HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 452, 1 December 1849, Page 2

HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

A meeting of the Committee of the Horticultural Society was held at the Wellington Tavern, on Wednesday evening, when it was proposed by Mr. Wilkinson and seconded by Mr. Spinks — That the next exhibition of the Society take place on Friday the 2 1st December. The following Sub-Committee were appointed to manage the details of the next exhibition, the Secretary, Treasurer, Major Baker, Messrs: Bradey, Ross, Spinks, J. M. Taylor, and Wilkinson. Four competitors for the prizes for the Cottagers' Gardens in Wellington have sent in their names to the Secretary. Candidates for the prize in the Hutt district are reminded that they must give notice to the Secretary of their intention to compete for the prizes, at least fourteen days before the day of exhibition. The first prize is one pound, the second ten shillings.

In our last number we quoted the opinion of the New Zealander on the disgraceful character of the writings in the Independent which, under its present management, has earned an unenviable notoriety for scurrility and low abuse- The following judicious observations of our Auckland contemporary on the resolutions of the Constitutional Association, the reputed production of one of the writers in the Independent, serve to show that the coarse violence in which these persons are so fond of indulging produces an effect directly the reverse of what they aim at. Those who take the trouble to read their statements find them so full of contradictions and dictated by such a malignant spirit, that they distrust their assertions and suspect their motives. : — "That the resolutions are repudiated by one class of the settlers as strongly as they are approved by another, may appear from the unmitigated severity with which the New Zealand Spectator castigates them and tbeir reputed author, Dr. Featherston. Our contemporary declares, "no one in his sobtr

senses could reasonably hope that such a farrago of misrepresentations, absurdities, anil contradictions would pass current with any intelligent person." For own part, we think of the resolutions — just as we thought of the petition for the Governor's recall lately prepared in this town, — that they will make but little impression on the Home Government. In" both cases, the accusations are so sweeping end unqualified, the tone is so violent, and the spirit is so undisguisedly one of personal aversion to Sir George Grey, that the authorities of the Colonial' office will not improbably suspect that the representations are not altogether the offspring of pure and disinterested patriotism, but have in some degree been prompted by less interested motives. Considering that there is a strong belief in Down-ing-street, — whether well or ill-founded we do not now st6p to inquire — that Sir George Greyis one of the ablest and most statesmanlike Governors on the colonial list, and that here he has endured, and is enduring not only_ factious hostility towards his administration, but personal persecution directed against himself individually, we really wonder that the •clear headed business men (as some cf the leaders of our New Zealand opposition undoubtedly are) do not perceive how palpably and certainly many of their sayings and doings tend to the frustration of their own most j cherished ends."