries for the Governor and the Judges, I believe that this object would be best secured by relying on the good will and right feeling of the Colonists' Representatives ; and with regard to the sums of £4,700 for the expenses of the General Government, and £7,000 for the benefit of the natives, I maintain that their reservai tion from the control of the Assembly is very dangerous in principle, as enabling a Government which should be carried on in opposition to the wishes of the majority to remain for a time in that hostile attitude. Both those serI vices, I am convinced, would be generously provided for by the Assembly, so long as they were performed in accordance with its deliberate wishes. The judges now hold their office during pleasure : that is, they can be suspended by the Governor, subject to confirmation in England. They would, I believe, be placed in a much more dignified and independent position by holding during good behaviour : that is, if they could only be removed on the vote of a majority, or on the vote of two-thirds, of both Houses. While removable by the Governor they are always subject to the caprice of a single man in matters where the interests of the Crown are concerned ; and their only appeal is to the distant, and generally ignorant, judgment of another party connected with the Crown, the Colonial Office in London. Whereas the vote of both Houses, after due investigation on the spot of the alleged necessity for removal, would imply the deliberate censure of the represented standing and intelligence of the country. I am strongly opposed to the continuance of the office of Resident Magistiate, with its extraordinary and unconstitutional powers. It appears to me desirable that unpaid Justices of the Peace should have precisely the same power, and no more, which Magistrates of the same description exercise in England, instead of the extraordinary powers which any two of them now hold, in the place of the Resident Magistrate, in certain cases. They should hold Petty and Quarter Sessions as in England ; aided, in the latter, as to matters of fact by a jury, and as to matters of law by an Assistant Barrister or Legal Adviser. In port-towns, the Inspector of Police might be compelled to attend to night-cases, and to cases of desertion of seamen ; and he might be invested with the power of summarily arresting debtors about to leave the colony, which is now held by the Resident Magistrate. But he should have no other powers beyond those of a simple Justice. The present salary would still suffice for his office: and the pay of the existing Resident Magistrates in every Settlement might be at once saved to the revenue. It is highly important to the welfare of New Zealand, that titles to the lands already alienated in all the settlements should be"immediately secured to the owners: and that the question of compensation in land, due from the Government, as incurring the liabilities of the New Zealand Company, to the purchasers of land from that Company, in consequence of the long delay which occurred in obtaining a title to, and possession of, that land, should be settled as speedily as possible on equitable terms: in order as well to save the colony from the infamy of repudiation, as to ascertain how much waste land remains at its disposal. With a view to this end, it will be incumbent on the General Assembly to inquire into the usefulness of the many highly-paid Land-Commissioner-ships now existing, and to continue or abolish them as may seem most expedient. But with regard to the debt of the New Zealand Company, charged upon one-fourth of the proceeds of all land-sales in the colony, I would strenuously advocate the utmost resists ance, consistent with law and justice, to so unjust a tax on the resources of the. colony, until it shall have been clearly proved, by a careful and detailed examination of that Company's, claims, how far the Colony is really bound to satisfy them. With regard to the relations; between the natives and the British colonists, an experience of several years in the districts where the disastrous rebellions and wars lasted for so long a