The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 460, 1 April 1857, Page 7

The Lyttelton Times.

Wednesday, April Ist.

We have perhaps never had so forcible an illustration of the unworkable nature of our present Constitution as was given by the correspondence which we noticed on Saturday last. The chief ends of Government are neglected owing to the conflicting and complex machinery with which we are afflicted. Nevertheless it is the duty of all those who administer the Government as it now exists to make the means at their disposal as conducive as possible to the public advantage, and to take care that, above all, the interests of the public should suffer as little as possible from the differences of opinion which must arise under the circumstances. Has such care been taken, and with whom must the blame rest if it has not ? These are the questions which propose themselves to the public mind on hearing that so grave a step has been taken as the virtual closing of the only Courts of Justice which were accessible to the inhabitants of this province.

The history of the difference between the General and Provincial Governments is given in the letters we have quoted. The correspondence between his Honor and the late General Government is only published to explain allusions and references which are made in the latter correspondence with the present General Executive. In the case of the appointment of Mr. Tancred, the former Executive did what was their duty-—they caused a fresh commission to issue and put an end to all- : doubts that might have arisen. The Ge^al Government acknowledged that the Superintendent acted according to existing law; and, instead of throwing the business of the province into a dilemma, whilst it argued on the competency of the legislature which enacted this law, it took the alternative which was left by that law of making sure of the legality of the necessary appointment. In a similar case, howeyer, the present Executive have acted very differently. If, as was competent to them, they had advised his Excellency to issue his commission in order to validate an appointment of which they had doubts, and then taken measures to bring in a bill at the next session of. the General Assembly to alter, amend, or confirm the law as it now stands, they would ha^e carried public opinion with them. For our own part, we must say that weave far from thinking that the power given to the Provincial Government by the Empowering Ordinance is salutary. Indeed, we go so far as to share in the doubts expressed by Mr. Stafford as to the competency of the Provincial Council to pass such a law. But when a Superintendent acts according to precedent and by virtue of a' law which has been assented to by the Governor on behalf of her Majesty, then asks for the co-operation of the General Government in silencing doubts which may affect the proper administration of justice, what shall we say of a minister whose only",reply is couched in the taunting and uneourteous language of the first letter of the present Colonial Secretary. It is the first appearance of that gentleman in the published correspondence, one very far from being likely to give a favourable impression. On his Honor's urging again the necessity of immediate action, and pointing out the

responsibility incurred, the Colonial Secretary most inopportunely replies by a longand rather incoherent argument upon the merits of the, case. . In the meantime the public may do very well without justice. The business is now out of the hands of the Superintendent. He can do no more in the matter. The Secretary amuses himself by lecturing on the question in a manner which reminds us of the chorus in a Greek play, when the action of the tragedy stops in order to give the said chorus an opportunity for moralising. This is a very good arrangement in the dramas of JEschylus or Euripides, but we submit that the head of the Executive should take a rather more active part in our drama than that of chorus. Some old rhymes forcibly recur to our mind about a man who when he got into difficulties would wait, and sit upon agate, and there deliberate what to do ! The Colonial Secretary's letter is no answer to the charge that he preferred attempting to prove himself in the right to securing the proper administration of justice. We would be prepared to go' further than Mr. Stafford in removing the appointment or, judicial officers from the influence of local authority, but this is a very different thing to closing those Courts that already exist without providing a substitute. There is a recklessness in the whole matter that naturally enough disgusts those who are the sufferers. Putting aside the question as to whether His Honor was right or wrong in the first ca=e, what does it signify to us that Mr. Stafford should be able to prove that if so and so should be asserted such and such reasons for the appointment would be removed. The position of poor Sancho Pauza on his island always appeared pitiable enough to us. A hungry man at table receiving, instead of dinner, a lecture on diet is likely to conceive very savage intentions against'the lecturer ■: —what must be the feelings of a whole province towards a preacher who virtually outlaws it first, and then proceeds to give a dissertation upon its imprudeneies ? What are the value of his arguments against His Honor as the law now stands ? The latter does not answer them, but after summing them up (we must Say rather contemptuously) he declines to allow the gentlemen appointed to incur risks which the weight of the Crown's law adviser is employed to aggravate. We cannot see how he could have done otherwise. To enter into a discussion of these arguments would have been mere waste of time. They are • trivial and founded on incorrect statements, but even if they were ever so sound they would be totally misplaced. The Colonial Secretary should act first and talk or write afterwards.

We need not dwell any longer upon this question. We do not wish to go at length into the merits of the original case, to do so would be taking " as ■ low a view of a minister's public duty as Mr. Stafford appears to have done. But we have said that the Colonial Secretary's arguments are trivial and founded on incorrect statement; before we conclude, we will point out one or two of them which will jastifiy our remarks. As specimens of the argument trivial we may adduce the excuse founded upon want of knowledge of Mr. Tancred's intention to resign, and the allegation that His Excellency's Government is not responsible for the refusal of gentlemen to act under His Honor's appointment. These are certainly very good reasons for withholding justice from the province. Our readers will appreciate them. As to incorrect statements, what can we call that paragraph in the Colonial Secretary's letter which alludes to the numerous .means of justice at hand in the province. As an instance of cool courage, we ought perhaps to admire the allusion to the 27 Justices of the Peace, nearly half of .whom, although" ap-

pointed on the 20th Dec. last, are'still unempowered to act, owing to the negligence of the General Government. We are at a loss what to make of the allusion to Mr. Tancred's case, " who received a Commission on the special ground stated in the Colonial Secretary's letter transmitting it.'' The ' Special ground,* it will be remembered, was that as the Governor also had the power by the Empowering Ordinance to appoint and "as the salary of that office lias been passed in the general Estimates, his Excellency thinks the appointment should be made by the officer at the head of the Government that pays the salary. Now, at the last session of the General Assembly, the Resident! Magistrates were knocked off the General Estimates, (very unfortunately as we think) and havesince been placed on the Provincial, so that the Superintendent is the officer at the head of the Government that pays the Salary. Why was this 'special ground' adduced ? Was it to justify His Honor's appointment. This whole quarrel is particularly unfortunate in our opinion, independently of the injurydoneto thepublic The presentadministration are playing ducks and drakes with the opportunity afforded them of forming a good General Government. This last i-ock upon which they have struck is one which might easily have been avoided. Ultraprovincialists will point out such cases and ask, 'What hope is there of any consideration of Provincial interests by a General Government ? Whilst we write, we hear that a whole court full of people, who had attended at the police office for hearing an important case, have been dismissed for want of a magistrate to hear it.

Otjr attention has been directed to an article in the " illustrated London News" of August 30th, 1856, headed ' New Zealand,' and professing to be a review of a book bearing the same name, by W. Swainson, late Attorney-General, &c. We should like to see this work. If the reviewer has not done it less than justice, it has no more claim to be called an account of New Zealand than a history of the world; for Auckland, and Auckland alone is treated of. We do not quarrel with Mr. Swainson for making a book out of. a description of the place with which he was acquainted, but we cannot but be offended at the improper use which is made of figures togiveprominence to the favourite settlement. We should like, we say, to see this work, in order to ascertain whether the reviewer has treated his author fairly in this particular. After speaking of the increase in the trade of Auckland, he says,' In addition to the natives, the European population now amounts to 40,000 souls, the Customs

duties yield a revenue of £100,000, and at the present date, the exports are computed at more than a quarter of a million.' This may be true of the whole of New Zealand, but Auckland, though now the richest of the provinces, must reduce her boast of wealth to a very much, smaller amount than the above, and one which, though we hope it may continue rapidly to increase, canrot continue long in advance of the proportion claimed by any one of her southern sisters. "We were under the impression that our province and her neighbours had been sufficiently bepraised, but a future writer can yet take a step in advance in the art of laudation, if he avails himself of the plan adopted in the passage we quote.

We find another passage in the same, a little further on, which, greatly moves our indignation,—'Neither shall we dwell on the ephemeral existence of the Canterbury Association ; we will only observe on the

several arrange merits at which cupidity has i aimed, that, of all the monstrous projects at which avarice and tyranny^have stretched forth their greedy and unclean hands, none has been more monstrous than that which proposed to parcel out the soil of a whole country among a body of* absentee proprie tors.' Most groundless, most unworthy imputation ! Most groundless as regards the Canterbury Association, as none are more ready to acknowledge than the bond fide occupiers of the settlement which the Association founded:; we, who, if the Association erred in judgment, have suffered by it, who, if they met with loss, have ourselves repaid it, but who have never doubted that from the first they undertook the great work of peopling an uninhabited country with much prospect of loss and obloquy, but none of gain to themselves ; nor refused to acknowledge that, in their existence, ephemeral though it may be called, they fulfilled their noble undertaking, and performed a great and durable and most praiseworthy work. Such language as we have quoted above is most unworthy, whether we refer it to the ignorance of the reviewer or the prejudice of the author. The best answer to the sneer is the success of the settlement arid the acknowledgement of the settlers, who would have been the first to feel arid to cry out at cupidity, avarice, tyranny, greediness, or any of the monstrous etceteras alleged in the above quotation. Canterbury is notoriously almost wholly free from the curse of absenteeism.