New Zealand Colonist. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1842.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 39, 13 December 1842, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1842.

Our contemporary of the Gazette continues to exercise his inventive faculty with a view to the discovery of a remedy for the inconveniencies of the position in which the Town Council find themselves placed. At first it was to he by means of proclamation,—upon which we shall shortly say a word or two, —and now it is to be by a continuance of the Council in office until a friendly suit can be tried in the Supreme Court. We doubt whether this latter proceeding would be as safe or as satisfactory as our contemporary appears to assume. At least it would seem that to be safe it must be useless, or, that if useful, it can hardly be safe. If the councillors continue in office without doing anything that can expose them to have their authority questioned in a hostile suit, it is clear they can do little or nothing that shall be serviceable to the Borough ; and their continuance in office would be of no utility. If, on the contrary, they resolve upon performing the duties of their office, and carrying out the plans which they had commenced, then they lose the security which is promised to them. We do not say that their continuance in office may not be advantageous to the Colony; but we cannot allow them to believe that it will be free from risk to themselves. So much for the new suggestion of our inventive comtemporary. As the Yankees are accustomed to say of the marvellous stories with which their papers team, “ wonderful if true,” so we should say of this, as of many other of his devices, —ingenious if practicable. But the Gazette suggests a defence for the conduct of the Town Council; —that they had only a choice of difficulties —since if “they had proceeded to an election when they should have abstained from so doing, the difficulty would certainly not have been • diminished if opinion should have been in favour of the.course they have pursued.” We quote our contemporary’s words, because, as we are not quite sure of his meaning, we wish to guard ourselves against a possible charge of misrepresentation. Whatever he does mean, however, we are quite sure is wrong; which is all the certainty we are able

to attain on the subject. It is wrong, because, if the election which it appears ought to have taken place on the sth December had been held unnecessarily, it would have been, simply void, and the former Town Councillors would have continued in office by virtue of their first election, which would have remained unaftected by any subsequent proceedings. We bow with unfeigned deference to the superior legal attainments of our learned contemporary. He has no respect for those of the Crown Prosecutor, whom he appears by some singular hallucination to confound with ourselves ; we, on the contrary, have the profoundest deference for his. If we might suggest any thing upon the subject which has, unhappily, brought us under liis magisterial rebuke, it would be that our mistake as to his meaning, does not necessarily imply an ignorance of the law. Perhaps in his next number ‘the law-learned gentleman will quarrel with our logic, and set us right upon this point. If so we shall, of course, submit in silence. At present, pace Mr. Revans, we submit that we may still be right in our interpretation of the law, though utterly wrong in our interpretation of his phraseology —the two, that is, the law and our contemporary's phraseology, not being convertible terms.

And reallv, after the fullest consideration we have been able to give the subject, we must still respectfully ask our contemporary whether he is quite sure that he knows his own meaning ? supposing that he means any thing. What does he mean in this case by proclaiming a law, in opposition to making it ? And above all, what does he mean by saying that “an accident has caused it (the law) to lapse.” The law has not lapsed. It is in full force. The Mayor is still in office, and so are the six aidermen who were elected by the greatest number of votes. There are a Town Clerk and a Town Surveyor. It is true • that the Council cannot act, but the law remains; and it is just because the law is still operative that the Council cannot act. To proclaim this borough anew would be by an arbitrary act to dispossess the Mayor and the six Aldermen of their office —and it] would be to alter an existing law; between' which and the making of a new one we are unable to perceive any appreciable distinction. Will our contemporary vindicate his own legal acumen by enlightening us upon this point ?

We are requested to state, that the selection for the suburban allotments will take place at Nelson on the 20th of this month.

We find, by the Auckland Times, that another newspaper has been started in Auckland ; but, as we are without any of its numbers we can pronounce no opinion upon its merits. o Messrs. Bethune & Hunter’s sale of stock yesterday went off brisk. The following prices were realised : Cows and heifers, £8 to s£-fSf. Average £lO. Bullocks, per pair, £32. Horses and mares, £2B to £6O. Wethers 18s., most part bought in at 20s.