The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 567, 20 September 1851, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Me just and fear not • Let all the ends tlion .liras't at, be thy Country's, Thy Gob's, and Tiuth'b.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, SEPT. 20, 1851.

A mail, bi ought by H M. Schooner Pandora, was dehveied on Wednesday. With a medley of Colonial papers, many of which are so old as to be of little or no use, we have the Sydney journals down to the 30th of last month. By the last arrival from Ilobart Town we have already been enabled to anticipate some of the intelligence from New South Wales and Victoria which has now come to hand, particularly as respects the engrossing subject of Golb. Ouv columns to-day contain several extracts which will place the reader in possession of ampler details. Evidence continues to accumulate of the immense extent of the mineial wealth of the auriferous districts throughout Australia; and there seems no reason to doubt that gold will become as regular and permanent an article of export as wool or any other product of the country. In this view, the Herald has added a " Gold Circular" to the regular Commercial Reports which it publishes on Saturdays, Mr. George A. Lloyd having charge of this novel department of stated Trade leturns. In the first of these Circulais (on the 23id ult.,) he gives the the paiticulais of the exports of the precious metal up to the 18th ; the quantities making a total of fourteen thousand six hundred and eleven, ounca, the value of which, at 655. per ounce, would amount to £47,888 3s. 9d.. Since that date, however, another and a monster shipment had taken place, the Mount Stuarl Elphinslone, uhich sailed on the 25th, having canied six thousand five hundred and twenty** three ounces^ worth upwards of £21,000. It was calculated that with the addition of the quantities in town ready for shipment, and the quantities m the hands of the miners, there would bean aggregate of £120,000 worth, obtained within the space of three months. The most recent particulars of the actual exports will be found in the " Gold Circular" for the 30th which we give in another column. As to the influence of these facts on the minds of the adventurous and avaricious, we find numerousaccounts of desertions from ships and from service, of the relinquishment of situations i of steady value, (forty of the police had resigned, in order to be " off to the diggings"), and a general gold hunting mania, which leads Mr. i Lloyd to remark, in the Report just referred to, " Men of all classes and conditions have left Sydney for the Diggings, and continue to hour; and if the favourable repoits increase as they have hitherto done, our city will be drained of a very large portion of its male inhabitants ; within the last week, unwai ds of two thousand persons were counted on the road going up, and only -eleven coming down — this speaks volumns." Amongst the illustrations of the " Yellow Fever," we observe the following in a theatrical notice in the Herald of the 28th,—" Admirers of the lyrical drama will learn with regret that, in consequence of the departure to the Gold fields of the leading male singers, aod the chief members of the orchestra, this will be the last evening, for some time, of the performance of an opera at the Victoria." There can be little doubt that many out of these thousandswill reap disappointment as bitterly as their predecessors have done, and tuin away with disgustfrom an occupation which require more labour and self-denial | than they have been accustomed to exercise or are willing to encounter, and which only in very rare cases presents those prizes which — because a few have obtained them — every man hopes that he will be fortunate enough to win. But experience has proved how vain it is to wain on this subject, and how powerless mere moralizing is in opposition to the thirst for gold which is excited by the daily sight of tantalising " nuggets" in the hands of others. The " much will have more" impulse, which leads men to abandon comfoitable competences for the Gold Fields, cleaves to many of them there, inducing them to desert localities in which they are doing well, for others in which they fancy they may do better. Thus we are told that j some who were earning as much as from one to two ounces daily at the Turon, have given up this comparative certainty for the chances of what they may lealize at the New Diggings on the Louisa and Meioo Creeks, — lured probably by the tempting hope that as these Creeks are in the neighbourhood of Mudgee, wheie the hundred weight of gold was found, they too may be as lucky as Dr. Kerr. The Herald of the 30th ult., gives as a " rumour,"— and startling though it is, so many

wonders have come to pass in the Gold Fields, that one can scauely \enture to leject any marvellous tale as wholly incredible — that a mountain of Gold had been discovered at a place called the Worlds End, some distance from the Tuion. It is added that Gold in laige quantities was being discoveied in a dismal spot entitled " The Devil's Hole." Preparations for the elections were going forward with activity in most of the districts, but there were several — (on the 30th as many as six) — for which no candidates had j^et declared themselves. The nomination for the city of tSydney was to take place on the 15th (Monday last) and the polling on the following day. Dr. Lang was personally in the field' — fresh and vigorous after his retirement at Darlinghurst Gaol. A meeting of his fiiends — (intermingled however with a troublesome sprinkling of the supporters of Mr. Longmore) —was held on the 28th, and the friends of tljfu other candidates (Messrs. Cowper, Lamb, and Wentworth) were doing the best they could for their respective interests. The Sydney Herald, (in an article entiled '"Thoughts on the Gold Question," which, we suppose must have been deemed a telling one, as after having published it on the 16th, our contemporary reproduced it verbatim on the 19th), thus admonishes the electors as to their duties and dangers under present circumstances :—: — Whether it is right to place open defiers of public or private decency, or unflinching advocates of popular license, or mere spawneis of drivelling conceit and patentees of brogue m our high places of legislative wisdom ; or whether we ought not to select defenders of social morality, men indued with jninciples of free con' stitutional liberty, and persons who are capable of expi essing themselves in competent grammar, is peihaps, what has not been openly questioned. But, unless the electors look well to it, it may he too late to remedy the evil when we have allowed it to pass unchallenged. Whether gold bring any of the candidates in, we know not ; hut, undoubtedly, the thoughts of gold ought to enable us to keep some of them out. The Female Immigrants, thirty-five in number, sent out in the Malacca by Mr. Sidney Herbert's Committee, had readily obtained places at high rates of wages, — from £10 to £18 a year; but we regret to observe that the Herald reports unfavourably of their character and conduct. "It is only justice," our contemporary observes, "to say that there are some of the Malacca's women whose demeanour is correct and character apparently unexceptionable, but of the majority we fear very little pood can be said." But, having had evidence ourselves how the misconduct of a few may be exaggerated into a sweeping and unjust condemnation of the whole, we aie willing to hope that this statement may ultimately be so inverted by experience that the " majority" may be placed in that superior category which this statement limits to the minority. Still, if, as the Herald says, " the | Committee has been shamefully imposed ! upon," it is proper that they should be made acquainted with the fact, and thus stimulated to additional scrutiny into the credentials of those who are recommended to them as candidates for passages. The success of their benevolent scheme obviously depends upon the exercise of every possible care in the all important matter of the moral character of women whom they send out. The corner stone of the proposed addition to the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Church o^ St. Mary was " consecrated " with much ceremony on the 25th. After Mass, and the " blessing of the stone," donations towards the work amounting to upwards of £540 were laid upon the stone, The Rev. W. B. Clarke, whose name is identified with the discovery of gold in Australia, was about, at the instance of the Local Government, to proceed on a geological tour. The charge of his cure was to devolve during his absence on the Rev, Elijah Smith, who had recently airived in New South Wales from New Zealand, to which he had come out as chaplain of one of the vessels of the Canterbury Association. The trial of Mr. Clayton, publisher of the Press, for a libel on Chief Justice Stetiien had been postponed until the next session of the Criminal Court. Extracts giving a full view of the stale of trade in Sydney will be found in another column. It will be observed that generally ij was depressed. Flour was steady at £25 per. ton for best, and £23 for second quality. No English news either so recent or so varied as has already been placed before our readers, had been received.

In considering the Municipal Corporation Charter, it is to be boine in mind that there are certain points, and those fundamental ones* on which no hostility to the measure has been publicly avowed. If there be those who think that it is in advance of the condition of the colony — that the time is not yet come for conferring so large an amount of self-government on the people — they have not made any demonstration of their opinion, but seem willing to 1 acquiesce tacitly in the trial of, the experiment, and to hope the best as to the result. The objectors are found amongst those who have been the most loud in demanding Free Institutions. Accordingly, the Southern Goss, (to whose articles on the subject we refer, not from any wish to engage in a controversy with our contemporary, but because they may foiily be taken as an exposition of the views of the opposition paity), is earnest in declaring attachment to Municipal Corporations as " the peculiar Free Institutions to which nature and necessity equally point" in New Zealand; and admits that there is " much of theoretical concession" in the present Charter Notwithstanding this, however, it denounces the mea-

sure in the positive, compai alive, and supeilativc of eveiy adjective in its vocabulary of political malediction, and strives might and main to induce the public to " repudiate" itSeeing then that the principle from which the Charter proceeds is confessedly good, and that the powers of local go\ernment with which it invests the Common Council ate also good, and indeed indispensable to the efficiency of a Municipal Corpoiation, (for, we piesume, there is not one of the thirteen poweis enumeiatcd in clause fifty-seven, the withholding of which would not be deemed a grievance)— we aieled to the inquhy,— What are the fatal faults by which an Act that might have been a '* colonial blessing*' has been iendered not only » objectionable" but " destructive V\ We have alicady dealt with some of these on allegations of fauliiness ; not so much,indeed, in the way of reply, as of explanation of the real character of the measure ;— for we are quite willing to leave the decision of the matters at issue°to the readci's own judgment on the statements in] the official documents, when they are fairly set before him. We must lematk, however, that it is not easy to grasp the objections in a sufficiently definite and tangible iorm, so much is stated in terms of the most impalpable vagueness. Such assertions as that the Chaiter is a "sham," " grinding," -'fraught with flagrant injustice,"" un-English," that •' a more unjust compound of trickery and oppression it would be difficult to conceive," with much more in the same style, may be, as Mrs. Malapiiop would say, " a nice derangement of epitaphs," but sensible men will attach weight to them only in so far as they are borne out by legitimate evidence. And it is here precisely that the opposition cause flags and fails. To come, however, to one or two of the points on which we have something that seems definite, we find strong censure poured upon the whole scheme of Representation embodied in the Chaiter. So far as we can collect and condense the objections under this head, they rest upon complaints that Auckland is to have 100 few members, that the Rural Districts are to have too many, and that the Pensioner Settlements "aie to have any at all ;— that according to the apportionment of electoral privileges laid down, the claims of wealth and population are disregarded ;— and that the Burgesses are to be restiicted in their choice of representatives to the inhabitants of their own respective Waids. Let us look for a little at the worth of these allegations. Auckland, it is complained, is to have only three members, — thiee fourteenths of the entire Council. No doubt, this statement is literally true ; but as little doubt can there be that it is calculated to make a false impression. I 1 would be a much more candid way of putting the case, to say that Auckland— a small town — with its limited suburbs, is to have six membeis of the fourteen to its own immediate share. If a peison unacquainted with the facts were to be told that London, with its immense population and enormous wealth, returns only four members to Parliament, the statement would be correct in terms, for Westminster, Southwalk, Marylebone, Finsbury, Lambeth, and the Tower Hamlets, strictly and technically are not in the city of London ; but the idea conveyed would be false and misleading to one wbo by " London" understood the Great Metropolis as a whole. A similar practical fallacy is involved in the assertion that Auckland is only to have three representatives. It is also to be remembered that the Auckland representatives, living on the spot where the Meetings of the Council will be held, will necessarily have the advantage of being able to attend those meetings with more uniform regularity than those who reside at a distance. Indeed, considering the comparatively small space covered by Auckland and its suburbs, it might seem more reasonable, if any objection as to the distribution of members were urged, that it j should have proceeded from the country districts. It would not be reasonable on either hand, however, and, so far as we have learned, the farmers have made no complaint of the kind. But the objectors would give these farmers less of representation even than they are to j have. They would partially disfranchise them, because they are thinly scattered ; and they would disfranchise the pensioners altogether, because their military grants are not immediately taxable, and because the objectors fear that the Rural Wards and the Pensioner Wards may combine, for selfish ends, to oppress Auckland by compelling it to pay for works in distant parts. These objections manifest, we must say, a narrow view of the interests of the district as a whole, and a portion of the very kind of selfishness which they seem to condemn. This district is essentially agricultural in its capabilities, and amongst the brightest prospects to be anticipated for it is the progressive advancement of the profitable cultivation of the soil. Why then should it be deemed a grievance that the Rural Wards should be duly represented in the Council ? Are they to be excluded merely because they aie not as thickly peopled as the town ? or, on the other hand, is it not obvious justice that they should have a voice in arrangements which must closely affect their interests ;— which, indeed, those of the town also, for who can be so blind as not to perceive that the prosperity of Auckland is, to a considerable extent, dependent on that of the sunounding country, and that facilities of intercommunication must be mutually advantageous? The case of the pen-.

sioneis we have referred to on a former occasion. We have shown that many of them will immediately be liable to taxation,— that all of them will be so to the full extent of thoit possessions in a very few years, — and that a measuie which is not designed as a temporal y expedient to meet a particular emeigency, but as a comprehensive piece of legislation to apply iiself to the improving circumstances anticipated in coming yeais, must, in older (o its completeness, have within it the elements of adaptation to the progress of the district, and should not be censuied because it does not with minute accuracy fill every crevice and cover every point of affairs just now. The pensioners with their families are alieady settlers in the fullest sense of the term ; and, if the Chaiter weie to make no provision for their villages, it would very shoitly need remodelling to preseive it from a tenable accusation of paitiahty and injustice. We fully concur in the opinion that " wealth and population" — neither singly, but both conjointly — should from the basis of representation ;'and one of the grounds on which we approve of the Chaiter is, that we believe it carries out this principle as thoroughly as the circumstances of the Borough permit. We would merely premise that, when we speak of ivealth here, we refer to it simply as connected with its liability to taxation ; for, we have no sympathy with those who in this matter would draw any invidious distinction between the alleged (but neither proved nor proveable) superior opulence of the inhabitants of the tovrn, as compaied with the landed proprietor and and farmers, or between the greater or lesser riches of the inhabitants of the same locality whether in town or country ; — remembering that not a few of those who are now considered the wealthiest, were at no very remote period not altogether so lich as they now are, and ob- | serving, as we gladly do, that many who do not at present possess much of this vaunted wealth, are following with steady steps in those tracks of industry and good conduct by which their " wealthier" neighbours have tiavelled to prospeiity. The town, with its j proportion of wealth and its undoubted claims as to numbers, (including with its subuibs, one-half of the population of the Borough), is, (uith the suburbs) to return six members : — the agriculturists and pensioners beyond those bounds, (constituting the other half,) are to return eight, — more indeed than they could claim on exclusively numerical grounds, but less than they would be entitled to if territorial extent were to be the rule. It would be more satisfactory to the inquirer into this subject if tho3e gentlemen who so unhesitatingly condemn the present airangement, would favour the public with an outline of some plan which they would substitute for it, and by which, even on their own piinciples, a more equitable appropriation ofelectoial privileges could be effected ; — we mean, effected here, — not in England, or Ireland, or Scotland, but in the particular district with which we have to do. Much has been said against the provision that the member must be a resident in the Waid for which he is elected; and our contemporary affords an amusing evidence of the facility with which people sometimes " turn their backs upon themselves," by citing as a model of what is right in such a matter, the provisions of that veiy Provincial Councils Bill, against which he not long since launched the fiercest thunders of his indignation. We may remaik in passing, however, that the cases are by no means parallel ; inasmuch as the members o£ the Provincial Council are to be chosen to exercise functions rather of a parliamentary than a municipal character—legislating for the entire Province — and may therefore fitly be selected from any division of that Province ; while the members of the Common Council will have chiefly to deal with matteis of circumscribed operation, and in which intimate local knowledge is of primary necessity. The propriety of the plan laid down in the Charter is so clearly exhibited by Sir George Grey in the fourteenth section of his explanatory Despatch, that we cannot do better than direct our readers attention to his vindication of it, as the only mode by which fairly-dif-fused, as opposed to class or clique, legislation for the Borough could be secured. We may, however, add to his supposition — (that, if the whole number of Councillors were leturnable by the entire body of Electors, nearly the whole would have been inhabitants of the town, and chosen by , its inhabitants) — the further, and not less probable, supposition that, if the whole six Members for Auckland and its suburbs had been returnable by the entire of the Electors for this division of the Borough, without any restriction as to the residence of either the Elector or the Councillor in any particular Ward, then it would be quite possible that the whole six might be chosen from a single street, — say Shortland Street, or Queen Street* Now, we do not say that the Councillors so elected would wilfully combine to turn the funds and the influence of the Corporation into those channels which would most enhance the value of their own properties, or most conduce to the advantage of their own business or to their personal accommodation, — for use will not impute such sordid motives to any men on whom the choice of the Burgesses might light ; but we do say that they would necessarily know and feel the requirements of their own localities betferthan they could either feel or know the requirements of localities two or three milesdistant, and that it would be veiy natural that

they should give a preference to improvements the want of which they daily expeuenced them.sc]ves, lather than to those of which they raeicly heard from otheis. The Chaiter provides that each neighborhood shall have a repiesentalive who is personally acquainted with, and interested in, its condition, and in those small, but far from unimpoilanl, improvements which ate stiictly and propcily Leal. Is any aigument nccessaiy to convince men of common sense that this is the plan mostlilcely to piomote both general and paiticular benefit to the Borough*? Our limits compel us lo break off here for the present, but we shall have some fmther observations to submit to the consideration of any of our readers who may still require evidence that the advantages deiivable from the Chattel vastly outweigh any inconvenience or injuiy than can result from it, — unless indeed thiough a mal-administration of its powers, which the people can themselves effectually guaid against, by a judicious exercise of their electoral lights on the Eighteenth of November.

A case has recently been dctei mined by the arbitration of Thomas Beckiiam, Esq , Resident Magistrate, which cannot fail to affoid lively gratification to all who observe with fiiendly solicitude the advancement of the Aborigines of New Zealand in civilization, an'l especially in leliance on British equity. The paiticulars are given in detail in the Maori Messenger of the 11th inst., but the principal facts may be staled in a few sentences. About two yeirs since, a woman named Tauroa, of the Ngatiumetahi tribe, abandoned her husband to live with a native called Manurewa, of the Ngailonu tribe, younger biother of Te Kawiiia, of the Ngatipaeko tribe, amongst whose people she remained with her paiamour. Her tribe demanded compensation for this offence, and received a gun as full satisfaction. Subsequently, liiaka Tupon and his tribe, to whom Tauroa was related, demanded that she should be given up ; and, on being repulsed, took forcible possession of a schooner called the Rebecca, of which liiaka Tufon and Te Kawhia were joint owners. liiaka Tupon would neither relinquish the vessel, nor pay Te Kawhia the sum he had invested in her purchase. Much discord between the tribes lesulted from these proceedings, and after various attempts to adjust the quarrel had been made without success, and Te Kawhia had solicited the interference of the Government, the parties agreed to leave the matter to the Resident Magistrate's arbitration, entering into a regular bond to abide by his decision. The case was investigated on the 2nd instant, and Mr. Beckiiam's award was that the Defendant should pay £25 to the Plaintiff, being the value of the goods he had given for his of the Rebecca, with £5 interest for the two yeais during which the matter was in dispute, the Plaintiff foregoing all further claim on the vessel. This decision was received with the full concurrence of both parties, and the £30 was immediately paid over in Couit to Te Kawiiia. We cannot but view this transaction as a most interesting evidence of the growing disposition of the Natives to conform to British usages, and to regard the Palceha as their friend and protector. Undoubtedly, however, the favourable result was, to a considerable extent, attributable to the skill with which it was biought to an issue. The case was obviously a very delicate one, in which rashness or mismanagement might readily have exasperated the Native piejudices, and only rendered the dispute move difficult of adjustment. As it is, Mr. Beckiiam's judicious treatment of it has not only secuied the ends of justice in the abstract but — what is of the utmost importance — !>alisfoed Lite Natives themselves thai justice has been done between them. Who can contrast this mode of settling a Native dispute involving such complicated and exciting circumstances, with the mode which Maorie s ■ would have adopted not many years ago in such a case, without feeling mingled wonder and delight at the happy change which Christian civilization has already effected in their character and conduct ?