AUSTRALASIAN NEWS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 209, 5 September 1870, Page 3

AUSTRALASIAN NEWS.

The following are the most important items of news brought by the Gothenburg which arrived at the Bluff on Thursday last : — A deputation waited on the Governor, requesting him to dissolve Parliament. He refused, stating that he would act as advised by his responsible Ministers. Alexander Robertson, accountant, has been convicted and sentenced to two years for embezzling four hundred pounds trust money. A young man named Thomas Crosby, alias Flash Bob, representing himself as a New Zealand detective, is in custody charged with forging a cheque. The Mudgee Diamond Company has revived under a new name. C. E. Farrell, accountant at the National Bank, Geelong, absconded. He is supposed to have gone to Fiji. The defalcations are about £2000. Preparations for the opening the Sydney Exhibition are nearly completed. Governor Canterbury will visit Sydney next week. W. E. Forder has been arrested, charged with embezzling £4000, belonging to an English firm named Tiusby. John Silk, an old colonist of Launceston, aged 102 years, was drowned while crossing a flooded creek on horseback. Copelaud, a New Zealand barrister, has been liberated, the Government declining to prosecute him on a charge of fraudulently obtaining a passage per steamer Tamar from Melbourne. The Hon. C. H. D. Butler of Queensland has been arrested for shooting A. Dondney. For remainder of News see Fourth page.

Stray Leaves from New Zealand History. — A most interesting lecture under this title has recently been delivered in Wellington by tbe Hon. Major Richardeon, Speaker of tbe Legislative Council. The following is an extract : — When I was passing through the forest fastnesses of New Zealand, my mind very naturally scanned the country with a view to possible military operation at some future period. Though fresh from the Indiau campaign which had forced the Kyher Pass, swept the sturdy Affghan from before the advance of Pollock's avenging army, placed tho British flag once more triumphantly on the city of Caubul, nnd cap- ' (ured and burnt the hill fastnesses of Istaliff, I saw sufficient before me in the features of the country to justify the conclusion that the manhood of New Zealand would be severely tried when it came to a final struggle for supremacy. It then struck me, and I have never "Wavered in the conviction, that there was but one ; way in which victory could be secured to our flag, and that was the way which Sir Charles Napier adopted when he laid the Murree hill robbers prostrate at his feet. In 1862, in the House of Representatives, I advocated a course which was tlu-n practicable. The language I used on that occasiun was as follows : — " The best w:.y to cany out the principle of equal government would be to create the territory, embraced by the Maoris, into a new province, nud to make the Maori King superintendent. If you do this — I assure you, and I speak from personal experience, being a Superintendent — that you will draw the sting from the King, for superintendents are a most harmless set of beings." * * * * * And here I might well cer.se, were it not that I consider, as naturally connected with the destiny of the aboriginal race, the destiny of that race which supplants it, and which thereby has come into possession of the richest inheritances that has fallen to the lot of man. The future is a sealed book, and we must not too curiously pry into it ; but whatever transitions, and even sufferings we may pass through, I fervently bore tbat tbe day may be far distant, nay tbat it may never dawn, which shall see New Zealand unkindly severed from the British Empire. We may have our wrongs which should be redressed; our rights which should be acknowledged ; we may have suffered unjust contumely at the hands of the Parent State ; the voice of calumny may have beeD transmitted to us by official despatches in language which added a bitter ingredient to the bitter draught ; we may be told that tbe ties which bind us to our native land can be loosed without reproof as without regret, but it should be our fervent hope, and our ever earnest endeavor, when the unnatural severance does take place, if ever that should be, that the fatal hour should nothave beenhasteneda single moment by any undue ''mpatienceonour part, or any unkind word from us. The memory of England's past is one of the proudest recollections of Euland's sons, wherever their lot is cast. Her histoiorians, her poets, her philauthrophisls, her men of science, and her men of deeds are, as it were, treasures full of noble sentiment, profound research, and a chivalry which knows no equal, and will admit, of no superior. God grant that tbe day may never come when the sons of England's youngest colony shall pass with averted look and downcast eyes that proud banner whose very fluttering has hitherto awakened in them the tenderest emotions. Should the tide of Europeau warfare envelop the nations of the earth, we know tbat New Zealand will not shrink from sharing England's dangers; and, we fondly hope, that in that hour of trial it may be remembered that our blow, though feeble, was not unworthy of our early tradititious, our devoted loyalty, and our unconquerable affections.

We {Marlborough Express) learn that Messrs. By t hell aud Mason have completed their flax-mill at Wairau Valley, and are only awaiting the arrival of further machinery to commence operations in earnest. At present they have only got one machine, of Price's make, which is at work in tbe meantime. The turbine wheel which they erected has proved far more powerful than they calculated on, and wonld turn six such machines and a corn mill iuto the bargain.