The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 184, 4 March 1848, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Ie just and fear not: Let all the ends thon aims't at, be thy Country's, 'I liy Goo's, and Tiuth's. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, IS4B. " The diiving is like the diiving of Jehu the son of Niinshi, foi he diiveth furiously." Phailthon-Sieyes Lokd Gret — carman and constitution. monger, is getting over the ground at a fearful rate. Emulous of his father's lame, he thinks to double it for hinuelf by running a like course at double speed : with a tythe of his father's ability, with even a smaller ft action of Ins father's prudence "currus rotrat i lie pattrnos," he rushes onwards, careless of securing the same honorable and safe retreat. The one attempts to make, where the other only professed to mend- While the sire contented himself with reform — a final measure in his own belief — and which, whatever may be now thought of its efficacy, was at least the well matured fruit of a long and studious life ; the son runs riot among the Colonies with all manner of wild impracticable schemes: with projects of appropriation; with Currency bills — quack nostrums for fancied ailments ; and with a crude compound of French and American notions— a mass of theoietic rubbish which he calls a Constitution, after the pattern of which he is about to shape and trim every form of Government on which he can venture to lay his hand. It is a heavy risk to run for the snke of symmetry. " Most travellers" (we borrow from McFarlanes customs of the south of Italy) t( wil I remember the • Scampatori' or * runaways' of \ the Pontine marshes. They were ail Poledri — colts or very young horses — hot. wild, vicious, and almost unbroken, but for spirit, wind, and speed, they were very often astonishing creatures. The mischief and the danger lay in getting them put Jo. Very often they had just been caught and brought in from the marshes, or fiom the great plain beyond them, which is almost as wild as a deseit of Arabia. It would often require half a dozen men to harness a pair of horses and to pi event their bolting when put to. "With four of these snorting, neighing, kicking, and biting equinine devils, the task of putting-to was tremendous ! There would be a couple of fellows at every horse's head, ' holding on with all their might, while the postillions -were getting into their saddles ; and then, the riders being fairly mounted, (here was a whoop and a scream, and away went the Scampnton like an arrow from a bow, starting with a gallop, and rarely if ever moderating their pace till they enme to the next post house, some twelve or fourteen English miles ofK 'There is nothing for it,' said an old Neapolitan priest, ' but to sit sull and say, The Lord have mercy upon us ' " ( There is nothing else for it indeed, so far as we New Zealandcrs are concerned. "Itis a far cry to Lochaw,'' as we have long since been made to learn. Ournumbeis aie few, our colony comparatively unimportant, although the pet, or plaything of the moment ; any movement 01 agitation amongst ourselves would be likened to a puddle in a storm. Un- | influential at home, still dependent upon home for suppoit— even for existence, we must take with thanks whatever is offered ; if we accept the sugar, we must swallow the physic likewise ; "no constitution, no commissariat,'' would be his Lordsh^'a natuial and convincing leply to all objections. Add to which, that the inclination to move is no greater than the ability. We put up with lus institution!) — for a consideration ; our answer is as imperturbably good tempered as that of Phrynia and Timandra to the good advice of the rich misanthropist ; "Moie counsel with more money bounteous Thnon." We aie quiet, easy-going people — here in I the North at all events— let the Southerners answer for themselves ; who might have sat to Dr. Knickerbocker for portraits of Hendrick Hudfcon and his co-mates ; more inclined to laugh away the whole affair than to stiffen our backs in rigid opposition to it. Indeed it is difficult to restrain a smile when we are pompously foiewarned of a House of Lords, a House of Commons, a court of Aldermen, and a common council ; while this very week we found ourselves unable to muster sixteen grand jurors. It is all very well here ; we are nobody, as yet, and may be played tricks with at pleasure ; hut when once these crochety vagaries come to be palmed upon older settlements, a more surly reception of them must be expected. His Lordship ha.s practised political quack-

cry upon us with so much ease — for our co~ lony is as yet but a, weakling, docile as a three months foal — balling us and drenching us with such fatal impunity, that he has been encouraged into meddling with an unruly, fullgrown colt, which is now giving him reason to repent his temerity, Having succeeded in entangling New Zealand with his complication of Official red-tapery — having got the hobbles on to us without an accident —he has forthwith proceeded to threaten New South Wales with a similar experiment. But in that, he has been taught his mistake. What was here received with grumbling indifference, has been there rejected with one universal roar of astonishment and abhorrence. From one end of that powerful colony to the other, the outcry has been as a single voice, All political differences have been meiged with oue accord ; men of all classes, of all parties and opinions have joined in repudiation of a measure which is being forced upon them in the most indecent haste; without even a shew of deference to their own judgment ; without regard "to the habits, the wants or wishes of those for whose good government it professes to pi ovide." They are stiong enough to make themselves be heard, and they will be heard ; with a peal that will img most painfully in the eais of the ingenious contiiver of the scheme. And if the colonists of New South Wales rise up against it, while we content ourselves with passive disapproval, let it be boine in mind that they have more to complain of than ourselves; that they are openly aggrieved; that they are stiipped of rights which they have long enjoyed ; that the " Constitution" is to them a stumbling block, while to us it is but folly. We pass over the many difficulties which are expected to arise in working it; the prematureness of district councils in the present; scattered state of their limited population the miserable failure — unnoticed or unknown in Downing Street — of the attempt which has been already made to biiii^ them into optiation ; the conflict of jurisdictions which must ensue between the legislative and distiiot councils — matters which can be more forcibly (and accurately insisted on by themselves — and advert at once 10 the foolish, un-English project of double election. There is the blow, which we New Zealanders do not feel,] With them it is the surrender of a franchise, delegated tor the future to Municipal bodies ; with us only the incumbrance of a trumpery state machinery, which may prove more troublesome, but cannot be more inept than that with which we worked before : nor need any surprise be telt if they flatly refuse to accept such a system of double and filtered voting in place ot the direct representation which they now enjoy. It is, as they lightly call it, not a step in progress, but one in retiogression ; one which we firmly bplieve the foreign office will not succeed in obliging them to take. We are taught by the history of nations that a backward step — always excepting the one enormous stride, from republicanism to despotism — is not to be made without a fall. And even by thos>e who would willingly face the risk, the accomplishment of it is o ily next to impossible. As on the dial of Hezckiah, " It is a light thing for theshadow to go down tendegiees; nay, but let the shadow lemrn backwards tun degrees," An advance, in the king's opinion, would have have been no miracle at a!'. Great as is the folly, it may still be not too great for his Lordship to be obstinate about. Eut this good may at least be gathered from it, that a busy body will be quieted, an overrated man brought down to his level ; for, as we have heard it elegantly phrased, " he is bagging himself by degrees." We devoutly hope that this failure may cut short his administrative career ; he is too dangerous a man. He is so over-anxious to signalize the peiiod j of his own tenure ot office, that he has lobt i sight of the difference between che fame of a Solon, and the notoriety of an Krostiatus. — He will risk any thing, to be not ioi gotten ; and to blaze like the comet, he will chance whatever mischief may be done by the tail.

Immo, etsi pulsetm, dissimilet, nee Audeat excussos Piattoii ostcndeie dentes Et nigram in facie tunudis hvoribus ofFam Atque oculum medico nil promittentc jelictum, Bardaicus judex ddtur hoc punire volenti. Juv. xvi. 13. Our general disinclination to notice complaints against the Resident Magistrate's Court is well known. Indeed we have already smothered so many, that they have been in a manner retorted ngainst ourselves ; much dissatisfaction, more especially from the Bay of Islands, having been expressed at what w<\s supposed to be an unfair leaning to* wards Government and Government Officers. We feel ourselves however compelled at last to find fault with Captain Beckham's sentence in the late case of robbery and assault by natives, and still more with the observations addressed to the prisoners at the same time. The offence was of the most aggravated description ; highway robbery accompanied by violence, meriting the severest punishment that it was in the power of the magistiate to award j nevertheless, to the astonishment of

all present, the mitigated penalty of six months imprisonment was inflicted,' accompanied by the cxtraordiiuuy admission, duly inteipieted to the prisoneis, that " had they be<'ii Europeans, they would have be<ui handed over to the Supreme Couit, and tianspoitcd for life." Of the sentence itself, we have nothing more to say ; we are loath to speak harshly of leniency, even where palpably ill judged : but the uncalledfor, impolitic expression which accompanied it ought not to be allowed to pass. Half of the difficulties in which our Colony has been plunged have arisen from what we, have always thought a premature attempt to subject natives to the rigour of British law. That h.as, however, been persevered in, and not without a certain measure of success; it is thei^fore most unwise, by such like indiscretion of speech, to risk the loss of all benefit from what has been alieady accomplished. The keen sense of justice shown by the Maories, their perfect appreciation of impartiality is notorious to all — nowhere more than to the long experienced magistrate of whom we speak. They can feel as well as ourselves that favour shown on their side of a question is real injustice towards the other side ; a a illjudged concession which themselves aie ihe fiist to sneer at and despise. For the motives of it are certain to be misconstiued. Their pi ide will not let them attribute it to the right cause— to a kindly feeling towards an inferior race. It is cxullingly set down to fear, and comparative impunity only tells as encouragement to repetition of the offence. But we are unwilling to add to the troubles of one who has at the piesenl moment such a difficult game to pay. The whole business ! of the Court of Requests has devolved upon the Resident Magistrate, who now sits between two fires ; between fear of the Governor's wrath if he declare his own Court incompetent, and the fear of as many actions of j damages against himself as he may have made awaids. And the latter event is by no means ! unlikely to come off; the late extraordinary proceedings in Ilobart Town have encouraged many "to try a fall" with Government who might otherwise have abandoned the whole [ affair, despairing of success, When we said that the whole business of the Couit of Requests devolved upon the Resident Magistrate, we spoke with some inaccuracy, for one case has been thrown into the Supreme Couit. And we sincerely hope that it will be the only one ; a Chief Justice cannot be expected, like the tribunes of the people at Rome, to " wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wile and a fosset seller, and then rejourn the contioversy of three-pence to a second day of aud'ence." And this is only one of the many practical inconveniences to which that unadvised measure has given , birth ; to which we can spare neither tune or space at present, intending still however to take an early opportunity ot reverting to them. But what could have been his Excellency's real motive for running us all into such a mess of troubles, and then deserting us at the very moment when we most needed his paternal aid and comfort. Two have been assigned— b/uiter] about for choice — the one of which would have been a (oolibh motive, the other, not quite conect, We oui selves refuse to acknowledge eithet one or the otier ; and are content to attribute all to the more innocent vanity of aping Oliver Cromwell, of causing cleik, court, and commission to fall together before the breath of his no«tnls. And if we ha\e hit upon the more unlikely reason we enjoy at least the self satisfaction of having choben for him the more creditable. It is time that his Excellency were back, again to answer for himself, to clear all up at once ; for no solution of the pioblem that has hitherto been invented is greatly to his profit. He shoald be here, and that with all convenient speed, not only for our sake, but for his own liktwise. Vieni a veder la gente quanta s'ama ; E, senuHadi noi pinta ti nuiove, A vergognar ti vien dclla tua fanin.

A most startling; revelation was made on Thursday night, in the gaol. The pfisoner Burns, condemned to transpoitation for an assault upon the woman Margaret Reardon, confessed that he, and two others whom he named, were the murderers of Lieutenant Snow and his family. The investigation will be conducted before the Police-Magistrate at ten o'clock to-day. The impropriety of commenting upon, or even mentioning in a newspaper, any; pait of the evidence that has prematurely tianspired, is too evident to need insisting on. This much however, we may be permitted to say, that however much we may grieve to see the foul deed fixed upon individuals, two at least of whom, hare hitherto borne respectable characters — we shall lejoice for the sake of the out-Settlers, and ot the Natives themselves, if the Maories can be relieved of the suspicion which has hitherto attached to them — and will he among the first to offer reparation for the stain that we ourselves have innocently contributed to fix apon them.

Kawait. — A Wesleyan Missionary Meeting was held at Kawau, on Monday last, at which Jas. Bushy, Esq., presided, and the meeting was addressed by the Revels. Walter Lawry, and John Hobbs, George Clark, Esq. and Mr. Wm. Rowe. The attendance was very good, and the spirit of the meeting may he gathered from the collection which amounted to £13 2s. Gi\ , — a sum most creditable to the miners and olheis who contributed the same, and who act in conceit with their leaders the cneigetic Capt. Niunis, and Mr. W . Kowe. A Baz\ar the next clay produced ten guineas, in aid olt the Auckland Wesleyan Chapel.

The arrival of the American barque, Eliza Ann, yesterday evening, has put us in possession of Wellington papers to the 1 9th ult. The Governor in-Chief had visited Akaroa, ■vvhne he arrived 10th ult., and was going on to Otako and the Chatham Wands in H. M. Steamer Inflexible. The great projected road northward is reported as progressing actively. There is no other news of" any great local importance, excepting that the Wellington Court of Requests has been abolished by proclamation ; die business having been pbced under the cognisance of the Resident Magistrate, or of two or more Justices of the Peace.

Odd Fellows —On Monday Evening the ' Fountain of Friendship ' Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellow, M. U.,* held their anniversary din* aier in their Lodge Room, at the Mechanics' Institute. The chair vras occupied by P. G. M Hallamore, and the members with sevpial of their fuends as visitois •at down to an excellent dinner provided by Mr. Rogers. After the removal of the cloth, the following toasts were given from the Chair : — The Queen ; Piinco Albert, and the icst of the Royal Family ; The Governor ; Aimy and Navy ; The Independent Order of Oddiellows, Manchester Unity ; Giand Master and tfoaul of Diiectors, Auckland Distiicl; Pas>t and Piesent Officcis; Our Absent Breflnen ; Mrs. Grey and the Ladies of Auckland ; Colonel "VVj nyard. The Band of the 58lh regt, was present, and played several airs in their usual masterly stye duiing the evening.

Programme. — On Thursday, March 10, at 4 o'clock, on the space of ground opposite the Council Chamber, the Band of the 58th Regimenf, will perform the following pieces of music :— Overture— Op., "I Pui ifani " C. Roper Ana Op., " Li Ccnereilola " Rossini WaKz The " Brandhofen " Labitzky Cay. Op.-— ' Mai mo Faliero " Bellini Air and Chorus, Op. " Euryanthe " Weber Quadrille — '• La Fille dv Reciment " Mnsard.