The New Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 633, 8 May 1852, Page 2

The New Zealander.

Be just and fear not : Let ( il) the ends them aim'st at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MAY 8, 1852.

WHATEVER other sins of omission or commission may bo charged upon the Common Council, malice itself cannot accuse them of precipitancy in exercising the powers conferred upon them by the Charter. Although nearly six months have elapsed since tliey were formally invested with their corporate privileges, yet it remains to be debated at the meeting of this day whether they will take the first step towards the performance of any matter of practical utility to the Borough. The summer and the autumn, during which roads and other public works might have been most efficiently attended to— have been permitted to pass wholly unimproved, the most urgently needed matters remaining all the time neglected, because the Common Council would neither undertake them themselves, nor devolve the care of them on the Government by declaring that they ivould not undertake them. We do not forget that the Mayor mentioned in the Council the substance of a conversation between him and the Lieutenant-Governor, in which his Worship intimated to his Excellency his opinion that, if the Government should proceed with the roads, the Council would only expect to receive such portion of the grant as might be unexpended whenever they resolved to enter upon the management of this branch of municipal affairs ; nor do we forget that the Council acquiesced in this expression of their views. But the Mayor's statement to his Excellency, however correct in substance, was unauthorised at the time he made it; and the result ef its being reported (or rather casually mentioned) to the Council was never commucated to the Government in any way that would afford official warrant for action. Besides, from week to week there were vehement accusations of incompetency and extravagance in the administration of the public money preferred against the Government by members of the Council, a very natural effect of which might be to render the Government reluctant to take out of the hands of those gentlemen the control over particular departments of expenditures which the Charter had given them, and which, upon their own showing, they could exercise so much more beneficially than it had heretofore been exercised. The consequence has been that, notwithstanding our having at present a LieutenantGovernor who signalized the commencement of his rule by an attention to local improvements without precedent in Auckland, — from which, had the Corporation not stood in the way, much good would unquestionably have continued to result — yet almost literally nothing has been done for months and months. It seems marvellous that in the face of these notorious facts it should be asserted that " the whole responsibility of stopping the public works 7ias rested, and does now rest, with the local Government ;" but the facts being notorious, the Burgesses can and will judge for themselves. It is never too late to amend, however ; and although lost time cannot be recalled, yet the present may be so redeemed and employed as in some measure to atone for the short comings of the past. The Deputation to the Lieutenant-Governor last week ascertained that there is a gum of about £1,600 now at the actual disposal of the Corporation, and that further sums may be anticipated from approaching land sales. The amount is confessedly greatly inadequate to the accomplishment of all that is desirable or even requisite ; but, — judiciously applied to the most necessary works, and economically administered, — it will suffice to do many things of importance, especially in the repair of streets and roads. What then must we think of the motion to be brought forward to-day — " that the Council must suspend its sittings until after the meeting of the next Provincial Legislative Council?" The worthy Councillor who is to move this, took occasion on Saturday to disclaim any wish to defeat the Charter, and declared that he was decidedly for carrying it out. We were glad to hear him say so, although we should not have supposed this to be his feeling from his present proposition, any more than from some of his remarks in Council, such as one (mado early in the year) during a conversation on the propriety of getting a Seal, when he observed that " a design for a Seal would be sufficient, unless it were to seal the death-war-rant of the Corporation." But while we frankly receive his statement of his present favourable disposition towards the Charter, wo as frankly avow our entire inability to reconcile it with the direct and obvious tendency of the motion. Although the Charter has been accepted— (by the Councillors' meeting, appointing Committees, calling each other by their corporate titles, forwarding in their corporate capaj city Petitions to Parliament, appointing a Town Clerk and a Treasurer, and doing other indisputably corporate acts) — yet they have done nothing whatever, properly speaking, to carry it out. Their term of dealing with it is necessarily only co-exten-sive with their year of office. The Legislative Council will not meet for months to come, and there cannot possibly be any considerable interval between the earliest date at which arrangements made by that Council can bo rendered operative, and the

date of the next Municipal Election. The conclusion is clear that such a suspension of the sittings of the Common Council us is proposed, would, so far as the existing Common Council is concerned, bo tantamount to a refusal to carry out the Charter, and that — whatever veil of specious plausibilities it may be attempted to throw over the fact — every member who votes for it will really do what in him lies to frustrate the objects for which the Corporation was instituted. It may be well asked, what is there now to call for an abandonment of the trust confided to the Common Council, which had not equal force and urgency several weeks since, — to say the least, at the time I when the Sub-Committees of inquiry had completed their reports % The reply received from the Lieutenant-Governor, if it makes any alteration at all in their circumstances and prospects, alters them for the better. It denies no request but those which the Deputation and the Council were perfectly aware must be denied, simply because the Governor had no power to grant them ; while on the other hand, the kindly spirit manifested by his Excellency, and the assurance, more than implied, in his answer, not only that he will interpose no obstacle, but that he will, as far as he justly and properly can, aid in tho attainment of further endowments to the Corporation, afford encouragement— additional motives — for a line of policy widely different from that indicated by the motion. The course which the Mayor has pointed out is surely far more in accordance with the requirements of justice and public I duty, and more likely to commend itself to the minds of all impartial, practical, and business men. It is not obnoxious to the censure of those who are anxious that no tax should be imposed ; for it excludes all idea of immediate taxation, and implies no step that would necessitate future taxation, which would remain as much as ever an open question, to be discussed on its own merits and regulated by the circumstances of the time being. The notion that a performance of some of the acts authorised by the Charter would involve an undertaking of every other act .and charge named in it, is so evident a mistake that it is surprising how it could have been entertained. The matter lies within a very narrow compass : certain works essential to the comfort and advantage of the community require to be done : a sum of money which, although it will not meet the whole, will meet a part of the necessity, lies in the Treasury awaiting the acceptance of the Common Council : the Council have alleged, — (none more loudly than the Councillor whose adverse motion stands on the book for this day) — that, under the management of the Corporation, the public money can be more economically and beneficially expended than it has usually been by the Government : the question is, shall the Common Council set about urgently required improvements, effecting them — to the best of their knowledge and judgment — impartially and prudently, so far as the means placedat their disposal by the Government will go ? — or, shall they, after having loitered through the long days and fine weather of the year, now abandon their trust, and leave these works to bo done judiciously, or done injudiciously, or not done at all, as circumstances over which they can have no control may direct? There can be little doubt what the answer of the bulk of the community would ultimately be; for even those who may at first, from political feelings, lean to another course just because it was likely to be annoying to the Government, would — probably before the winter had passed — feel its injurious effects on their own interests, and under the pressure of personal inconvenience or loss would speak in terms of no very measured censure of the Common Council as well as of the Government. But by doing", even at thi3 late period of the year, all that they now can to make tho best use of the Funds at their disposal, and thus being enabled to point to tangible evidences of their discretion and carefulness in the expenditure of public money for the public benefit, the Common Council will, beyond all doubt, be in a better position to come to the Government and the Legislative Council for further means, than they would be if they frowardly refused to employ for any useful purpose the means and powers already in their hands. We confidently anticipate that this will be substantial 1y the decision of the Council today. We have no apprehension whatever that the propositions of Councillors Newman and Abraham will be carried. We do not believe that the Common Council will, by so rash and indefensible a step as the adoption of these or similar resolutions, give proof that there is a necessity for that " resumption of the Charter " at which his Excellency hinted, a resumption to take place for the humiliating reason that " the Corporation" (by its own showing) "cannot exercise the powers conferred upon them, with advantage to the interests of the community." However, the mere circumstance of the motions being put upon the Notice Paper is a movement in a direction so hostile to what we deem the real interests of the Borough, that we have felt it a duty thus to offer a portion — though only a portion — of the comments to which it might legitimately lead.

We have received by the Undine "Wellington papers to the 14th, and the Nelson Examiner to the 10th of April. It will bo remembered that at our last dates it had not been fully known whether the Govcrnor-in Chief would actually take upon himself the responsibility of so far setting aside the '' New Zealand Settlements Act" as to resume the issue of Crown Grants to the Company's Land Purchasers, under the provisions or the " New Zealand Company's Land Claimants' Ordinance." All doubt on the subject, however, was finally removed by the appearance of the following notification in the Government Gazette: — Colonial Secretary's Office, •'Wellington, 3rd April, 1852. IJis Excellency the Governor-in-Chief directs it to be notified for general information, that the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Wellington District will resume the investigation of Claims to Land derived through the New Zealand Company, on Monday the sth instant, in order that

Crown Grants may be issued for such lands as claimants arc found duly entitled to. By his Excellency's command. Alfred PoaiKrr, Colonial Secretary. This, although a bold step which only a clear and urgent necessity could warrant, ■will, there can be little doubt, receive the concurrence, and even the approbation, of the Home Government, seeing that it was so earnestly solicited by the great mass of the settlers. The Wellington Memorial praying that such a course may be adopted (which has already appeared in our columns) had received seven hundred and seventyseven signatures ; and the Spectator affirms that if time had permitted two hundred signatures more would have been readily obtained. From Nelson there had been two Memorials; one signed by three hundred and sixty-eight, the other by three hundred and forty settlers : both were in favour of the Land Claimants' Ordinance, and in strong opposition to the terms of purchase of land brought into force by the Act of Parliament, although there was a difference of opinion at Nelson respecting the Pastoral Kegulations which led to the adoption of a second Memorial. Thus supported by the voice of the settlers — which Lord Grey expressed a desire to obtain and be guided by, — the Governor has, we think, exercised a sound discretion, and taken a safe as well as an energetic course in proceeding to place the claimants in unconditional possession of the lands which have long been theirs in rigid, and would long have been theirs in fact, but for the mismanagement and sordid chicanery of the New Zealand Company and its Agents. Another Meeting on the subject of a Church of England Constitution had been held in Wellington, when it was agreed to apply to the Colonial Legislature for such powers as it could grant, — the Petition to the Imperial Parliament to be nevertheless forwarded also ; and that a discussion of considerable interest took place respecting the Church franchise, which Mr. GodTey (in a speech at Lyttelton to which we referred in a former number) contended should be restricted to communicants, but which Archdeacon Hadfield and Sir George Grey thought should be more widely extended. According to a return in the Gazette, the amount of Notes of the Wellington Colonial Bank of Issue in circulation on the 31st of December was £7,345; coin held by the same office on that day, £3,345 : invested in the British Funds, ■ £4,000. The expenses in conducting the ' Bank during the year 1851 were stated at £108 14s. Bd., being £108 6s. 8. for clerk's salary, and Bs. for contingencies. The Spectator remarks. " Thus it will be seen that the interest on £4.000 invested by the Bank in the British Funds, is more than sufficient to defray all its expenses." The Church of England Education Society's School at Thorndon had been brought into opei'ation. It is to be conducted according to the system taught at the National Society's Training School at Battersea. The master, Mr. Wadsworth, is to be assisted in the tuition of the girls by a committee of ladies. The terms are, entrance fee for each child, 2s, 6d. ; for one child, per week, Is. Od ; for two or more of the same family, Bd. each. A report embodying these arrangements had been presented to a meeting of the friends of the Institution, and adopted on the motion of Sir George Grey. In connexion with educational movements we also notice that, on Easter Monday, upwards of 200 children of the Church oi England Sunday and Day Schools, with their teachers and a number of visitors, were entertained by Sir George and Lady Grey in the Government Grounds. ...On the same day, the anniversary of the Wesleyan Sunday School was celebrated, 135 children being entertained in the School Room, and a Public Meeting of the supporters of the School being held in the evening.... On Good Friday there was a similar gathering of the children and teachers connected with the Primitive Methodist Chapel. The Independent, referring to these celebrations, makes the following just and gratifying observations : — " We are pleased to have it in ouv power* to record the great progress making in the religious qnd secular instruction of the rapidly rising generation of Wellington and its vicinity ; and without involving our&elves in a religious or sectarian controversy, we may be permitted to say that these annual public festivities of the children are to us highly gratifying, and will have the effect of impressing on the infant mind that true pleasure and substantial enjoyment are to be found, unconnected with riot and debauchery, and united with moral and religious training and influences." Several of those who had left Wellington for the Australian gold-field had returned, glad to resume the pursuits ot steady industry ; and several others were ex pected to follow them as soon as they" could. The Independent publishes a letter from a carpenter named Benton, wellknown in Wellington, who writes to his friends, — <v I would earnestly recommend all those who think of coming to the diggings to stay where they are. The privations that 1 have suffered, and the miseries and discomfort I have gone through, you would scarcely believe, and many a time I have thought of Wellington, and heartily wished I was back again." We apprehend this will be also the experience of not a few gold-hunting emigrants from Auckland. Flour, which had been £40 per ton, was lower but still high. The Spectator of the 14th ult. quotes it at £30 per ton ; the Independent of the same date reports it 335. to 365. per 100 lbs. Bread 7d. the 2 lb. loaf.

At Nelson the principal topic of discussion was the comparative merits of Sir George Grey's Pastoral Regulations, and the Company's Regulations which the recent Act of Parliament was intended to bring into operation. The Examiner, in some long articles, maintains that the Company's Regulations were especially framed to give the land purchasers an advantage over their fellow-settlers. " They have a specious appearance to many persons," says our contemporary, " and have been believed to be a boon to the public; whereas, if carried out in the only way we believe they can be enforced, the public will be robbed, in this settlement alone, to the tune of

£1,000 a-year, soon to become upwards of £2,000, for the sole benefit of the land purchasers, who shall share the whole of this money between them." The Examiner would prefer Sir George Grey's Regulations, with such modifications as would fix 12000 sheep as the maximum of any run, restrict the individual to one run in the settlement, and limit the lease to seven years. The He venue lie turns for the Quarter ending March 31, report the Income of the Nelson District as £1,895 18s. 7d., and the Expenditure as £1,717 17s. 2d. The disbursements having 1 thus exceeded the receipts, the balance, which at the last Quarter was £4,214 17s. 7d. is reduced to £3,892 19s. Od. Steps were in progress for the formation of a Nelson Coal Association, to work the coal at Massacre Bay. It was proposed that the capital should at first be £5,250 in shares of £1 Is. each. Here also some of the gold-seekers had returned from Australia. A respectable young German, Mr. Lechner, had given the Examiner such a report as "should make those who have a fair prospect of doing well here, or in any part of this colony, hesitate before they exchange a life of comfort and security for the gambling and hazardous existence of a £old-seeker." The Horticultural Society's Exhibition this year had proved a failure. The Examiner says, "The indifference shown to Horticultural matters we consider a dis* grace to our settlement." Wheat was quoted on the 10th ult. at ss. per bushel. Flour, £14 per ton, but the supply had been short from a scarcity of water at the mills. The following illustration of the tales circulated by many-tongued rumour may amuse our readers. We take it from the Examiner of March 27 : — There is a rumoured story, brought within the last few days by some Natives, that a terrible conflagration has taken place at Auckland, caused by the revenge or jealousy of a Native whose wife had been taken from him by an European, living in the town of Auckland, whose house, it is saia, the Native fired, when the flames spread in the most alarming manner, and destroyed a very large number of houses. We sincerely hope the story may prove untrue, but there is nothing on its face which stamps it with an air of improbability. We have no Lyttelton papers by this arrival, but intelligence had been received at Wellington to the 3rd ult., being a week later than had reached us. The Times contained a Report of a meeting of Land Purchasers at Christ Church at which a letter was read from Mr. Godley with reference to the rumours of his resignation of the Chief Agency of the Canterbury Association. He stated " I have tendered my resignation to the Managing Committee, but as I have received no answer to that communication, I cannot consistently with my duty, give any further explanation to the public at present upon the subject;" he went on to declare that, whether there or in England, the promotion of the interests of the colony would always be one of the chief objects of his life.

Mechanics' Institute. —An interesting Lecture was delivered in the Hall of the Insti« tute on Tuesday evening by Mr. Wm, Singer, Mastpr of the Wesleyan Day School, on • Education according to the Glasgow Training System " The Lecturer gave a sketch of the circumstances under which (he founder of the system, Mr. Stow of Glasgow, was led step by step to its development, and consolidation ; and pointed out its great characteristic of training as distinguished from mere teaching, and the application of its principles to physical, intellectual, and moral improvement. A number of Mr. Singer's young pupils — about twentyfive or thiity — were present, and afforded an opportunity of bringing before the audience some practical illustrations of the working of the system, which were highly satisfactory, — especially, when the shortness of the period the children had been under this mode of instruction, — the absence of the facilities connected with the school "gallery," — and the limited time within which ths Lecture was necessarily circumscribed, were duly allowed for. Mr. Singer, however, concluded by inviting all who desire to make themselves better acquainted with the system to visit his school where it may daily be seen in more complete operation.