The Lyttelton Times

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 458, 25 March 1857, Page 7

The Lyttelton Times

:, ■•.'■'"■' ; •'"' v Wednesday, March 25th. The news received from the other provinces of New Zealand during the last-few. davs «ontains different items of considerable iihportance. In the first place, thedifhculty which had arisen between the Superintendent andtheProvincial Councilof Auckland has been temporarily removed by *V™rQ-. crition The Council had been suddenly stopped in the execution of publip business, by the entanglement of its executive functions with those of the Superintendent .The former were granted by bn- George Grey,, the latter, so far as this case: is concerned,

by ; the Constitution Act. The . prorogation cannot -really relieve the Council from its anomalous position, and a dissolution or a resignation of members cannot prevent such an embarrassmerit from occurring by mischance at some future time. Having got into; the ' fix,' it is beyond the capacity of Auckland legislators (as it would most probably be beyond that of most others) to get outpf.it according to law and precedent/j but it cannot be impossible to provide a remedy for the: future. Either -from the blindness of the Government, or through the clever management of the opposition, the1 Auckland coach has wedged itself firmly into a. culrde-sac and must be taken to pieces, it appears, befpre it can be extricated. This may be a warning to other Governments, as well as a;; pattern of a clever ]trap\ for, other oppositions, and it at least points out, among several other cases, that there are parts in our political machineiy which require attention with a view'to alteration.1 -

. The second item ofinformation which we have received is, that a new proposal for steam communication has been laid before the General. Government in a letter from a gentleman in England, who, as our readers may remember, formerly visited this arid other provinces of New Zealand in a steamer called the "Ann." The letter, which, we transcribe in ariother part of-our paper, fully explains itself, arid is worthy of a careful perusal, even if the proposition contained therein should not, prove to be a safe or ■sound one, since it shows what kind of service a practical man, with a great deal of information at his disposal, deems necessary for our coast, and what calculations he makes for the cost of such a service. The proposal will of course receive the consideration of the General Government and of the provinces, individually, and will help to secure a solution for this hitherto vexed question, We shall have more to say of this by-and-by. The third piece of information of the week is of the progress of a neighbouring province, for such we must consider the finding of the precious metal in an available part of the territory of Nelson to be. We have collected and republished elsewhere all the important information on the subject which is to be found in nearly.a month's records in the " Nelson Examiner." It is quite clear that a discovery has been made of an article, of the greatest intrinsic value, and it appears almost as clearly that that article can be produced in a remunerative way. There are therefore here the elements of a valuable export for the province. But whether that export will be of any extent or whether the production will bring with it collateral advantages or disadvantages it is impossible to predict with certainty. If the o-bld be found in anylquantities, which is Jar from certain, we venture to say that to Nelson and to New Zealand, as a whole, it will be found to bring the former, but to some of the provinces, comparatively the latter We have no ropm for magnificent expectation, and we have no right, to disparage or deny advantages which are both possibly and probably great, but we are bound to cautioivour fellow colonists against extravagant expectation, and to remind them that those who find gold are not usually those who'reap the benefit of it.

In consequence of the arrival of the news from the north, our somewhat lengthened remarks upon the closing, of- the Resident Magistrates' Courts in this province are postponed to our next issue. _^_