AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1852.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 620, 24 March 1852, Page 2

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1852.

Be inst and fear nut • Let all Uie ends tliou anns't at, be thy Country's., 'Ihy Oon's, and 'iintli's.

Our witty correspondent, Mr. Councillor i Punch, might find in the antecedents and character of a motion which is to come before the Municipal Council on Saturday, a theme worthy of his facile and pointed pen. The whole Council has been for some time holding sittings as a Committee on Roads ; the Committee have repoi-ted. ; to whom ? just to themselves. And now a proposition is to be formally brought forward that they themselves shall agree to their own Report ! We are familiar, in the transaction of public business, with the cases of SubCommittees reporting to General ComJ mittees, and General Committees reporting to the larger bodies from which they derived their authority ; but there is something racily novel in the case of a number of Bepresentative gentlemen sitting icith closed doors — (a circumstance which gives a specific character to this case) — to discuss a subject, and, when they have arrived at their conclusion, performing the farce of submitting the result to the consideration of themselves and themselves alone, — the Body which is to deliberate on Saturday not varying by the addition of a single individual, or by the substitution of one individual for another, from that which presents the Report. Perhaps there may be some wheels within wheels in the affair with which we are not acquainted, but which may come into view on Saturday. We shall be curious to see how the wheels revolve. A graver matter than this apparent absurdity, however, is the question, Was there not a direct infraction of the Municipal Charter in these private sessions of the whole Council ? The sixty-sixth clause of the Charter directs, in terms so plain as to exclude all ambiguity or possibility of misconception, that " Every Meeting of the Council shall be open to the public. This provision — although it may sometimes operate inconveniently to members — is selfevidently right, and indeed absolutely required by the spirit of Free and popular Institutions. Even were the Council to plead the precedent of the House of Commons' Committees of the whole House, this circumstance of privacy would take their Meetings out of the category of parallel cases, — not to mention other circumstances which make a broad and obvious distinction between the proceedings of the House and those of the Common Council. The Burgesses are entitled to know, not merely what final decisions their Representatives may be argued or overruled into, but what course those Representatives have taken in the discussions which preceded the decision. The individual responsibility of each member to his constituents is not to be merged in the collective responsibility of the entire Corporation. Moreover, the salutary check of public opinion in its widest sense ought to be imposed,and was intended to be imposed, on the deliberations of the Common Council. We sincerely acquit our present Common Council of any design to convert their sittings into " hole and corner" meetings ; but their own good sense must show them that, if in one case — (and that by far the most important case that has yet engaged their attention, inasmuch as it involves the practical course they will resolve to adopt on a consideration of the information which they have been for months collecting) — if in one such case as this, they may shut out the public, they may do it in another, and in another still ; — in short, they may sit with closed doors as a " Committee of the whole Council" all the year round, whenever any difficult or delicate question arises, and only favour the Burgesses, to whom they owe their existence as Councillors, with admission to their meetings whenever there is nothing to go forward but a little badinage about a Corporation Seal, or the pro forma reading of a report. This would be wrong on the jnerits of the case, and — under easily conceivable circumstances — might be fraught with peril to the interests of the community ; while, as to the law of the matter, as laid down in the Charter, it seems to us so plain as to require no professional learning for its exposition \—any\ "meeting of tho Council" which is not open to the public is, we apprehend, clearly an illegal meeting, unless it be denied that the. Charter contains the law of Municipal obligations and privileges.

By the Overland Mail we have Wellington papers to the 21st of last month. Up to the latest newspaper recoid, Lieutenant Governor Wynyard continued at Wellington, -where a ball had been given to him by the settlers (an account of which will he found in another column). Hut we learn from private information that on the 21st ult. his Excellency accompanied the Governor- in-Chief in the brig Victoria to Nelson. On the return of the brig to Wellington, she would again sail for Taianaki, bringing Colonel Wynyard ; and his Excellency would travel thence overland to Auckland, wheie his arrival may now be very shortly looked for. The injury which the New Zealand Company s Settlements Act of last Session is calculated to inflict upon the settlers, had stood out in incieasing distinctness as the pi actual bear-

ings of the measure came more fully under consideration ; and there was an union of all parties and classes in the effort to procute its refusal which — for Wellington, whpre political strifes usually run high — was remarkable in itself, and strikingly demonstrative of the injudicious mid oppressive character of the Act. — The necessity which it has laid upon the Colonial Government to stop the proceedings under the Company's Land Claimants Ordinance, has opened the eyes of not a few to merits in this latter measure which some of them did not see, or were not quite willing to acknowledge before. It is now not only admitted but jelt that enactments which authorised the issue to all | pui chasers from the Company who could prove the bonajide justice of their claims, of Crown deeds of giant conveying to them their lands, by a title valid " against ail persons whatsoever," was a vastly more beneficial and safe airangement than the plan which the new Act substitutes for it — namely, a conveyance which shall have " the same foice and effect* in all respects as a conveyance by the New Zeuland Company would have had," but no more. As the Spectator observes, " difficult! s are multiplied at every step, for want of a sufficient title, in any of the numerous anangements in the way of sale, transfer, or mortgage, which the owner may be desirous of making, and these difficulties and evils are of a still more serious and complicated description in the case of secondary purchases " Moreover, it seems very doubtful whether any titles at all can be issued to the holders of land selected under the Company's Compensation Scrip. Again, the revival of the Company's Terms of Purchase and Pasturage Regulations is legarded universally as a step of luinous tendency. The contrast between these Regulations and the wise and libelal Pastoral Regulations recently issued by Sir George Grey is not only acknowledged but insisted on by those who are usually the political adversaries of his Excellency. Thus the Independent remaiks that " bir George Grey, during the discussions in the late Council, proved himself thoroughly master of the Squatting question in all its beaiings, and succeeded in passing Regulations which have met with general and warm approval ;" and again, " Had our space permitted, we intended to have contrasted the Company's Regulations with those of Sir George Grey, for the purpose of shewing that while the latter were wisely framed with a view to foster and develop the most important interest of the colony, the former are calculated to utterly crush and destroy it, and were devised with no other purpose than that of forcing the settlers to buy land of the Company." When the Independent joins the Spectator in praising any part of his Excellency's policy, few will deny that the merit in the case must be very undeniable ! On the whole, the Spectator says, " The Act of Parliament, with the Company's Terms of Purchase and Pasturage revived by it, as it remains in force is, in fact, a virtual prohibition of the issue of Crown grants to the land purchasers, of any further sales of the waste lands of the Crown, and of the future investment of capital in the formation of fresh stations for stock." With this unanimity of opinion against the recent Act, it was to be expected that steps would be taken to obtain the two-fold object of securing its repeal by the Imperial Legis- ! lature, and piessing upon the Goveinor-in-Chief the necessity of his using such power as l.c may possess to suspend in the mean time the actual infliction of the obnoxious enactments. It will be remembered that in Lord Grey's despatch accompanying the official transmission of the Settlements Act (which appealed in full in the New-Zealander of Feb. 7), his Lordship had not only permitted but distinctly enjoined that the Governor should ascertain the opinion of the settlers on the affairs of the settlements, especially as they may be affected by this Act. His Excellency had accordingly issued the following nolification in the Government Gazette : Private Secretary's Office, Wellington, 12th February, 1852. In reference to Earl Grey's despatch of the Bth of August, 1851, published in the Government Gazette of the 10th of January last, His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief directs it to be notified that he w ill be prepared to receive Deputations from the settlers on the subjects alluded to in that despatch, on Saturday, the 14th inst., Tnesday, 17th instant, and Saturday, the 21st instant, at 12 o'clock, at the Council Chamber, Wellington. By His Fxcellency's command, James Wodeiiouse, Private Secretary. Undoubtedly the deputations thus invited would not fail to lay before his Excellency unequivocal evidence of the feelings of the settlers. More than this, however, was done. A memorial on the subject to Sir George Grey was in course of signature ; we transfer it to our columns. The Settlers' Constitutional Association had also called a meeting, at which the usual orators figured, and a variety of topics were handled by them in their usual style. It is difficult to know how many their audience consisted of, as there is a strange discrepancy between the reports of the local journalists — the Independent informing its readers that the large room at Barrett's Hotel was "crowded by a very respectable audience," while the Spectator describes the attendance as " some twenty persons." We are not accustomed to attach very great weight to the manifestos of the Association ; but we copy their resolutions on this occasion, notwithstanding their length ; particularly as they promulgate a new scheme for the arrangement of the New Zealand Company's debt — a topic in which our local public no doubt continue to feel a deep interest. It will be observed that prominent consideration was given to the New Zealand Company's claim. The fourth resolution contains the gist of the plan proposed by the Settlers' Association to meet this great difficulty. They ask that the Company's claim should be reduced from £268,000 to £150,000, assigning reasons , for deeming the latter sum a fair equivalent for all that the Company can even be said to surrender. They ore willing that this amount should be charged on theii General Revenue, together with inteiest at the rate of 3-^ per cent, on condition (the condition forming a sine qua non) that not only the whole of the Company's lands [about 800,000 acres] but alsoti c whole of the waste lands of the colony shall be handed over to the Colonial Government, which, again, shall be responsible for their management to the futuie Legislative Assembly, and to it alone— for a feature of the proposed compact is, that the Imperial Government shall interfere no further in the internal afFdirs of the colony. The Associationists have here taken a wide ground, and no doubt think, as Mr. Revans more than once said at the meeting, that to obtain all they seek for £150,000,

would be "a dnt-chcap bargain." The scheme was evidently as yet only in a crude and immature shape, and it remained to be seen with what degree of favour the public at large would receive it. If the New Munster settlers agree upon any plan by which the burden of the Company's debt can be removed or lightened from their shoulders, we can have no objection to their working it out, whether by imposing a charge upon their Provincial Revenue, or in any other way that they may deem conducive to their interests. Provided always, that no pait of the claim, however small, be levied on the Province of New Ulster, — a point on which this district has recently spoken plainly, and on which it is prepared to speak in a yet louder tone — should the monstrous injustice be attempted in any form. A meeting of members of the Church of England had been held ai the Thorndon School house, for the purpose of furthering the measures for obtaining a Chuich constitution for the colony. Sir George Grey was a principal speaker on the occasion. We shall give the Spectator's report of the proceedings, although ihey present little more than an echo of those at the meeting over which the Bishop of New Zealand presided, an accouut of which has already appeared in our columns. In the Wellington maiket, on the 21st of February, flour was £22 per ton ; biead, sd. the 2 lbs. loaf.

It is with great regret that we have to announce the total wreck of the brig Maukin, belonging to W. S. Grahame, Esq., which took place duiing the destructive gale of which we lately gave some account. The particulars of ihis disaster will be found m our shipping column, as supplied by Captain Eames, master of the ill-fated vessel. It will be seen that one of the sailois peiislied in the catastiophe. — In addition to whatever private loss may result from this disaster, we cannot but regard the event as a general loss ; for, had the MauJcin's whaling adventure p o\ed as successful as was hoped, it would probably have speedily led to the engagement ot other vessels in an enterprise which could not fail to be beneficial to our port and district. Still, as the wreck was occasioned — not by anything necessarily connected with our coast — but by those uncontrollable circumstances to which ships are always more or less exposed, there is no real ground for discouragement in the occurrence, so far as the undertaking itself is concerned.

Lectures on the Bible. — The second of the present series by Ministers of the Auckland Branch of the Evangelical Alliance, was delivered on Monday evening, by the Rev. Thomas Hamer, in the Presbyterian Church. The subject was "The Divine Inspiration of the Bible," which the lecturer ably vindicated — not so much, however, in opposition to thoie who deny altogether the inspiration of the Scriptures, as to the class of persons who, while they nominally admit that truth, yet lower down and expla'n away its import, so as to cast uncertainty over the conclusions at which an inquirer who should take them as his guides would be hkely to arrive. The lecture was very numerously attended. Cricket. — We are requested to stale that a a cricket match will be played this day in the grounds of the Albert Batracks, between eleven of the garrison and a similar number of civi* lians. As this will probably be the last match of the season, a lunch will be provided at one o'clock