Correspondence.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 428, 10 December 1856, Page 3

Correspondence.

To the JUdilor of the LijilcUoii Times. Sir, —Will you allow me, as one of the committee for the building of the Ferry Road Church, to state, that no instructions have been given by the committee to the Rev. James Wilson to advertise for tenders for the building of the Ferry Road Church. I remain Sir, Your obedient servant, J. H. Moore. To Hie Editor of ike Ly Italian Times. Silt,—Your impression of Wednesday last contained a very funny letter bearing the signature of Mr. Rowland Davis. With that part referring to the imputed shortcomings and derelictions of the ' Canterbury Standard ' I have nothing to do —beyond congratulating that paper on its correctness, as shown in Saturday's number, in a letter under the initials " J.W.," who appears to have set the honourable member for Akaroa as his next copy in the book " Lilera scripta manet," and to have suggested to his arithmetical soul one or other of these two computations, cither trying to con- | vince each one of the thirteen honourable members who voted against his motion that they did not so vote, or the three ayes that they had not even an idea on the subject, either collectively or individually. This letter partakes strongly of all the pleasing features of Mr. Rowland Davis's speeches and writings, and runs in a few lines over a a great number of subjects. He does not seem to understand that the very fact of all these whalers having been in the liabit of lying in Simeon Bay,and there prosecuting their industry -with ease and success, really is an argument against his view of the 'necessit5 r being so urgent for the establishing a pilot station there, where the Government reserve, he says, comprises good soil, wood and water. There is a pride that apes humility; such was Uriah Heep's ;."-but as " Master Mariner's" letter in no sort of way advocated the residence of the pilot at Lyttelton, there is no necessity for all his humility in asking the question so entirely irrelevant: "Is the entrance of the harbour or Lyttelton, six miles distant, the proper place for the pilot." "Master Mariner" set out to consider the subject with, due reference to the circumstances of the times. In other words, having a piece of cloth that would only make a handsome jacket, he did not try to get out of it a very so-so sort of coat. As only one vessel in and out a day would at the best only afford amusement to the harbour master and his coxswain,without interfering with any other little duties, he would be remarkably well situated for the performance of his duty 'if located near Ripa, east or west, when he would also have the quarantine ground under his eye, and two places of refuge on the same side of the harbour, in the event of any contre-temps occurring to his boat, viz., Camp Bay and Simeon Bay. Mr. Davis does not appear to imagine that these points ever occupied the attention of anyone but himself, but he will find that men whose minds have had the benefit of a professional education have given them due consideration. It may surprise the honourable member for Akaroa to hear it asserted, that it is at all events open to discussion and to grave doubt, whether, after all, Adderly Head is the best place for a lighthouse, supposing his Excellency were intmediately about to exercise his prerogative. Experience in other countries has shown that lights placed on lofty eminences of the bold character of many of our headlands are very much exposed to the chance of being obscured and rendered doubtful in their utility by themists and fogs that so often aye tobe fouud enveloping

these elevated points, when other and lower portionsof the Jandare unobscured. Without positively asserting it as my opinion, I would hazard the idea that the Eastern Headland of Port Levy would be the better place for a lighthouse, and by using some of the little dodges (if he will pardon me that unparliamentary expression) well known in phraseology, its position there might be made even more useful than in any other. If he will take the Admiralty Chart of Port Victoria, and suppose himself in the position of our contemplated Pharos —I will point out to him, with such perspicuity and brevity as may be in my power, why. A light there would not be made to reflect round all the points of the compass—it would not be wanted south of a line between that head and the look-out point. Between its position,and westward of a line drawn across to the Port Victoria edge of Godley Head, the light exhibited would be Red, to the seaward of such line it would be White ; while to a vessel approaching Adderly or Tairoa Head too close, it would be made to disappear, although to a vessel going up to Port Levy it would again appear until she arrived as far as the small islet rock on the starboard hand, when she would again lose it. The periphery of this light should rest on the island of Motunau. If the honourable member for Akaroa would use all his influence with our Superintendent to induce the southern provinces to combine for the establishment of a noble light of thefirst magnitude on Terawiti, in Cook's Straits which would be of the greatest utility to the Res publicaof New Zealand, he would find himself engaged in the very pleasing feature of the illumination of our country with the light of Practical Common Sense. Your obadient servant. The Master Mabixer. ' Canterbury, Nov.. 27, 1856. J

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times. Sir, —The subject of steam communication naturally occupies a large share of public notice, and as I think that much depends on carrying out this scheme properly and quickly, this must be my apology for, troubling you with a few remarks, and more particularly knowing so well that your columns are always open for giving utterauce to and for eliciting opinion on public matters, from however humble a source it may emanate. Having attended the meeting to-day at Christchurch, various matters were mentioned which to a nautical man like myself are naturally of interest: but, sir, I felt deterred from taking any part in the discussion which ensued, because the invitation to meet and consider the above"object was restricted, and somewhat invidiously many people think, to Lyttelton and Christchurch ; such a place as Kaiapoi beitiix as ■usual entirely ignored ; and this too, knowing that we have unquestionably the finest river in the province, and capabilities and resources connected therewith to an enormous amount, which comivmpacal ion by steam would so much tend to develop. I say sir, we have much, to complain of", not only on this account, but also considering that even now, the district north of the Wnimakiriri contributes somewhere about a third of the revenue of the province, and is surely entitled to some consideration, besides other reasons which I need not mention. I am the last mau in the world to set \xy> jealousies and differences between one place and another in the province, for I consider our interests are identical, and snore particularly with Lyttel'-Mi, notwithstanding his Honor's "settled conviction thr.r the establishment of any really eilL-ienl communication between the shipping in Port Victoria and any part of the coast on this side of the hills will speedily result in the abandonment

of Lyttelton as the principal shipping port of the province, and the sacrifice of the investments in that place/" &c. [see the Message No. 3, under date of 1 lth Nov.] Tins may be considered somewhat irrelevant, but being part and parcel of the ■whole, J am compelled to take notice of it, j particularly as it seems these opinions of his Honor are to be held over the inhabitants of Lyltelton, m Icrrorem, for a certain object no doubt. Notwithstanding these opinions, I hold that, to any one acquainted with such matters, the idea of making a port, properly so called, of any other place than Port Lyttelton is simply an absurdity : ask any 'practical man, and sure am I that lie will agree with me. I revert to the original subject of my letter. I consider that the Government ought to have nothing whatever to do with the management of the proposed steamers. I think it ought to be left entirely to private enterprise. I have never known a commercial undertaking prosper under Government auspice?. A hundred reasons might, be given for the cause; I simply remark that it is so. From private enterprise, then, backed with the munificent sum votedby the Provincial Council, we razy hope to see some good results. At the same time, Ido not think that as a commercial speculation it would pay common interest, for the first twelve months : but it would tend as I have observed to develop the resources of the colony, and make|work (if I may so express myself) for instantly t employing more than two steamers. As for the cry that I have several times heard, of steamers ruining the boatmen, I consider on the contrary, that their j work would be more than doubled. We most of us recollect, or may have heard of the ruin that teas to ensue to coachjiroprietors and shipowners, on the introduction of • railways and steamers ; the former would have no employment for their horses, the latter for their ships. What was the resultr %vhy, the esaetireverse "of this deplorable picture took place. At the same time. Sir, though an advocate for steamers and railways, believe me, I am not an advocate for a Sunnier railway ! though that [locality has certainly taken our money at a fine railroad pace. As to the sort of steamer. I believe one of about 100 or 200 tons would be the best size, of a light draught of water. I have known many steamers of even 300 tons built for shallow bars, not drawing more than C feet of water. "Vessels of this description would be j difficult, at least, I apprehend so. to be pro- | cured ,in the colonies, notwithstanding •■ we have heard of some nice iiule steamers in various ports of Victoria. I should be wry doubtful of their answering the purposes for which we require them. Having been a ship-owner for some years. I look with suspicion on second hand vessels. 1 do not mean to say that proper vessels are not to be procured out here, but where there is a doubt, the best plan is to make it a certainty by sending to England for what is required, otherwise we may Lave a repetition of the Alma affair. Perhaps, however, the less paid on this subject; the better. Again, Sir, notwithstanding the opinions very strongly expressed by certain illustrious persons, that screw ?1 earners are most desirable, I entirely differ from this opinion : i:j which I know I urn joined by most, I think all. of my professional brethren out here. As ocean in southern latitudes they answer well, but for bar harbours and narrow and circuitous rivers, v paddle alf.iniisr is unquc^tiojiab'v the most useful. It seems, however, very expedient that a steamer should at once be laid on the berth for conveyance of goods and produce to and

from the plains; and no doubt an efficient vessel, or atjall events one that would 'do, till we had"time to get better, might be found at once, or within 3 or 4 months, for a reasonable sum, to run during the ensuing season ; though for a more extensive commerce I certainly adhere to sending to England. There is another point to be considered, supposing a steamer or steamers are procured. I mean the Insurance thereof. I have heard various plans proposed, but not one which I consider really safe, that is to say in the absence of any known Insurance Company underwriting ; and I do not think any Company would be found to underwrite on vessels running in and out of our rivers, at least not at present, or until] the risks are better known. In London, I have had to pay as high as nine guineas per cent, on a ship cf mine trading- on the coast of Peru and Chili, where the risk is comparatively small, but Insurance Companies guard their interests with a very jealous eye to unknown ports. Certainly Sir, you must admit that Sumner and Kaiapoi would be a terra incognita at Lloyd's. What then is our protection to be ? I heard it stated by a gentleman to-day, for the first time, that various parties whose properties on the banks of the Waimakariri would be so much improved by steam communication, that they were ready to pledge them at a certain price in the shape of a security towards Insurance. I beg to say, sir, that I am not one of those who having property on and adjoining this river, would do anything of the kind. I do not think such a security for such an object at all a legitimate one ; it is not sufficiently tangible in case of loss, you must realise at once to replace such loss, immc~ diately ; otherwise, you lose one. great benefit of insurance. I believe it can be only done in oneway, in the absence of a company underwriting : and that is by various parties each guaranteeing a sum to be agreed upon, on account of any loss or damage that might takeplace; or—supposing various parties who might invest in shares to be their own underwriters, on the plan, and a most successful one it has been, of the Insurance Clubs in Yorkshire. There is one other point which I feel some delicacy in handling (I say delicacy, becauseittreals more of men than measures), and that is the management of any steam Company, incorporated here. I am fully aware that the opinions of seamen and landsmen on the conducting of a marine speculation are about as wide as the difference between light and darkness, and it would require great circumspection, care, and no doubt some little trouble to get the thing started, and with the advice of really practical men. Such are to be found amongst Messrs. Millton.;Morgrin, Rowe, G. W. &T. Hall, Harding, kc. I make no apology for mentioning their names, for they are all matter of fact men, whose opinions on such subjects would of course be valuable : and a greatdeal will depend on getting the management started in proper working trim, for I I trust that the proximate cause of this j province advancing rapidly' to prosperity will be through steamers ; and not/only tin's I province but the whole of New Zealand ; because what we want is certain and rapid communication, not only coastwise, but inter--1 colonial also.

There are other points to be discussed, but which must be left for future considern" tioa : and in concluding this rambling, and I know very imperfect letter, I have only to remark that it is written with a sincere interest for the welfare of the [province, an earnest desire to be useful to the colony I have made my home, and though I may have animadverted on opinions which I believe to

be fallacious, yet it must be born in mind that public men are public property. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, W. C. Beswick,

To the Editor of I fie Li/ttellon Times-. Sin, —If fellowship in misfortune constitutes anj' relief of the burden, how near have we not been in having (he community of New South Wales as our companions in that category to which we have been brought by the recently enacted Tariff? The late one, commonly known by the name of its putative parent as Ilickson's, presented many incoherences and incongruities ; but what, with our experience of its working, should we have thought had any one stated, twelve months since, that ere long we should have been ready to apostrophize it with, " J?orsan,et luce olim meminisse Juvabil ?"' There existed for some little time a hope somewhat indistinct, perhaps more to be characterised as a longing, that some method, constitutional as speedy, would be found to consign this new Tariff to the Great Limbo of the Past. Such hope now, however, fades away. Very recently your columns gave us in ex~, tenso, from those of the " Wellington Independent," an article upon this Tariff, one of the best digested arguments that ever filled the pages of your contemporary ; it was followed by a copy of the memorial of the Chamber of Commerce of that city addressed to his Excellency the Governor in Chief, pointing out in a very able analysis not a few of the very raanj r patent reasons why it and its principle were so obnoxious to that mercantile community of whose sentiments they were the exponents ; but our Colonial Secretary at Auckland, in his reply, somehow contrives to say with a singular want of logical conclusion, arguing from such premises, " His Excellency's Government are glad to observe that the objections made are more against the details than the principle, and they have every reason to believe a little experience will tend to remove some at least of those objections. gWorthy indeed of the Circumlocution department! It would be a difficult task to choose between the pithy summing up of the Chamber of Commerce in Sydney, who conclude their resolutions as follows, (No. 3.) '' The imposition of a duty upon packages according to their size, without regard to their value, is unjust in principle, unequal in operation, and repugnant to the usages of trade. (N0.4) And further, the general scheme ignores the principle that any materials imported for the purpose of manufacture should be exempt from taxation ;" or that well written argument to which I have before made allusion, and to which it is unnecessary to refer , literatim. But when the Colonial Secre- * tary's despatch proceeds to say, " In adopting an entirely new system, in reference to which the experience of other places was not available, it was of course to be expected that amendments would be required," we are forcibly and disagreablyreminded that when this Tariff was introduced by a certain honorable member, well primed with Blue Book Statistics, the House of Representatives was assured in an off-hand and easy manner, like that of Skimpole, that " It was all right, system worked well at St. Helena." Was the House in its collective and in its individual character stunned, that they accepted thisas\siiraneeasau argument in favor of its introduction to the community of New Zealand: This.assurance might have been logically used in the construction of an argument, if need had been, as to its fitness for the Island of Ascension, or the purely military fortresses of Aden and Gibraltar, or be kept in petto for some successor to Governor Glasse in Tristan D'Acunha, or made an offering to the Brazilian officer in charge of the Penal .settlement of Fernando

Noronha. But whilc'you accord me space, let me ask your readers, Is this Tariff, and the fashion of its enactment to be taken as a fair average specimen of the result of that which we embody by the comprehensive appellations, now Household Terms, of "Representative Institutions, and "Responsible Government ?" " Parturiunt monies nascitur mils." Is tliis the manner in which His Excellency keeps that promise which was conveyed in every answer to every address, made by him and to him'during his tour through these Island when first byourGracious Queen he was nominated to their charge ? Does he think that the aspirations of men's spirits did not prompt that value which was every where declared to attach to that st3'le and reality of Government by representation, and which they requested might be accorded to them at once, not as a boon, but as a restoration of their inalienable Anglo-Saxon birthright which they had never lost, but the exercise of which they had voluntarily foregone during a few years of decent, willing and, not forced nonage ? If this Tariff is to Lc/ construed as its legitimate off-spring, how is it that in New South Wales fair and open discussion and dissection of a measure proposed find opportunity,preparatory to its commitment ? The Sun, shineth it not, and the rain, does it not fall alike on both just and unjust? Is this our adopted land, the capabilittcs of which have occupied so many eloquent pens in describing, so different in all its constituent parts,|j or does it form so inharmonious a whole, when compared with all those other portions of Her Britannic Majesty's Colonial Dominions, upon which the sun by divine appointment makes perpetual day, that the elaborate work entitled " the Tariffs of the British Empire," quite recently published by that eminent member of the British House of Commons, Mr, Newdegate, contains no one solitary hint worthy of the notice of our maiden session ? Rather would it not be more decent to rel'iain from meddling with such a subject until some axioms are arrived at, as to thb intention of a Tariff, and the necessity existing for that nice and delicate adjustment of the public burthen, which promises strength to its support ? With a view then to elucidate this position, let me propose to you to lift at a venture any number of any one of t your New Zealand contemporaries' sheets, will you not find the question of roads, and every matter of inter-local communications and transport, the all engrossing theme, —how new ones can be opened, their direction and cost, and the repair of the old r Now, for how large a portion of these islands, and for how great a quantity of their produce is not the " ever sounding sea" the great pathway! Eloquent writers, and men of prolific imagination have from this very fact predicted that this bantling of Britannia's will some day rear a navy of its own. And what? Our legislature clog our only public carrying trade with a duty on canvas and rope, and would construe a hollow coil into a cube! Such an anomaly existed not,and let us own it, in the dear defunct. Wait on me with ■yet a [little patience. Amongst the Free Goods we have an attempted enumeration of agricuHural-manual-labour-saving-machi-nery. Even " a he who 'would cheerfully answer Dame Mary Wedlake's pertinent and perpetual question " Do you bruise your oats yet?" finds his path made easy to an immediate assent.; but he whose soil is eribolaktinc. or wliosc affections run on even and w> I shorn lawns finds the improved clod <iushers and garden rollers amongst tin* iuJ.nx cxpnrgalorius. Such an anomaly woui.l !ki\o been avoided by a comprehensive Ie -..!. as "AH agricultural niac hinery." '1 ■* of your readers, whilst in j^ngland, whr u> k their hebdomadal en-

joyment of Punch must well remember that expressive woodcut which represented a First, Lord of the .British Admiralty dressed in tho time-honored paper cap and long apron of a journeyman carpenter, approaching Britannia, to whom was given the air and visage of Victoria, with a small boat in his hands, while with an ?iir of earnestness lie assures her he had really ur.tde it out of) his own liead ; and her look of quizzical satisfaction when she answers, that for her, she accepts it not only on that assurance, hut believing that fie has yet wood enough left to make another, Perhaps the concoctor of this ire-creating unprincipled Tari/1" would make one more, and then go, —go in search of the lost Pleiad. Ex quovis lir/no nan fit Mercurius ! Now our neighbours of Nelson rejoice largely in the carboniferous format ion ; yet, did that hint to them the establishment of a sugar refinery, and the importation of the raw material from Manilla or Mauritius, thus exciting, mark you, our carrying trade, under this our Parent of Senatorial wisdom they would find the lowest class of Hamburg refined sugars in equal position with their product. There is in " Little Dorritt"?. character whose aim and intention is to be a Practical man. Will no one here emulate him ? And are we to believe in "no coining man" whose business it shall be to be familiar in the Paths of Political Economy ? "York, you are wanted !" Your obedient servant, Kosmos.