THE GOVERNOR OF TASMANIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 447, 14 February 1857, Page 8

THE GOVERNOR OF TASMANIA.

The ' London Times' having rather roughly overhauled the Governor of Tasmania for his famous prorogation coup ■ d'etat, his Excellency has thought proper to reply to the " Thunderer" in the following terms:— TO; THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES."'. ," Sir, —In your ■ powerful, and world-known ' journal, the ' Times,' of the 10th of April last, you have, for lack of full and correct information, injuriously libelled me as " a Governor dissolving his - Council with a precipitation anil violence which recall the days of the Oxford Parliament of Charles 11., or the'attempt to seize the'fiv-e'members by Charles I." - •.'<•■ . • . ■ , I notice the libel as soon as it reaches-me at the antipodes, yet the injustice which your philippic ' does me necessarily retains the 'vantage ground of being without reply or refutation for six or seven months.: I trust thatthis consideration will prompt you to be generous to the extent of having the whole case before you ■whenever in future you assail un ier the advantage of so long an exemption from the possibility of defence or contradiction. •The system of appointing naVal and military governors is not, as you .insinuate, illustrated in imy case, for the honor of having ever belonged to the army or^ navy. I do not possess.. The civil service has been from early youth rhy sole profession, and I •appeal confidently to official" records as abundantly proving that, as a colonial ruler in the eastern districts of the Cape of G-ood Hope and In South Australia, my policy and practice, hnrve^bean liberal and constitutional, and in keeping with tjiat of the . great popular.slatesrha'n. whose name I bear as one of my own. owing to my later father's'connexion with the family of' Fox. ■ ' ' Jn South Australia -upwards .of SO popularly elected district councils weve formed in my administration. In Tasmania, by the constitutional prerogative of. prorogation'(not dissolution, as you state), I upheld the respect due'to the supreme ju-dicature and "the sanctity of the writ of Habeas Corpus as a time-honoured guarantee of -the liberty of an Englishman againl-* an illegal warrant,* and by the prorogation I preserved the public peace. The prorogation was most deliberate, unexceptionable in tone, language, and manner, and opportune, foy it quietly.in the evening prevented the violence of an, impending ?iot, publicly threatened and announced to take place the next morning. When Mr. Duncom'be' 1s question on Tasmania was imperfectly answered in the House of Commons, the whole -of 'the correspondence had not readied Do-wnirag-Street; it has now, and I refer you to it as confirmatory of the above account. For my own part I am most willing to quit the office of Governor whenever lam unable to exemplify the axiom—on winch *my policy hifherto has been founded —that Englishmen can be constitutionally gqverned by their own will and consent. I beg to subscribe myself your obedient humble ■servant, . ' , "' - - ■ ' H. E. F. Young.' ■Government House, Hobart-Town, July 5.