REPORTED SAFE ARRIVAL OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN IN ENGLAND.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 561, 30 August 1851, Page 3

REPORTED SAFE ARRIVAL OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN IN ENGLAND.

Our hope? of the safety of Sir Joiiv Fiunkmn and his gallant companions in enterprise have been in borne measure revived "by intelligence which readied us yesterday. A gentleman conic to town from the interior informs us that he conversed with a soltler, Mr. lh rt.c, who assures him that a few dajs ago he saw at, Kawhia a news-paper containing a lengthened account of Sir John's safe arrival in England, after having found a new passage through the ice. The party had been for a long time ice-bound, subsisting chiefly on bears' ile&h. They had vi&ilcd a llus&ian settlement, where they had obtained provisions. It is added that a number of the Illustrated London News had also reached Kawhia, in Which was an engraving representing L.ir John's vessel saluted by the llcefc at the port (not named) at which he arrived.

1 li this intelligence .should have reached our colony, it probably must Ikivc been by the Bai,aalore, v.hich was reported in our hist as spoken by the Lucy .lava, ninety-seven days_ from Lordnn. Di'il we scarcely venture lo give it <:iedenee , at the sninc time we must say that, after having anxioiihly coll.i Led and weighed the evidtnee on which the report re->h, we find it difHcull io divert our mind of the hope that it has borne lovmd.ition in fact. The settler from whom our inform.™ l received the statement boars a character wh'ch excludes all likelihood that he would wilfully deceive in the matter ; and there oan be no doubt of Lis own full belief that the facts were as he has reported them.

Projectfti Auckland Land Association. — A Public Meeting of peisons favourable to the formation of an Association, on the mutualassistance principle, for the purchase of small lots of land by operatives and others, was held in the Hall of the Mechanics' Institute on Thuisday evening, and was very numerously attended. Dr. Bennett -was called to preside. After some observations by the Chairman explanatory of the principle on which such Societies are founded — (that of co-operation, by ■which a number of persons uniting their contubuUens c.vi secuic to each individual of the whole, advantages greater than, with the same amount of means, he could seperately obtain) — and of the benefits which the industiious classes, especially m such a country as this, miyht expect to deiive from the plan, Mr. \V. Griffin presented the diaft of Rules and Regulations for the government of the pioposcd Association, diawn up by the Committee appointed at a former Public Meeting. lliese weie read and discussed seriatim, and ultimately adopted with some amendments, — subject, however, to revision by a competent lawyer, and to such modifications as may be found necessaiy to bring them into full accoidance with the piovisions of the Benefit Building Societies' Ordinance, which it was presumed was passed during the late Session of the Legislative Council, but a copy of which has not yet reached Auckland. By a weekly payment of two shillings the shaieholder is to be entitled, at a date eaJier or later according to the order of priority in which he may happen to diaw his light, to become the ownm of land of the value of £20, chosen by himself, with the approbation of the Trustees ; — while until Ins share is thus rendeied available, the Society will be as a Savings Bank in which interest on his subscriptions will accumulate at the rate of eight per cent, per annum. Great coidiality of feeling and harmony of purpose pervaded the proceedings, and the suggestions moth- by those who look pait in them were generally oi a character which could not have failed to impress a stranger to our Auckland opeiatives, with a favouiable sense of their intelligence and practical habits of thought and /ore-thought. A considerable number of shares were subscribed for at the close of the meeting, and there can be no doubt that, as the project becomes better known, the list will receive rapid accessions of names,— the subscuplion of two shillings a week being so small as to biing the benefits of the society within the reach of all. A meeting of shareholders will be convened at an eacly clay to elect a Managing Committee, and make the other arrangements necessary to bring the plan into active opeiation.

Tin: tvinl, report! in another column, in wh'vih j\lv. Jvvlo O'NriJOii appeared at the llcsldent ?.lagiM rate's Court to answer the complaint of MrrCrUiLurvG, Landing Walter, for a violation of the Customs Oidinance, although it has excited considerable interest, requires little comment, _ as the facts arc sufficiently distinct, and the decision of the Bench throws clear light upon both the law and the justice of the case. Mr. O'Neill had undoubtedly given a wrong description of a few of the articles in a case containing a great number, — the error being his classing as "millinery" the entire contents of a package in which, while the great bulk of the articles undoubtedly came under that description, there were also straw hats, cloth caps ar >d children's beaver hats, on which the new Ordinance imposes a fixed duty. But he had paid on the whole an amount fully equal to the former ten per cent, ad valorem duty ; and on one of the articles wrongly described he had actually paid more than the amount required by the new Tariff. Still, there was no question ih.-t the law had been infringed upon, and while we are persuaded that no suspicion of a deliberate intention to defraud the revenue attaches to My. o'Nkh.l in the public mind, yet all must sec that the terms of the Ordinance demanded the confiscation of those articles ;— - not indeed of the whole package, a claim which if it were tenable would involve a principle the operation of which might obviously become intolerably oppressive. Though so far the Custom House proceeding was legally defensible, and doubtless undertaken from a conviction of duly, we cannot quite concur in its expediency in this particular instance. The changes introduced by the new Ordinance areso numerous that every allowance consistent with the obligations of strict duty should for a while be made, to smoothen their working, and habituate importcisto the details now called for. We, of course, intend this remark to apply only to cases in which deliberate fraud cannot fairly be assumed. Where it can, an inexorable enforcement of the law will not only be justifiable in itself, but will secure the hearty approbation of all really respectable and upright members of the mercantile community. The proceeding, however) — though it was, in our opinion, taken upon^ an unfavourable case so far as the popularity of the Ordinance is concerned — may, on the whole, prove a salutary, practical lesson to importers generally ; showing the necessity of making themsclvos fully acquainted with the new scale of duties, and of being most specific and exact in every detail connected with passing their entrie s.

Txjl'iiy to Tim ~Ki:\r Wh \nr.~Wc have been visited at intervals for "une days wiin very tempestuous weather, one effect of whkli was that on Wednesday night a considerable portion of the Wharf in process of construction at Commercial Bay was broken down, thus materially retarding the completion of a work long desired, and calculated to be of great public utility.

Deicr ix Auckjakd.— li. will be interesting to many of our renders to be informed that the Deer— live in number— which, us we recently mentioned, had been dipped in England for New Zealand, havt bc<-n brought hereby ILM.B. Funlome, in suiely, and in c,ood condition. Auckland J > £iik is, we undcritand, to be the iuture rai'levcc of these beautiful additions to our zoological population.

LICTUKE ON' I\TKMPnRA>'CK.— TIIC third Of the scries of Lectures, on this subject by Ministers of the Evangelical Alliance in Auckland will be deliveicdou Tuesday evoninq next, in the Prcsbyteuan Church, by the TJev. A. Macdosajjd. The particular topic on that occasion will be— Intemperance in its injurious influence on the observance of the friblulli.