AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, NOV. 20,1852. AUCKLAND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. AUCKLAND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 689, 20 November 1852, Page 2

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, NOV. 20,1852. AUCKLAND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS. AUCKLAND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

It is undeniable that our good town presented on Thursday (Ibe day appointed by the Municipal Charter for the election of Common Councillors) a very marked contrast , to the bustle and excitement manifested on

the corresponding oreasion last year. Tin; frame-work of the machine was ail provided and was in good order: the Helurning Officer and the Poll Clerks were July at their posts: the Noting places were properly divided ( and displayed to all intending \oters: in i short cm'i 1 ) arrangement was regularly car- 1 ried out: only -the animating principle ofi zeal in the object was deficient, and for some hours it was doubtful whether any >otes at all would be recorded fur more than the West and Middle Town Wards. At four o'clock when the poll closed, three out of the nine Wards of which Auckland was iJie appointed polling-place, remained unsiifjplied with represenlalnes; and the returns received from Uowick and Onrhunga exhibited similar results, only one Ward of the five having cleclcd a member. Thus, ai the close of Thursday, but se\en of the fourteen Wards in the Borough had manifested interest enough in the mo\cment to take any practical cognizance wha;e?cr of it; while the total number of AOles recorded did not amount to more than about onetenth of the tolal of last year. The latter circumstance may, however, be accounted for to a considerable extent by the fact that there was no contest to stimulate to any effort. In the West and the Middle Town Wards, even with a pro ions certainly as to the result in both cases, 77 Burgesses voted; and there can be no question that had there been any real opposition, the Burgesses in those Wards would have come to the poll as vigorously as they did last year. Si til the fact that there was not a greater number of candidates— if not presenting themselves, yet sought out and brought forward by the constituencies, is significant, and strengthens the conclusion — which indeed was too plain to require any proof, that the Elections were viewed with a great amount of apathy as compared with the lively inteiest exhibited on the introduction of the Charter. We have in former articles on this subject so fully pointed out some of the chief reasons for this alteration of feeling, that we need not to-day enlarge upon them again. We may remark, however, that one great excitingcause of the hostility towards the Charier has, first and last, been the vehement and undiscriminaiing spirit of opposition towards tlie Governor-in-Chief and every thing emanating from his Go> eminent, which a parly here has pursued with an animosity to which the annals of faction, stained as they arc with ten thousand bitter and paltry things, do not afford many parallels. No obsenant and reflective man whoi? much acquainted with the sayings, doings, writings, and various other more or less public proceedings in connection with this subject, can, in his own mind, doubt that envenomed personal hostility towards Governor Grey had a large share in producing the opposition directed against the Charier at its promulgation. The first and strenuous attempt of the party was to work so upon the prejudices and passions of the comnmniiy as to induce a general rejection of the measure, or at least a contemptuous indifference to its inauguration and working. The question was argued at sufficient length to bring all its bearings under the public eye, and the result notoriously was, thai those who would stifle the Charter in the birth were completely defeated, and the Burgesses manifested their willingness to accept the local self-go\ernncnl which it conferred, by the great numbers in whit h they thronged to the poll, and by their returning men who were misted to work the Charter, — for we belie\e no constituency in the Borough would ha\e elected a candidate who openly avowed that his wish and purpose was to frustrate it. The Corporation was launched under fair and favouring auspices, in spile of the efforts of its enemies. - But utiforlunatcly the Council— view ed as a ' whole, we mean as represented by its majority —did not fulfil the just expectations of the comnrmhy by faithfully wo?7m?/<? the Charier. It socn became e\ident that the spirit of hostility towards ihe measure and towards the government from which it emanated, was not without its full representation. We have no desire to travel once again oier the beaten and uninviting track of the Common Council's proceedings, which, indeed, offer not a solitary green or refreshing spot from the first debates about a seal and such like things, down to the act which has, beyond every other, convinced the public of the worse than usclessness of the Council,— we mean the REFUSAL TO ACCEPT AND EXPEND FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE BOROUGH THE MONEY (UPWARDS OF WOOL) which lay in the Treasury, available for the purposes of the Corporation at any moment, but which now has most probably been trans firrcd toiiardi the liquidation of the New Zealand Compamfs pretended debt. Beyond dispute the failure of the Council to effect any good, and the positive injury it inflicted on the Borough by occasioning the loss of so much money which otherwise would have been expended on public works by either the Government or the Wardens of Hundreds, went far to produce the apathy manifested on this occasion, and the comments which were freely made on this point on every hand showed that such was the preuileni opinion. To this were added the considerations that the financial rcsourcis of the Corporation for the coming year would be restricted by the disallowance of the Ordinance which authorised the appropriation of a third of the proceeds of the Land Sales lo Municipal purposes ; and, moreover, the vagueness felt to be diffused through all our political concerns at the present juncture, when we know that a measure giving an entirely new Constitution to the colony has passed the Imperial Legislature, but do not know with any certainly the precise nature of many of its provisions, liow it may affect Municipal Institutions in general, and this Corporation in particular has been a matter of speculation with many ; and a consequence has been that less interest has been felt in an Institution which might so soon be materially modified. Then, again, the spirit of inveterate opposition to the measure was always active, leading lo an assiduous employment of all means to pour contempt upon tin: Charter. If we were to sketch the portraiture of persons who ! made no secret of their enmity, and lost no 1 opportunity of casting reproach and ridicule upon the Charter on its introduction : — who, however, were anxious canvassers at the 1 election of last year to secure the return of

one candidate and thereby to secure the probably dearer object of the rejection of another: — v,ho, having migrated through the ranks of thorough-paced opponents to the whole Charter, and then of em-rgeliccanvass-ers under its provisions, now again reappeared as canvassers lo withhold the Bur- ! gesscs f. om recording their votes al all, or, if a few of them did vote, (but, happily, none were found who had the temerity to carry out this scheme) lo vote for men so grossly unfit as lo fling insult and oppro- ', brium upon the Corporation, no matter j what disgrace or injury to the Borough ; might be the issue of this gratification of! ■\iiidieli\eness : — if, wesay, we were to sketch such an outline, we should only draw from facts, although in prouorlion to the truthful- j ness of the portraits would be ihclownessof ' the estimate which strangers and impartial ; men everywhere must form of the polili- ' cal character of the section of the community which such inconsistent politicians can influence. And yet there was a sort of consistency in many of these movements: " to sink" Sir George Grey's Charter "into the obscurity of contempt" was the aim steadily pursued, although animosity towards a particular candidate may for the time have induced a support of his opponent, which was so far a working and maintenance of the Charter. But if the Corporation has indeed fallen in a great degree into coniempt, »ho is responsible for that i^sue? We are are told it has come to pass because the Charter " has been found so impracticable in its working!" The gravity ■with which this is alleged is really amusing. [low has it been found impracticable? Who rendered it so? It was not the Charter but the men that proved " impracticable." — The men who talked down and voted down the Mayor and the more judicious minority who, with him, would have taken the money that the Government offered, and expended it for the public good;— the men who broke up the sittings of the Council and who took part in the too-me-morable scene of its one meeting subsequent to thai vole;— the men who were, perhaps unknown to themselves, but, as was well known lo some, and very visible to many others, the tools and " obedient puppets " of the parly whose unvarying and unyielding opposition to ihe Government is matter of se// r -gi l atulation; — the men who, with professions on their lips of a disposition to work the Charter, were, by their conduct day after day in Council, doing all that lay in them to frustrate it, and who succeeded, — to the grievous detriment and pecuniary loss of the Borough,— in practically frustrating it during their year of office:— these are the men to whom," and not to the Charier itself, the term "impracticable" might justly be applied. The Charter indeed may admit of improvement; and on the assembling of a Legislative Council we should be happy lo sec any defects in it amended ; but we shall not improbably be favoured by the now hostile parly w i i h such a Municipal programme as they will approve because it is their own. We shall watch it; — not in any imitation of their spirit of pre-detcrmined fault-finding, but with the impartial scrutiny from which, abo\e all other things, some of your selfcomplacent would-be patriots instinctively shrink. But we have been led into fuller comment that we intended, and relurn lo our narrative of the results of the election. The following was the Official Report of the slate of the Poll at its clo^e ai 4 o'clock on Thursday : — East Town Ward: Joseph Robinson, 7 Middle Town Ward: James T. Bojlan, 42 West Town Ward : Pa I rick Dignan, 53 " " Waller Lee, J « « Robert Schultz,* 4 Suburban East Ward : William Hay, 5 Southward: Nil. " West Ward : Nil. Epsom East Ward : Nil. " West Ward : Thomas Paton, A Tamaki West Ward : David While, 5 Onehunga Ward : Nil. Panrmire Ward : Nil. Olahuhu Ward : Nil. How ick Ward: Thomas Gentles 8 Tamaki East Ward : Nil. On reading the state of the Poll at 4 o'clock, the Reluming Officer (Thomas Beekham, Esq.) intimated lo those assembled [ lo hear the announcement, thai, no election having been made for the Suburban South, ihe Suburban West, and the Epsom East Wards, he would (in compliance with the provision of the Charter clause 71) sit from nine o'clock till four on the next day (yesterday) lo receive any votes thai might be tendered for those Wards. A notice to the same effect was also posted on the outside of the polling place. Yesterday Mr. Beckhanv did sit out his seven hours of "solitary confinement" with exemplary patience and good-humour; but no voter made his appearance, and at the final close the ominous "n//" remained attached lo the previously unsupplied Wards. Only seven Wards of the fourteen comprised within the Borough having exercised the privilege of electing representatives, the Common Council of course is not formed, and, we apprehend, ihe necessary consequence is that the Corporation must be regarded as, for the present year, practically ceasing lo exist. Looking at this event simply in itself, we can feel little regret at the occurrence, for unless we were to have a very different Council from that of last year, we should be better circumstanced without than with one. There can be no doubt that it was the prevalence of this conviction through the community that mainly brought' about the result we now record. The damage which the political character of the Borough may sustain by means of iho entire proceedings connected with the Corporation, is, however, another and a serious matter. Those who maintain that representative institutions and selfgovernment are privileges for which the colony is not yet prepared, will be likely lo deduce from the history of those proceedings, as well as from some things connected with the Provincial Council Elections, arguments which it may be more easy to rail

* A note in our advertising columns from the Burgess who gave this vole shows that it was given without the knowledge or approbation of Mr. Schultz.

at than to answer. The advocates for the immediate establishment of such Institutions may congratulate themselves that the new Constitution Bill for New Zealand had become law before the report of these proceedings could reach England.

We have received interesting intelligence from Ihe Friendly Islands, brought to llobart Town by the California!! vessel Pacifico, and thence forwarded via Sydney. Its character is such as must afford gratification to all who desire the tranquillity and continued improvement of those advancing Islands. Our readers will remember that when the John Wesley left, a formidable rebellion was raging, and the rebels were in occupation of the strong fortifications of Bea and Ilouma, where they were reiu forced by accessions of turbulent spirits and fugitives from justice who escaped the immediate punishment of their crimes by taking refuge in these fortresses. King George,— whose conduct throughout the whole of this civil strife has been marked by the utmost forbearance towards his refraclorysubjeots,— repeatedly and earnestly pressed upon them such offers of peace as it was possible for him to make without an absolute abdication of his sovereignty ; but his propositions were treated with defiance, and the disaffected kept up such aggressions as they were able to make, persevering still in their warlike preparations, tn this course, we are informed, the\ were warmly encouraged by the French Priests, who held out the expectation that a French ship of war would soonarriveand sustain their cause, so that " a man-of-war from France" became the watchword of disloyalty and revolt through the Islands. A murderous attack made in February last by the rebels on a number of women had been followed by sanguinary collisions, and the horrors of civil war were thickly gathering, when the King resolved no longer to delay the adoption of vigorous efforts to reduce the for's. Still, however, he held out terms of reconciliation, on the indispensable condition of their levelling their stockades. On the 1 1 ih of July r Houma submitted on these terms, and on the 43th of that month the rebel chiefs Vaea and Fohe we're led to the King's fort at Bea, where the ceremony of reconciliation took place. The King forgave their rebellion ; and on their kissing his foot as a token of submission he assured them of his desire for their welfare, and advised them to give up heathenism and war together, aud. to think of the lotu (the Christian religion). Still Bea held out, notwithstanding renewed offers of peace were made on the part of the King a week after the submission of Houma. This, it was subsequently ascertained, was mainly owing to the influence 01 the French Priests, who still kept up the expectation of "a man-of-war from France." In this stale of affairs a vessel appeared in sight which fortunately proved to be— not a Frenchman — but H.M.S. Calliojw, which anchored at Nukuolofa on the Bth Augnst. The results of this opportune visit and oi Sir Everard Home's British spirit on the occasion, is thus slated in a communication which we have seen: — "Mr. Sevolo (a French Priest) was soon on board and expressed his pleasure at the arrival of Sir Everard Home 'to decide the contest between the chiefs as they could not tell who was King.' Sir Everard said, 'If you do not know who is the King of Tonga, Queen Victoria does, and I shall support his authority against all rebels." He immediately wrote to the two Priests in Bea to come out either on board the Calliope or to some other place of safety, as he was confident that King George intended to destroy the fort. This was the fifth warning, and it had its effect. On the 1 6th the King sent in another offer of peace which the chiefs gladly accepted now that the Priests were frightened. They came out and submitted themselves at the King's feet. Next morning Bea was in flames, but all the people had fled to the King's fort during the night." We are further informed that next morning, when the King, accompanied by Sir Everard Home, entered Bea, amidst burning houses and falling trees, they found two Priests who had remained behind. Sir Everard reminded them that several days before he had warned them of what impended ; and King George, with Messrs. West and Adams helped them to gel their property off to Mua. So far from any persecution having been directed against them on account of their religion, the accounts before us plainly show that the troubles iv which I they were involved resulted from their own political meddling and their sympathy with the rebels against the rightful Government. At the latest dates, then, the sovereignty of King George was no longer disputed; peace was restored; the King's clemency had spared the lives of all ; and Ilouma had loiued, adding about two hundred to the number of professing Christians, who—-al-though in many instances their conversion may be little more than external profession for the present— yet are saved from the cruelties and gross superstitions in which, had they continued heathens, they would still be plunged. We may connect with this intelligence the following additional illustration of the aggressive spirit of the French officials in these Seas, which we find in an editorial article in the Sydney Herald of the 29th ult. :

TAHITI. We have just learned, from a quarter on which we can rely, that most of the Protestant missionaries belonging to the London Missionary Society have found it necessary to remove from that island, in consequence of the arbitrary and unjust proceedings of the French Protectorate. Notwithstanding the guarantee of the French government, when they took possession of the island, that the missionaries would be at perfect liberty to carry on their operations as formerly without hindrance, they have been seperated from their congregations and absolutely forbidden to preach to the natives, unless upon terms with which their consciences could not comply, and which none but tyrants would require. What is called a National Church has been.formed ; the supreme authority in which seems to be vested in the French Governor, the assembly, and the Chiefs of Districts, altogether irrespective of character. Under their authority natives, without the necessary education, have been appointed ministers of the various native churches, in spite of the wishes and desires of those who were formerly the members of those churches. None are allowod to

worship but in connection with this National Church. Nonconformity is followed by severe pains and penalties, except in the case of those who choose to go to the Roman Catholic priesb, who may receive and preach to them m their own houses. Having obtained the power Ol persecution, it has already been exorcised as the following flagrant case will show. In one district ot the island the best part of the population, <li*hkino the native who had been chosen by the chiefs to°be their minister, met one Sunday in the native governor's house, and had a religious service, conducted by the man whom they were desirous to have as their preacher. No sooner was the service over, than the preacher was seized by order of a French officer, and led to prison. The governor, for allowing him to preach in his house, was tried, and fined 300 francs, and is to be sent to his own country, llaiatea ; the preacher has been fined 200 f runes, and is to be imprisoned twelve months ; two others have been fined, and are to be sent out of the Mnml, and another is to he fined and imprisoned for six months. And all this under a government whose boasted motto, at one time, was Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. We make no comment,— these facts speak _ tor themselves, and will no doubt excite the grief, as well as arouse the virtuous indignation of all u ho are desirous for the spread of truth and righteousness in the earth.

Wesmjyan Missions. — We invite attention to the announcement in our advertising columns of the Public Services in connection with the Anniversary of the New Zeaaland Auxiliary to the "We&leyan Mi&Monaiy Society, to be held in the Auckland Wesloynn Chapel on to-morrow and Mondiiv. It will be seen thnt the Key. George Buttle* of Waipa, is to pi each to-morrow morning and the Rev. John Whiteley, of Kuwhta, in the O evenii)T ; and that the Annual Meeting will be held on Monday evening at half-ya&t six oMoe-k.