The New-Zealander. AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1853.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 718, 2 March 1853, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1853.

Be just and fear not : Let all the ends thou aim’st at, be thy Country’s, Thy God’s, ami Truth’s.

By the arrival of ihc brig Kirkwood (a new and welcome addition to the shipping of the Port of Auckland) we have received Melbourne papers, which contain English Intelligence to the 15th of November. This was brought to the Cape of Good Hope by the steamer Ihntinck, and thence by the Australian Royal Mail Steamer Melbourne , which —after misadventures and disasters in addition to those with which our readers are already acquainted, and the particulars of which will be found in our shipping columns had reached Melbourne on the 4lh of February. The New Parliament was opened on the Hth of November by Her Majesty in person. The following is THE QUEEN'S SPEECH. My Lords and Gentlemen, — 1 cannot meet you Cor the first time after the dissolution of Parliament, without expressing my deep sorrow, in which 1 am sure you will participate, that your deliberations can no longer be aided by the counsels of that illustrious man whose great achievements have exalted (he name of England, and in whose loyalty and patriotism the interests of my throne and of my people ever found an unfailing support. I rely with confidence in your desire to agree with me in taking such steps as may mark your sense of the irreparable loss which the country has sustained by the loss of Arthur, Duke of Wellington. I am happy to acknowledge the readiness with which my subjects in general have come

forward in pursuance of the ac * of the session, to join the ranks of the militia: and confidently trust that the lorce thus raised K s voluntary enlistment will be calculated to eC effective aid to my regular army f or the L' lection and security of the country. I continue to receive from all foreign P(mer assurances of their anxious desire to maintain the friendly relations now happily rny Government. Frequent and well founded complaints on part of my North American Colonies of in , fractions by citizens of the Lmled Slates, of th e convention of 1818, induced me to despatch, f OP the protection cf their interests, a class of vessel* belter adapted to the service than those which had been previously employed. Ihis step ha* led to discussions with the Government of th & United States; and while the rights of my subl jeds have been firmly maintained, the friendly spirit in which the question has been treated induces me to hope that the ultimate result may be a mutually beneficial extension and improve, mcnt of our commercial intercourse with that great republic. A special mission, which, in concert with tfo Prince President of the French Republic, I deemed it right to send to the Argentine Confederation hasliecn received with the utmost cordiality • and the wise and enlightened policy of the Provisional Dictator has already opened to the commerce of the world the great ri\ers, hitherto dosed, which afford an access to the interior of tho vast continent of South America. I have the -satisfaction of announcing to you that the sincere and zealous efforts of the Government of Brazil for the suppression of the slave trade, now nearly extinguished on (hat coast, have enabled me to suspend the stringent measures which I had been compelled reluctantly to adopt—a recurrence to which I anxiously hope may be proved to be unnecessary. Tho Government of Her Most Faithful Majesty have fully recognised the justice of the claim which my Government have long urged for the abolition of the discriminating duties on the export of wine, and have passed a decree for giving complete effect to the stipulations of the treaty on that subject. You will probably deem it advisable to resume the inquiries which were commenced by the late Parliament, with a view to legislation on the subject of the future government of my East Indian Possessions. Gentlemen of the House of Commons, — The estimates for the ensuing year will in due time be laid before you. The advancement of the fine arts, and of practical science, will he readily recognised by you as worthy the attention of a great and enlightened nation. I have directed that a comprehensive scheme shall be laid before you, having in view the due promotion of those objects, towards which I invite your aid and co-operation. My Lords and Gentlemen, — It gives me pleasure to be enabled, by the blessing of Providence, to congratulate you on the generally improved condition of the country, and especially of the industrious classes. If you should be of opinion that recent legislation, contributing, with other causes, to this happy result, has at the same lime inflicted unavoidable injury on certain important interests, I recommend you dispassionately to consider how far it may be practicable equitably to mitigate that injury, and to enable the industry of the country to meet successfully that unrestricted competition to which Parliament m its wisdom has decided that it shall be subjected. 1 trust that the general improvement, notwithstanding many obstacles has extended to Ireland; and while I rely with confidence on your aid, should it be required, (o restrict that unhappy spirit of insubordination and turbulence, which produce many, and aggravates all, of the evils which afflict that portion of my dominions, I recommend to you the adoption of such a liberal and generous policy towards Ireland, as may encourage and assist her to rally Xroin the depression in which she has been sunk of late years.

Anxious to promote the efficiency of every branch of our national I have thought fit to issue a commission to inqtiirefand report to me how far, in their opinion, the capital institutions of the country are capable of being made more effective for the general objects of religious worship, religious education, and ecclesiastical discipline. I have directed (hat the reports of commissioners for inquiring into the system of cducas lion pursued at Oxford and Cambridge should be communicated to the governing bodies of the universities for their consideration ; and I rely upon your readiness to remove any legal disabilities which may impede the desire of the uni vcrsitics at large or of the several colleges, to introduce such amendments into their existing system as they may deem to be more in accordance with the requirements of the present lime.

The system of secondary punishments has usefully occupied the labours of successive Parliaments, and I shall rejoice if you shall find it possible to devise means by which, without giving encouragement to crime, transportation to A an Diemen's Land may at no distant day, be altogether discontinued,* The subject of legal reform continues to engage my serious attention. The acts passed in the fast session of Parliament, have been followed up by the orders necessary for pulling them in operation. Inquiries are in progress by my direction, wilha view of bringing into harmony the testamentary jurisdiction of my several courts; and bills will be submitted lo you for effecting further improvements in the administration of the law r .

To Ihese and other measures affecting the social condition of the country, I am persuaded that you will give your earnest and zealous attention; and 1 pray that, by the blessing of Almighty God, your deliberations may be guided to the well being and happiness of my people.

The information given in the summaries of our Melbourne contemporaries is very meagre, and, moreover, include some items of older dale which had already reached us by way of Sydney. Toe new facts may be presented in a very brief compass. Mr. Shaw Lcfevre had been unanimously elected Speaker of the House of Commons —a well pieriled tribute to the ability and unvarying impartiality with t vhich he bad before discharged the duties of that birh office ; u The Earl of Derby is reported to have admitted that the country had decided against Protection, and declared that he would “bow to that decision.” It is slated, however that Mr. Villiers and other Free Traders intended to call on the House of [Commons to record a declaration in faivour of Free Trade.

Mr. Disraeli had promised to brin<* forward his Financial Statement on the 22ud of November,—“ if no hostile movement of a factious character should be made in tho meantime.”

This is all the information we have respecting Parliamentary proceedings and probabilities ; and in the absence jof any Reports of the debates, and of the comments of the

Press on the Koval Speech, we can form hnl a very inadequate notion of the real slate and prospects of the political world at home. We must wail for another arrival to fill up what is now the merest outline.

The following notices of the last honours to the remains of the Great Duke, we copy in the words of the Melbourne Herald :— The mortal remains of the illustrious Duke of Wellington had been removed from Walmer to Chelsea. The first public recognition of national regret for the loss of the great Duke of Wellington, jvvas made in a very graceful manner, by (he Queen and the Prince Consort, who, upon the return of Her Majesty from opening the Session of Parliament, proceeded to Chelsea College, areomnanied hv the Princes and Princesses of the blood-royalf to evince their regard for the memory of the lamented deceased, and, at the same lime, to satisfy themselves that every mark of respect in the power of the nation to bestow, had been properly awarded by the authorities. When the Queen entered the old hall, the grand and solemn scene it presented is said to have impressed the royal mind with a feeling of deep satisfaction, which Her Majesty did not fail to express in terms of a peculiarly gratifying character. The funeral of the Duke of Wellington was to lake place on a scale of great magnificence on Ihc 18th November. The Queen intended to witness the ceremony, and Prince Albert was to be chief mourner. The General Screw Steam Navigation Company were said to be about to establish an efficient line of Steam communication with Australia by means of large and powerful vessels. The following arc the only items of Foreign News: — In France the Imperial Government in the house of Napoleon was all hut restored. Nothing was wanted hut the votes of the people, when Napoleon the Third would receive the crown. The Prince President has just performed one act of justice and grace. He has restored to complete liberty Abd-el-Kader, after a long imprisonment faithlessly imposed upon him by successive French governments. He has at the same time restored to u liberty and life’ A. D. Dupuch, First Bishop of Algiers and the Canon Montera. Abd-el-Kader is entertained with great pomp and magnificence at Paris, and divides public attention with the Empire itself. The Prince of Leulchenburg is dead. From America news had been received of the death of the Hon. Daniel Webster, after a brief illness.

Our Melbourne dates by the Kirkwood are to the 7th of February. The news from the Gold Field is of the usual character, with one remarkable exception in the unparalleled success of a party of four new comers, who had obtained from a single hole in the “ Canadian Gully” at Balaarat, no less than one hundred and fortytwo pounds five ounces of gold. This included one lump weighing upwards of one hundred and thirty-four pounds, being the largest piece of gold yet known to have been found in the world. They were Immediately offered B,OOOL for ibis immense nugget; but some advised them before disposing of it to exhibit it at a moderate charge per bead. It was said, however, that it was shipped on board the Sarah Sands for England.

Although the local papers do not dwell much upon this astonishing instance of “good luck,” there can be no doubt of its producing great excitement amongst the diggers, and —like the famous, but now eclipsed, hundred weight of gold in New South Wales—raising wild expectations, in the visionary brilliancy ol winch the extreme rarity of such success, and the disappointment experienced by hundreds or thousands of older, and at least equally laborious, workers would bo excluded from view. The yield of gold in Port Phillip has beyond all dispute been prodigious the Argus of the 7ih till, contains elaborately compiled tables by Mr. Khull, from which it appears that the total amount raised in the colony during the year 1852 (exclusive of gold-dust in the hands of diggers, storekeepers, and others, and on the road) was 175 tons, 19 cwl., 1 qr., 12 lbs., 5 oz., worth, at 70s. per oz., 14,105,504/. The quantity shipped to London from the Ist of January to the sth of February in the present year was 12 tons, 10 cwl., 2 qrs., 14 lbs., 9 oz., of the value, at the same rate, of 1,052,718/. But who can venture to estimate the sacrifice of health, peace, social comfort, moral character, and life, at which this has been purchased ? In the same papers which display these dazzling results, we find, in almost every page, records of deep crime, privation, and suffering. The distress endured by numbers of the immigrants on their arrival in Melbourne continued to be very afflictive. As one illustration we quote the following extract from a letter to the Argus by no less trustworthy an observer than Captain Chisholm. It is headed “Deaths from Exhaustion and Exposure,” and has particular reference to the necessity of the appointment by the Government of a medical man to visit the sick amongst the newly arrived, and the policy of erecting another Hospital. Captain Chisholm says,— “ 1 will give you two cases, out of many, which have come under my notice. The case enclosed was brought to me this morning before breakfast hour by a ship-male of the sufferer, per Alipore. It is that of a young man living, or rather dying, in a lent at Liardefs Beach. This ship friend staled that (hey were all going off in a day or two to the diggings, and that they would be obliged to leave this poor fellow, and as the note says, “a gentlemen of education/' to his own fate, unless they could get him into the hospital. This 1 cannot hope to gel done for them until to-morrow, and then, I believe, there is some difficulty in getting a special order of admission, independent of the prescribed day, This is the second case that came to me from this ship. The other case was that of the mother of seven children. 1 found her ill in a tent, got an admission order to the hospital filled up for her, handed it to her myself, pressed her to go, (some of them have the greatest reluctance to go into the hospital,) and she promised me she would, for I considered her case required the best medical attendance; some ten days after this, I called at the lent to enquire of her husband how his wife was getting on at the hospital. What a scene of distress and woe presented itself to my view, as I stood before (he door ! There was the afflicted husband and distressed father, on a dripping wet day, weeping over a box, in the act of turning out with his eldest daughter, aged 10, some little things to fit out the three youngest children

for (hat admirable little Orphanage, got up by that benevolent lady, Mrs. Simpson, and who cannot be 100 highly commended for thu's affording shelter and protection to the orphan of (he stranger. On this sad occasion, the three little ones, now "motherless, wore huddled up and asleep on mats in different corners of the lent ; the next three were pensively looking on, as if conscious of (heir loss. The unhappy father told me he only buried his wife the day before ; that (hey never thought she was in real danger until 100 lale: she died in Ihc lent; this was partly the result of ignorance.” One of Mr. Khull’s tables above referred to gives the number of persons who arrived in the colony in 1852 as 105,882. Rut his returns corroborate the statement we lately made as to the extent of emigration from it, showing that 27,022 have left it during the year;—in the month of December alone, 3,806. Still multitudes were pouring in. On summing up the arrivals reported in the shipping columns of the last paper before us (the Argus of the 7lh ult.) we find the numbers amount to upwards of 730. Humanity was still striving to alleviate the distress to which many on their landing must be exposed. A debt remaining on the completion of the Wesleyan Immigrants Home had been liquidated by the proceeds of an attractive Bazaar got up by the Wesleyan Ladies of Melbourne, and the Argus says, “We hear further that the benevolent managers and supporters of this excellent Institution intend, at an early dale, greatly to extend its benefits, by adding to its present accommodation.”

The Legislative Council had passed a series of Resolutions expressing their continued adherence to their own Act for preventing the immigration of Convicts into the Colony, their thanks to Lieutenant-Governor Latrobe for the promptitude with which he gave the Royal Assent to it, their “most emphalical protest” against Sir William Denison’s interference to procure its disallowance by the Queen, and their anxiety that Transportation to the Australian Colonies should altogether cease. During the discussion on these Resolutions, Mr. Fawkncr observed “It was said that there was a probability of Sir William Denison’s coming here (to Victoria) as Governor, and the present measure would probably have the effect of enlightening him as to the minds of the Colon iak Legislature before he arrived.” A fair warding to Sir William to “ look out for squalls!” Meanwhile, the Magistrates at Wellington were rigidly enforcing the severe provisions of the Convicts Prevention Act. Two “suspected convicts,” taken by the police from on board the steamer Yarra Yarra , had been ordered to be sent back to Tasmania, and an information had been filed against Captain Gilmore for having brought them to the Colony. In another important case, the Master of the barque Launceston, from Launceston, was charged with having secreted on board that vessel two men who had on a previous day, confessed that they were absconders, and had been sentenced to three years hard labour on the roads in irons. Although the Master swore that he had no knowledge of their being slowed away until the ship was at sea, and, indeed, had immediately on his arrival at Melbourne reported to the Police that he believed there were persons concealed on board, yet, —the Bench having no discretionary power —he was fined 400/. and costs; and a warrant was issued for the apprehension of the whole of the crew of the Launceston, who were supposed to have aided the absconders, and furnished them with food. Chief Justice a’Bcckelt had sailed for England on two years’ leave of absence. In bis Reply to a complimentary address from the members of the legal profession, His Honour concluded with the following words, which have some significance as indicating his opinion of the social condition of Melbourne. He said, —“ In bidding you farewell, I wish you all as much prosperity as yon can yourselves desire, and trust that when I return I may find you in the possession of mure comforts and happiness than I fear , from the present aspect of the colony , the wealthiest of you is enabled to obtain .”