STOCK WHIP'S LETTER TO THE WELLINGTON 'EVENING POST.'

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 281, 25 July 1874, Page 2

STOCK WHIP'S LETTER TO THE WELLINGTON 'EVENING POST.'

THE GOLDFIELDS BILL. Sib, —I dp not wonder much at the tone of your leader last evening on the subject of the Goldmining Bill, as you acknowledge that 3 ou " do not profess any special knowledge of the subject withwhich it deals." You certainly have forgotten that the Goldfields Bill, which you say was prepared at the instance of the Government of Otago, was designed to be a Goldfields Bill for the Colony; but in attempting to carry that out, even after carefully having been gone over by the representatives of the different Provinces interested in Goldfields, the result was pronounced "an abortion "by those very parties who sat in Committee upon it. The fact was then realised, which men of ordinary intelligence were cognisant of before, that the circumstances of the different Goldfields in the Colony were so varied that to frame any general measure must prove a failure. Accordingly, the majority of the Goldfields representatives last session resolved to abandon the attempt, more especially as it was found J that most of the amendments proposed could be met by regulations which it was competent for each Province to make for itself. You appear to think that the opposition to the Bill was on personal grounds, and that because an article or two appeared in two small local journals —articles which, in all probability, were written by Mr. Shepherd himself—therefore, the miners were in favor of the Bill. To disabuse your mind of such, an impression, I append ah extract from a . speech made. by Mr. J. F. Healey, who was Chairman of the last Mining Conference, at which there' were elected delegates from, all" the Otago Goldfields. Surely the decision of mining delegates ought to be more relied upon as giving expression to the views of the miners than articles (as I have said written there is no saying •by iwhom) appearing in newspapers having no representative character. There are certainly two questions of paramount interest to the miners of the Province of. Otago, namely, protection from the liability to penalties for polluting and giving power to the Government to resume lands proving to be auriferous. Neither of these questions were? dealt with by the bill of last session, and what the Goldfields members of the Provincial Council of Otago resolved upon was that if the bill was intended for the Otago Goldfields alone, there was no great necessity for it; at all events, the one proposed did not meet the necessities of their; case. The fact that Mr. Shepherd's present constituents rejected him when he lately endeavored to obtain a seat to represent them in the Provincial Council of Otago, is sufficient' evidence that he does not represent their views, and that he only holds his seat until they can get rid of him at the next general election. If vanity and impudent rude assurance constitutes, a r good representative; then there is certainly a model in Mr. T. L. Shepherd. PUBLIC MEETING.. (Prom the ' Arrow Observer' of 10th April.) A meeting was called by the Miners Association for the purpose of Mr..J. F. Healy, who was-Chairman of Mining' Conference held at Clyde. That gentleman, after detailing sundry matters that hacTbeen dealt with Tsy the- Conference, stated " That any new Goldfields •Bill- should be in the of the miners at least three months before the meeting of the Assembly, and it was generally agreed that some amendment -in the law was required in regard to entry on lands. If this could be. legally secured there would be plenty of land available for agricultural purposes; while, as the law stood at present, they were compelled to oppose its being alienated. With regard to Mr. Shepherd, they had done much better without him. All had heard of his obnoxious Bill, which had cost so much, and was thrown out during his absence from the House. Doubtless, if he had thought fit to embody the suggestions of the previous Conference on the Bill it would have been abetter thought of, but he ignored them. They could not work with such a man."

Mr. Shepherd's Goldfields Bill was— Mr. Shepherd's— not the-interests or requirements of the miners, and on that groundit. was. rejected. On the presents: occasion \ there has been no shown, as. no one knows what his Bill is < to be, although it may be guessed, as you might as well expect the Ethiopian to change his skin as Mr. Shepherd to abandon his gross individualism.— I am, &c, Stockwhip.

TOPICS OF TALK. " The world -will not believe a man repents: "And this wise world of ours is mainly right." ~ t The present revival movement, aa it is called, which haa spread from Ame- . Rica to England and Scotland, and thence, by force of example, to our own shores, cannot be dismissed with a gesture or exclamation of contempt. We find Dunedin, which a few months ago easily filled halls to publicly hunt out, iaa it were, in the minds of those pre- ." sent, mo.dern parsonical tyranny, now overflowing - with a stronger excitement in.a direction it is not difficult to Viorese'6. has a directly opposite tenp#encjr..' It is not to be supposed that i i)unedia is more religious now than a , njohth ago ; yet apparently it is so. ' Hbw far strong emotional excitement is conducive to a vital religion it is not easy to say. Strong-minded men and weak—the very poles of intellect—undoubtedly meet on the same ground , in these, revival meetings, and science, .following out known mental laws, seems .unable to analyse and distinguish. Probably everyone, whatever may be his usual language' or character, has a ".a'detsp, nagging Henße of a responsibility to a Higher Power—has, moreover, a settled disturbance of the germs of belief that the will of that Power is to be seen in revelation. This 1 , universal sense, or inward conviction . -—in itself the most patent proof we have of sucb a Power—is, in the majo- . rity of instances, kept out of sight for fear of ennt—for fear of an apparentincompatibility with the actual knownlife, &c. When the balance of those who profess what they half believe is turned, then the majority become the —the revivalists—as if they "had much to revive. For that other thing—repentance—for be it from us , to scoff at true contrition, but we believe somewhat Rafter England's lau- , reate—

Full seldom does a man repent, or use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of blood and custom wholly out of him, And make all clear,' and plant himself afresh. A shrewd writer to a contemporarythinks the upshot of the present movement will be to strengthen the conventicles at the expense of the regularly established churches—not be a gathering in from the highways and alleys of vice and misery. It is not easy to be very hopeful of much; extravagant emotion producible at will by a Carr or a Bushell, when spontaneous outstrips itself by the monstrosities it breeds. The clergy will benefit in one thing. "We note the pre-eminence of laymen as leaders in the daily meetings in the Masonic Hall and First Church. An opportunity ia thus given to the ministerial critics to try their metal, who think if they were in the pulpit or on the platform how 1 much better they could preach or speak. ; We fancy, when a day or two has sapped their originality, they will recognise it as no easy task to preach in the same pulpit day after day, and yet satisfy the cravings of those who, stimulated by accusational literature, are always running after some new thing. If this movement in Dunedm creates a: little more tolerance for the clergy, it may not be altogether barren of permanent good.

In consequence of the late disturbances owing to Judge Chapman's celebrated order—which he afterwards cancelled —to produce certain telegrams in the libel case Macassey v. Bey, the Government have introduced a .Bill which proposes, among other things, that telegrams should only be producible in evidence with the consent of either the sender or the receiver. Mr. Vogel, in introducing tile measure, was rather hard upon what he called the '"roving" or "fishing" propensities of legal practitioners. It was. he said, an accepted fact that the Law Courts should do all they could to prevent lawyers from fishing out evidence or from roving about for evidence for the purpose of using it to supply cause for legal proceedings. Alluding to the Judge's order in the case of Macassey v. Bell, the Premier said:—" The order to which he referred was also peculiar, inasmuch as it not only referred to telegrams between the parties to the action, but to telegrams between third parties not concerned in the action—betw.een a third party not a party to the action and his solicitor

The matter was so well known that he could have no hesitation in saying that the third party he referred to was Judge "Ward. Judge "Ward, by' affi. davit, hacrbeen declared to have no conrection with the case of Macassey v. Bell; nevertheless, an order was given that all telegrams passing between him and his solicitor—referred to by name but notoriously his solicitor—should be produced. Had it not been for the Department those telegrams would have been in the hands of one of the parties to the suit of Macasßey v. Bell Could anything be more objectionable .to the spirit in which telegrams should be regarded than that the Telegraph Department should be used to fish out grounds which might be suspected to exist for bringing actions at law. It' was a matter of notoriety that the Judge subsequently rescinded the order without costs. But inasmuch as that was the decision of only one Judge, there was no security that similar orders would not be made." The upshot of the matter is that in future private telegrams will be respected, and no one need be in fear of his or her messages being dragged into Court as grounds on which to peg a libel case. At the same time, the penalties upon operators* who divulge anything contained in a message are increased. After all, what must be depended upon is the esprit de corps ol the Department. _—.—* Eefebbinq to telegraphic messages,

it is anticipated very soon to send electrographs. Mr. Vogel, speaking to the Bill, said:—"The time, he thought, was not far distant when a fac smile of telegraphs would be despatched—in fact, when it would not be necessary for the operator to read a message, but when the electric fluid would despatch &fac simile impression, so that there could be no possible mis 7 take as to the original document forwarded." Verily an age of wonders this of ours.