AUCKLAND GOLD.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 729, 9 April 1853, Page 2

AUCKLAND GOLD.

To the Editor of the New-Zealander. Deau Sir, — You have shown yourself so willing to place any information respecting the Auckland Gold Field before the public, that I do not doubt the following information rcspectin the

yield of gold on smelting of a part of those s Pec * mens of gold-bearing quartz, &c., which I w” received from Coromandel within the last fJ , days, and which I have had the pleasure to S W to yourself and many of our fellow-citizens and several visitors, will bo acceptable. 51 Originally weighed. Produced A. —Dark quartz, about

Your obedient servant, Albert Wm. Hansard. Gold Broker Auckland, Princes-street, Bth April, 1853. To the Editor of the New-Zealakder. Sir, —Amongst other severe remarks upon M r Sewell’s letters to Mr. Tancrcd and to Governor Grey, in your leader of Wednesday last, I observe the following:— Then as to the delegation, Mr. Sewell, when getting up his letter to the Governor, stopped short in reading the 79th section of the Constitution Act, —(which must be taken in connexion with the 72(1 in order to a understanding- of the case)— just at the pohit where it suited his purpose to slop. Had he read on, he would have found that the delegation of the Crown’s power to the Governor may be made not only by Letters Patent and by Instructions under Her Majesty’s Signet and Ska manual, but also by Instructions signified through one of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State;-* a paragraph evidently intended to convey tile impression that Mr. Sewell was writing in bad faith. On referring to Mr. Sewell’s letters, I f D( j such accusation to be unfounded. He certainly does not “ when getting tip his letter to the Governor stop short in reading the 78th section of the Constitution Act, just at the point where it suited bis purpose to stop for he does not touch upon that section at all. The letter in fact is a mere hasty protest; hasty, because His Excellency was on the point of leaving for Auckland. But mark ! in Mr. Sewell’s letter to Tancred* arguing the case at length, he takes especial notice of that very section which “ it suited his purpose to omit.” But then there is another section of the Act, the /9(h that it is said gives larger powers—qualifies— neutralises, the former. It enables the Crown (enumerating various powers vested in the Crown, and amongst them the power of regulating Land sales) to delegate them to the Governor in several ways—either by Letters Patent, or by Instructions under the Royal Signet and Sign Manual or by Despatch through a Secretary of State. It suffices to call attention to the fact. With regard to the soundness of Mr. Sewell’s argument, I am not competent to express any opinion ;—at least, so authoritatively as you have done ;—but should think that the construction which an English lawyer of acknowledged reputui'on puts upon an Act of Parliament that he was himseif concerned in the framing of, might at least be treated with respect. Metoikos. . Auckland, April Bth. [We readily give insertion to the foregoing communication, having no disposition to "deal unfairly with Mr. Sewell or any who sympathise with him in the endeavour to throw difficulties and doubts in the way of the great boon of Cheap Land as conferred by Sir George Grey’s Proclamation,—however strenuously we may oppose the object of upholding the Wakefield high-price system until a Council, in which the Wellington squatter's and the Canterbury colonists will have perhaps a large representation, might think fit to agree to its abolition. Our remarks were avowedly based on the letter addressed h y Mr. Sewell to the Governor, in which the 78th section of the Act is not referred to, as we contend it should have been. The simple substitution of the word of for “ in” in the passage quoted by Metoikos would have gone far to obviate the objection to our stricture on which he lays what less critical readers may deem a very exaggerated stress. The passage would then have stood, —“ stopped short o/x-eading the 78th section.” And we now ask, why should he have stopped at the 72nd section, when a main point at issue was to be found in the 78th. The excuse that the letter was “a mere hasty, protest” might be pleaded for a man who had to read up anl study the subject, but cannot avail lor one who “ was himself concerned ixx the framing of the Act,” and who could scarcely have forgotten or overlooked so all-im-portant a feature in the case. He does, indeed, “ touch upon it” in his letter to Mr. Brittan (not to Mr. Tancred, as our keen censor, no doubt inadvertently, states) ; but that letter has probably never been seen by Sir George Grey up to this hour, and if his Excellency had no better information than the “ protest”" of this “ English lawyer,” he could not have known that very j revision of the Act on which the greater part of the question raised by Mr. Sewell binges. Without inputing to Mr. Sewell an intentional breach ot faith, we still think it unfortunate that he has only touched upon this all-importont point in a subsequent letter, addressed not to the Governor', but to the Canterbury colonists,—no doubt a willing audience when theli advocate pleads against a measure which, though so great a blessing to other Settlements, is hostile to the principle of high-priced land on which their Settlement has been founded.— Ed. N. Z.]

20 small pieces 3 12 12 1 10 A. 2, 3, 4, — do. and dust... 4 8 12 2 9 u 10 13. C. — Small quartz nuggets and dust 2 8 11 1 3 D. E. F.—Do., do 1 19 2 1 0 I. K. — Small quartz, flakes AO and dust 20 16 20 8 8 10 L. M. N. — Flakes & dust 8 1 0 2 ' 3 A4 7 I am, dear Sir, 47 G 9 1G 15