The New=Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 628, 21 April 1852, Page 2

The New=Zealander.

Be just and fear tiot : Let all tne ends thou aiiriij't at, be thy Country*, Thy God's, and Truth's.

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1852.

By the arrival of the Man we have our usual Sydney files to the Ist inst., together with a number of other Co'onial papers. The gold diggers at the Turon and Ophir had again experienced great interruption and loss by violent and sudden floods, which swept away large quantities of the auriferous soil prepared for cradling, and their tools *.nd working implements. The results were much worse than those of the floods in January last, and ihe miners were so dispirited that many hundreds had abandoned those fields for other diggings. The remaining miners had petitioned Mr. Commissioner Hardy, setting forth the losses they had sustained, and praying that he would represent their case to the Government, so that they may be \ eimitted to retain their claims with- [ out paying license money for the ensuing month,— a month being the shortest time within which they expected the claims to be in a workable state. Mr." Lloyd's latest gold circular will be found in another column. The Convict Question was engaging a yet more excited attention, in consequence of information from a reliable source that Lord Grey had resolved to continue 7 transportation to Van Diemen's Land, and to persevere in the separation of Moreton Bay with a view of making that district a receptacle for convicts. It appeals that his Lordship had unequivocally avoaed these intentions to Mr KL)g, the Victoria Delegate, who had an interview with the Noble Secretary for the Colonies, on the 25th of November; and that the Executive Board of the Australasian Leigue had received official notification of this from their London Correspondent. The League Council had immediately determined to call a Public Meeting on Jiie_suJ2ject,^iviiicJi_jos_fijce^Jor :_the_sth inst. It would therefore declare its opinion in sufficient time to reach the League Conference appointed to be held in Hobart Town during the present month. The League will, it is only too evident, have work enough yet to perform, in the prosecution of its original and legitimate task, without any such interference with merely political topics as we lately felt it our duty to protest against its being identified with. And we have the gratification of finding that this conclusion has been arrived at by its own Executive ; as appears from the following announcement in the Empire of the 26th ult. .— Transportation. — Some discussion has lately taken place as to the advisubleness of extending the objects of the Australasian League, so as to embrace an agitation for those constitutional rights and privileges to which, it is admitted by men of various shades of opinion, the colony is undoubtedly entitled. The suggestion, it will be remembered, was first made in a letter from Mr. Lowe, the late member for Sydney, and was concurred in by a portion of the local press, including this journal. At recent meetings of the League Council, the subject has been discussed ; and it has been decided by a iormal resolution, that the course of greatest wisdom is to concentrate all the efforts of that body on the attainment of the objects for which it was originally established. The Herald (whose support of the proposition elicited our former remarks) has also abandoned its advocacy of a scheme which we should not have expected it ever to countenance. "We confess," says that journal (27th ult.), " after the startling announcement made by Mr. King, we can have no wish to direct the attention of the League, or of any one member of it, for a single moment, from the great object of its existence. * * The present aspect of the Convict Question is too serious to be contemplated by the League with a divided attention." The demand for a reform of the Sydney Corporation was becoming mote strong and general. The two daily journals seem to vie with each other in eneigetic statements of its necessity. The //era /d describes the Corporation as " aclumsy machine, harsh, heavy, fitful in its movements, its sounds giating on the public ear, its services unequal to the public wants," and urges a complaint— (which we fear may be urged nearer home to us than Sydney), — " while the City Council are wrangling and talking, their constituents are suffering. Our streets unmended, our footwalks dangerous to tread on, our drains uncleansed, our nameless nuisances unsuppressed ; these are some of the practical comments on the way in which our affairs aie managed by the collective wisdom of the Town Hall." The Empire, for its part, must *' concur in the strong opinion recently expressed on the absolute impossibility of bearing witlnhe doings, misdoings, and non-doings of the Corporation," and proceeds to denounce " its wrongness, its uselessness, its excessive and most disgraceful vulgarity," and so forth. The evil admitted, the remedy is not so easily pointed out, or, at uny rale, agreed upon. The Herald suggests that the direction of municipal affairs should be vested in three paid Commissioners, to be appointed by the Crown or the Legislature, instead of being elected by popular suffrage, and to hold their offices permanently (during good behaviour). The Empire considers this lf an absurdity too great even to be scouted," and thinks that a reform in the feelings and conduct of the electo-s is primarily necessaiy. " The citizens of Sydney," says our contemporaiy, " are indeed insulted by the boorish, or even bearish, incivilities of the City

Council Chamber; but it is not till after theY have insulted their own reputation for respectability by sending such men there to tepresent them. Were they compelled to do this 1 ?" It is not for us to decide on the matter when the Doctors on the spot thus disagree, or coniess their incertitude in dealing with the case Several parochial meetings of Pew and Seatholdeis were to be held for the consideration of the Bishop of Sydney's Circular respecting the proposed establishment of Diocesan Synods and Conventions of Laymen for the government of the Church of England in the Diocese. Judging from the number and character of the lettets published on the subject, the Meeting called by the Bishop for the 14th instant was likely to excite a good deal of attention. The price of wheat at Nydney maintained an upward tendency, good samples realising ss. (id. to ss. 8d« per bushel. Flour was still quoted at £ J l3 per ton for fine, and £11 for seconds With respect to the general state of the markets, the Empire repot ts, — "There is a disposition on the part of our merchants hereto force sales at auction, and no doubt in many instances, at a sacrifice. In all our leading articles of consumption there exists particularly a feeling to realise at pubic sale, and the buyers are disheartened and operate very cautiously."

The principal news from Victoria relates to the increased frequency of outrages on life and property both in Melbourne and Geelong and the powerlessness of the police to suppress them. The Geelong Advertiser states that there were no less than sixty-eight persons for trial at the Criminal Sessions. Hordes of Jawless ruffians thronged Geelong, and a most daring murder had been committed in tlse public streets. The Coroner's Jury appended to their verdict in the case the following rider : ■ — "That this Jmy in recording their present verdict, cannot but notice the dismay and terror which prevails in the public mind at the total insecurity of life and property in Geelong, occasioned by the local Executive withholding from the people adequate po'ice protection." The Government was about to add '25 men to the Melbourne, and 20 to the Geelong police force ; i*nd the swearing in of a number of the citizens as special constables was also in contemplation. The Gold Field continued productive ; but at Mount Alexandei the number of deaths from dysentery was described as "really frightful," and both there and at Ballarat water was distressingly scarce. A meeting had been held at Mount Alexander — the Bishop of Melbourne in the chair — to take steps for the erection of a Church at the diggings.

We have received Hobait Town papers to the 17th ult. The "Tasmunian Gold Field" had not up to the latest dates proved so productive as to afford any remuneration for the labour of working it, although the undoubted fact that gold had been found in the Fingal District afforded sufficient encouragement for continued experiments. Dr. Warde — whose statements fust excited the public mind — was still very sanguine ; but the Guardian says, '' We have very little faith in anything Mr. Warde says or writes on the discovery of gold in the Fingal district, after detecting him in a falsehood, where he staled that an ounce per day could be collected. It is true gold tnaij he found in this island in such quantities that will pay men to seek for it, but such, we regret to say is not the case at present. 2 ' This was on the 10th ult. ; in a letter from Liunceston dated the 15th, a gold-hunter vrites, ''I returned from the mis called Golden Valley on Saturday night ; it should be called Disappointment Valley. We, like the rest, got a sample, — for specks can be got in almost every place in the locality, but it would lake about five hundred specks to fill a gun cap, and would take a week to procure." The wiiter (on whose communication the Colonial Times places " the utmost reliance") declares his belief that there had not been an ounce of gold got from the beginning by a'l the pii'lies, and thus illustrates the way in which gold-stories grow as they travel, — " We are possessed of the largest piece found yet : it weighs seven grains. At Avoca we showed it, and there it was rumoured to be as large as dice. At Launceston, it was two ounces, and I dare say by the time it makes Hobart Town, it will be lib." In the latest paper (the Guardian of the 17th ult.) the subject is not even once named. The Legis'ative Council was still in Session, and had transacted a considerable amount of business. The Customs' Duties Act had become law. The following is the new scale of Duties which it enacts for Van Diemen's Land : —

SCHEDULE B. TABLE of Articles exempted from Payment of Duty on Importation. AVines imported or purchased in Bond for the use of regimental Mease*. Ali Articles imported for the supply of Her Majesty's Land or Sea forces. All Articles impoited for the Use of Her Majesty's Government. The Council had adopted, (on the motion of Mr. Gregson), by a majority of 12 to 7, a set ies of Resolutions on the subject of Transportation which evidence a very determined spmt of resistance to the continuance of the degiading and polluting infliction. The Resolutions set forth in some detail the enormous expense to which the colony has been subjected in providing for the police and gaols necessary for the control of British convicts ; state the startling facts that, on the 31st of December 1851, there -were 20,069 convicts in the colony, and that the number of policemen now employed is 446, of whom no less than 332 ore themselves convicts ; and then conclude with the

following energetic expression of purpose for the future : — 7. That this Council has shown every disposition to avoid embairassment to the Local Government, and is willing even to augment the pay of the police for the present 3 r ear under the circumstances connected with the discovery of gold in Australia; but that, after the present Session, if Transportation shall be continued to this colony, this Council will not vote more th.in onethirteenth part of the expense of the police and gaols, nor more for any other expenditure connected with the control or management of crniiinals than this country would be subjected to if it were a fiee colony. The contest between Bishop Nixon and the Tractaiian party on the one hand, and the Evangelical Clergy and Laity on the othet, was going forward with renewed vigour, in consequence of a new and palpably Romanizing step taken by the Bishop. After an interval of professions of peace, his Lordship had made open war upon one of the most vital principles u,.on which the Church of England, as a Protestant Church, is founded — the supreme authority of the Scriptures as the rule ot faith, with the right of private judgment in their interpretation. He had refused to receive the testimonials of a candidate for oidination, on the ground that they were signed by clergymen who had subscribed the ll Solemn Declaration" in which this principle was explicitly maintained. The Protestant Association had taken np the matt r, and, — on the motion of the Rev. Dr. Fry, seconded by Captain Fenton — had unanimously agreed to call a i'ubhc Meeting on the subject, and, as pieliminary thereto, to publish and circulate the following Address :— Ivasmucii as the Lord Bishop of Tasmania, in February last, rejected the certificate given to a Candidate for Holy Onleii> by the Rev. A. Stackhonse, and ihn Rev. G. Wilkinson ; and subsequently also rejected a similar certificate fioni the Rev. Dr. Browne and the llev. A. C. Thomson, on the ground that they were unsound in their religious opinions, having with eighteen other Clergymen signed the *' Solemn Declaiation of Ministers of the Church of England, in which they declared — ■ "That the Holy Scnptnre is the sole rule of faith and that eveiy indivHlu.il has the right to read and interpret the Word of God by his own piivate judgment, with the aid of the Holy Spirit ; denying the authority of Tradition, or the right ot any Chuich or Minister to piuacnbe to individuals in matters of religion m opposition to their own judgment." And inasmuch as the Bnbop has refused to countersign the Testimonials of a Clergyman leaving the colony, because one of the Clergymen whose names were affixed to the Testimonials had signed the above-men-tioned " Declaration." Thid Committee feels called upon to communicate these proceedings to the Members of the Chuich oi England : — the right of' Private Judgment," which the Bibhop condemns being in tbe conviction of this, Committee a fundamental principle of the Proteslani Religion. iiy an aibitrary act of the Bishop, above twenty Clergymen are stigmatised as being so unsound in doctrine as to dis-quahly them fiom testifying to the doctrinal soundness of candidates for Holy Ordeis, andaie therefore thus virtually condemned as unfit to exeicise their office of instructors of others in the Chustian Faith. They are also deprived of a right which belongs to them as Piebbyters of the Church of Eng land. The Clergymen whose religious faith is thus eondemued, .are the iame who lately exposed the dissemi nation of Romanizing 'liacts and Opinions by ceitain Ministers in this colony; which tracts and opinions were nevertheless approved by the Bishop as the true teaching of the Church of England. This pioceeding of the Bishop is an act of persecution against those Ministers who opposed Romanism in the Church. Its direct tendency is to compel them to renounce one ot the fundamental principles of the Protestant Reformation, and to coeice them into an acknowledgment of an auihoiity iv the Chuich to overrule private judgment, setting abide tbe divine authority of Holy Scripture as the sole rule of Faith, anil subverting religious liberty. It would render the whole Church subservient to the arbitrary wi 1 of the Bishop it is calculated to drive out the evangelical clergy from the diocese, and to fill their places with Ministers of Romanising sentiments. We are of opinion that the Members of the Church of England are called upon to adopt immediate measures for the preservation of their religious principles and liberties, and for the protection of the Clcigjiuen thus unjustly and arbitrarily stigmatised and injured. This Committee, and we the undeisigned Member? of the Church of England, therefore invite our brothei members of the Church to attend a PUBLIC MEETING, to be held for this object at the jVllcimnics' Insiiiupe, on at The bold step Homewards thus taken by tbe Bishop of Tasmania can scarcely fail, we should think, to produce a critical struggle in his diocese. The Colonial Times evidently anticipates this, when it observes, ''It is but too evident that the differences between the Evangelical Cle:gy and the Traclaiians are such that there can be no harmony. Separation must ensue, and for the sake of peace, the sooner it takes place the better." A wretched man named Fisher had been executed at Hobart Town for highway robbery under arms, committed on Captain Rowland, master of an American whaler. He had attempted to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a rusty knife. In the Hobart Town Markets, Wheat Avas ss. 6d. per bushel ; Flour, £17 per ton ; Bread, 7^d. per 41b. loaf; Potatoes, £4 per ton; Onions, £12 per ton... .At Launceston, Wheat was 4s. to 4s 3d. ; Flour, £13 ; Bread, Bd.

£ a. d. Brandy per gallon Rum and all other Spirits and Strong Waters, per gallon, and so in proportion with respect only to Spirits and Strong Waters in bottle for any greater 01 less quantity than a gallon, not being less than one-eight part of a gallon Wines in wood, per gallon Ditto in bottles, per dozen reputed quart bottles. ...... Ditto, per dozen reputed pint bottles. Tobacco (Snuff excepted) & Cigars, per lb. Tea, per lb. , • • Haw Sugar and Molasses, per cwt. . Refined Sugars, per cwt. Coffee, per lb. , Dried Fruits, per lb Hops, per lb. ..... Malt Liquors in wood, per gallon . Ditto in bottle, per dozen reputed quait bottles ...... Ditto, per dozen reputed pint bottles. . 0 12 0 9 0 1 0 4 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 3 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 1 1 2 2 0 6

SCHEDULE A. TABLE of Goods, Wares, and Merchandise liable to Duty on Importation.