The New-Zealander.
Be just and fear not : let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1850.
Hrs Excellency the Governor-in-Chiff and Lady Grey arrived in Auckland on Friday evening in the Government Brig from Taranaki. His Excellency had been severely indisposed, but we are happy to hear that he is now nearly restored to his usual health.
The collisions ih Jamaica between the Government party, and the popular will as represented by the Assembly — like the struggles going forward at the Cape and in Canada — involve more or less directly, so many questions of general interest to the Colonies, that we have taken care to place our leaders in possession of at least summaries of all the intelligence which has reached us respecting their progress. By the Clyde, which arrived at Southampton on the 2nd of November, there was news to the Bth of October ; at which date, not only had there been no adjustment of the difficulties to which we have before adverted, but public business in some of its most important departments, was reduced to a dead lock, the island being without a revenue bill, or the usual bill to establish a police force. It appears that the Conservativies, who are opposed to the Government and are the dominant party, refused to grant supplies for a longer period than three months before the adoption of those retrenchments which they demand in order to bring the expenditure within the income of the island. An Import Duties' Bill, limited accordingly to three months, was passed by the Assembly on the 24th of September j but the Council unanimously rejected it on account of this limitation, and the Governor (Sir Charles Grey), supporting them in this rejection, prorogued the House for one day, intimating that the Colonial Secretary's instructions prohibited his giving his sanction to the Bill for any shorter period than twelve months. When re-assem-bled, on the 29th September, his Excellency in a short speech entreated the Assembly to
proceed with business in the ordinary way, and hinted the probability that a conference on the agitated subject of retrenchment might be acceptable to the Council; adding, in conclusion, that it was in the power of the Assembly " to obtain for the people a sounder state of prosperity and comfort than they ever enjoyed." A respectful but spirited reply to this speech, concluded in these significant words ; — " It is with regret that we differ from your Excellency in the opinion that it is in our power to obtain for the people a sounder state of prosperity and comfort than they ever before enjoyed. We who are individually intimately acquainted with the increasing abandonment of cultivation that is rapidly taking place, and the general distress that is prevailing throughout the colony, are firmly persuaded that unless a change in the colonial policy shortly ensue, we shall be utterly unable to raise a revenue adequate to the expenditure even when reduced to the standard contemplated. It is our only consolation amidst our increasing difficulties that the Imperial Parliament may at least feel itself called upon to interfere in our behalf before total and irreparable distruction shall be brought upon this our once flourishing island." — Another Import Bill had been immediately introduced, but its fate was undetermined when the packet left. Meanwhile, as the former bill had expired on the Ist of October, and the tariff had thus become a dead letter, several vessels had landed their cargoes at Kingston free of duty. On the sth, however, this case was met by a Resolution to the effect that the future bill, whatever it might be, should provide for the recovery of the duties on all goods imported after that date. This Resolution, though distasteful to some speculators, gave I satisfaction to the merchants generally. The Police Bill had also expired on the Ist of October, and on the day of the prorogation the Council had on their table undisposed of a new Bill which had passed the Assembly. The life and property of the island were therefore left without the protection of a police force. A number of the late corps had been sworn in as special constables ; but it was doubted whether money would be forthcoming to pay them. The retrenchment question continued to be actively agitated throughout those proceedings. A Bill on the subject was to come under consideration the day after the packet left. — Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the island was in a state of great excitement, and that the friends of the " Jamaica interest" at home awaited the next accounts with much solicitudet Trinidad, on the Ist of October, was the scene of serious rioting, which issued in the loss of life. It originated in the introduction of a law imposing on small debtors the penalty of confinement, employment in gaol work, and having their heads shaved — a punishment in- ! fhcted only on condemned criminals. The first demonstrations against this ill-advised measure were of a constitutional character ; but afterwards a large crowd of Trinidadians rose in opposition to it with so much violence that it became necessary to call out the military. The 88th regiment fired on the rioters, and two women and a boy were killed, and several wounded. Notwithstanding this, various estates Were afterwards set on fire, and property to a considerable amount destroyed. Further troubles were apprehended, and Lord Harris had sent to Barbadoes for additional troops. In Demerara, the new Franchise Bill had just passed, and the first elections under it were to take place in November. It divides the colony into five electoral districts, which were to choose thirteen members altogether, viz. seven in the College of Electors, and six in the College of Financial Representatives, — the two Legislative Chambers. . . .The Demerara Railway was advancing rapidly.
The friends of Ireland can find but little of a cheering character to relieve the distress and discouragement which prevail in the most recent intelligence from that unhappy country. Both the peasantry and the landlords, with comparatively few exceptions, seem sunk in a poverty which has deepened almost to the verge of hopelessness. To take two of the counties as specimens : — in Clare, the depreciation in the value of land is so great that farms which formerly let for 455. per acre (a rack-rent no doubt) were freely offered at 155., and others which had been sought after at 30s. could, be readily obtained at 55. ; and in Tipperary various time-honoured ancestral mansions had been converted into poor-houses, and some of their former proprietors were anxiously soliciting the situation of poor-rate collectors. — While some of the landlords were voluntarily making large reductions m their rents, others — less wise as well as more unfeeling — were heartlessly evicting their tenantry; and while numbers of the peasantry were pining and dying in helpless destitution — unable to raise the sums that would enable them to emigrate — others were breaking out into acts of crime the enormity of which makes us for the moment forget the intensity of suffering which, in probably not a few instances, predisposed desperate men to the commission of them. Even in the usually industrious North, incendiarism had again commenced. In the South, the nefarious practice of " corn -lifting" (the carrying away of crops by armed parties to evade the payment of rent and local taxation) continued and increased, leading in several in-
stances to sanguinary conflicts. Many cases of such plunder are recorded, but, the King 1 a County Chronicle declares. " not one tenth part of such occurrences are reported in the papers." " A few weeks more such as the last six have been in some of the Irish counties," observes the Times, " and the idea of property will have been extirpated, the ties of civil society irreparably broken, and a pest worse than any physical malady perpetuated therein." Murders of revolting atrocity were added to the list of " agrarian outrages-" One of these which had excited especial attention was that of Mr. Cage, land agent to Sir St. George Booth, who was shot dead, as he was riding to church on a Sunday morning, his offence being that he had a short time previously evicted some defaulting tenants. The assassins were subsequently discovered and secured. Several other murders are reported, which differed from this in little except the humbler station in society of the victims. Females also engaged in these deeds. Near Kilcash, in Tipperary, a party of more than a hundred women attacked and beat almost to death, two bailiffs, employed to serve notices on Sir T. Esmond's estate ; and subsequently resisted the police, until, literally after a battle, they were by force of arms compelled to surrender. As might have been expected, politico-reli-gious strifes— the bane of Ireland in its best days—were contributing their full quota to the general disorder. The dismissal of Lord Roden and his brother magistrates on account of the now celebrated Dolly's Brae affair, could not fail to kindle a flame which it will not be easy to extinguish. Several magistrates of high character have testified their indignation at this step by resigning their own commissions. Numeious public meetings had been held to denounce it, and demand the recal of Lord Clarendon as some reparation to the insulted Protestant community. The most influential of these, from the station in society of the noblemen and gentlemen who attended it, and the chastened but earnest decision of their tone, was held in Dublin, on the 31st of October, — Lord Lorton in the Chair. The Resolutions, having asserted the importance of maintaining the independence of ihe magistracy, and paid a warm tribute to Lord Roden's personal merits, condemned his dismissal as being "an arbitrary act of power — unsound in policy, and unwarranted by the circumstances of the case," and charged upon the Government " a design of reverting again to the fatal policy of setting party agninst party in the country, with a view to political objects, at a time when the cordial co-operation of all well-disposed men | is so peculiarly essential to the well being of Ireland." A petition from the magistracy of ( Ireland praying for a Parliamentary inquiry into the case in its bearings on their official position was in progress. Lord Roden himself manifested much self command, endeavouring rather to restrain than to stimulate the vehemence of his friends, and replying to the Addresses which were pouring in upon him in language as moderate and pacific as was consistent with an inflexible adherence to his long avowed principles. On the other side there was much of the exultatidn of party triumph, leading not only to exasperating speeches and newspaper articles, but sometimes to brutal violence, as in a case detailed in the Newrj/ Telegraph, in which some young men and women walking on a Sunday evening in the neighbourhood of the town were attacked by a party armed with shovels, and shouting " Massacre the bloody Orangemen !" and several of them were " almost beaten to jelly." Denunciations of landlords from the altar were again reported, and some of the Roman Catholic prelates had united in the revived agitation of Conciliation Hall, where Mr. John O'Connell had read letters frorri the Right Rev. Drs. O'Higgins and French, denouncing the clergy of the "cormorant establishment," and " the exterminating and proselytising landlords." With reference to this, the Protestant journalists ask, " Is this language to be tolerated ? Is Lord Roden to be dismissed, while Romanist incendiaries are allowed to escape with irripunity ? What can be expected of the ignorant peasantry, if their crimes and their violations of property are not merely defended, but encouraged and instigated by men of knowledge and education, and clothed with the sacred character of religion." Taking together these facts and opinions, which we have grouped as specimens of the doings and sayings prevailing in Ireland, it will be seen that the state of that country is far distant indeed from that which many predicted in their sanguine descriptions of the results to be anticipated from the Queen's visit. There are, however, some bright gleams amidst this gloom, to which it is very gratifying to advert, if it were only for the sake of contrast. It was understood that Sir Robert Peel's scheme for the Plantation of Connaught, had not been abandoned (as was rumoured some time since), but that a Scotch farmer of high repute,-— Mr. Caird, of Wigtonshire, — had been appointed by the Government, at the instance of the right hon. Baronet, as a " Commissioner" to investigate the feasibility of the plan, and had been making a tour of inspection through the west of Ireland with this object. . . . .It had been determined to establish a botanical department, an agricultural school, and a model farm for Munster, in connection with the newly established " Queen's College" at CorK, and the Load Lieutenant had allo-
ated J65000 for this invaluable purpose .... 'he Lords Commissioners of Woods and Fossts were encouraging the reclamation of 'aste lands, and had obtained from the Corpora - on of Liverpool, an engagement to purchase >r £160,000 the land taken in from the iver, by the Cork, Blackrock, and Passage lailvvay Company. . . . A Company of London lerchants had been formed fot the purpose of irorking the Irish fisheries, and some of its nembers were in the west arranging for the lommencement of operations, — although com>laints were reiterated of the unwillingness of he peasantry to engage in the required lajour....The flax- crop,— the value of which o Ireland increases in proportion to the uncerainty of the potatoe crop,— had turned out mprecedently well in Ulster,— requiting culure, in the County Down especially, better ;han any other produce of the season .... Another fact of important bearing on the welare of the country was the opening for general Lraffic of the Great Southern and Western Railway from Dublin to Cork. Such were, at the last dates, the lights and shadows of the " State of Ireland," — that most anomalous, and perplexing of " difficulties," to most others as well as to Sir Robert Peel.
The following extract from a letter lately received in this town, although it contains nothing new, is worthy of insertion as adding one more testimony to those which we have already published as warnings to rash adventurers to California, and as likely to have greater effect on some minds here, because the writer and his family are known to many in Auckland. He is a carpenter by trade, and sailed from this port for San Francisco in the schooner Frederick, on the 20th of September last : — San Francisco, Dec. 21, 1849. Dear Charles,— We have arrived about ten days after a passage of eleven weeks from Auckland. This is a most miserable place, it has been raining ever since we arrived, and we have not been able to work. Board and lodging being £3 4s. a week each, but wages are very high, about £15 per week, and likely to be higher when summer sets in; but if they were twice as high it should not tempt me to stay any longer than the next summer. There is a great deal of sickness here, and a great number dying; but this is attributed to living in tents, where they get wet and take cold. In all the population is about fifteen thousand, besides people arriving every day by hundreds. The gold is as abundant as ever; but hundreds will lose their lives in obtaining it. John and I will leave this place about next August, so you may expect us home about next Christmas. If you should get this letter, tell any person that wishes to come my account of it. God help any of those poor deluded people that bring their wives and families, for there is not a room to be had under £5 or £6 per week, and it takes about £20 to land a few boxes and bedding. From your ever affectionate brother, William Pettit.
The Band of H. M. 58th Regiment, by the permission of Lieut.-Col. Wynyard, C.8., will perform in the Grounds in front of the old Government House on to-morrow evening from half-past four till half-past six o'clock.
PROGRAMME. Overture Op " Stradella" Flofow Melange Op *' 1 Dv Foscari" Verdi Cavatina 0p...." Edwardo c Christina" .... Rossini Air " The White Squall" Barker Waltz « The Carnival" Labitzky Quadrille " The Rochester" Rogers Galop.,"The Storming of Constantinople l'..Lanner Song ......——-— Pestal Song.. " My Helen is the Fairest Flower" .. ..Kirby
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New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 412, 27 March 1850, Page 2
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2,740The New-Zealander. New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 412, 27 March 1850, Page 2
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