New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, April 6, 1850.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 488, 6 April 1850, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, April 6, 1850.

The trade which has already sprung up between California and New Zealand promises to exercise the most beneficial influence on the prospects of this colony. According to the Auckland papers recently received, ten vessels, some of them of considerable burden, were laid on from that port for San Francisco, while four vessels are also laid on from Wellington for the same destination. The trade is precisely that which would be the most advantageous to a young colony, affording as it does so great an encouragement to the clearing and cultivation of the land, while from the constantly increasing numbers flocking to California from all parts of the world, the market, already very considerable, is continually extending, and it is very probable that for several years to come the demand will always exceed the supplies which can be sent from these Islands. Timber, flour, potatoes, carrots, onions, and salt provisions are the principal articles in demand, and in each of these articles the advantages possessed by this colony are such as ought to secure for it so a decided advantage as almost to amount to a monopoly. The white pine of the Southern, and the kauri of the Northern Province, as we have formerly taken occasion to remark, are so much more easily worked than the hard woods of the Australian colonies that this circumstance must ensure their preference in a market where the price of artificers' wages is so high, and however great the quantity of timber exported from the United States, the length of the voyage, and the continually increasing thousands in California requiring shelter of some kind from the vicissitudes of the climate, will always make this a profitable export. In potatoes and other vegetable produce of a perishable nature, our position, being so much nearer than the other neighbouring colonies to the market to be supplied, gives a decided advantage to New Zealand

and while the price of labour continues so high in California, it will better answer their purpose to buy of their neighbours than to attempt to produce the necessaries of life for themselves, that is, the same amount of labour employed in digging for gold would probably realize a greater profit than if employed in the cultivation of the soil. But the great advantage to New Zealand is the profitable employment afforded to the Native Population by t his new trade. Many of the natives have been taught to saw timber, all understand the cultivation of the soil, and all can engage in the work of production in the certainty of finding 1 a remunerating market. Two markets are thus opened for our merchants, the trade with California and the trade with the natives of this Colony, who would be paid either in manufactured goods, or in money which would be immediately expended by them in the Colony in the purchase of imported goods. We observe the Maori Messenger, in some excellent papers, is urging the natives at the North to engage earnestly in the cultivation of the soil, pointing out to them the certainty of their being well repaid from the increasing demand for agricultural produce, and every possible means should also be employed in this Province to encourage the natives to extend as much as possible their cultivation of wheat, potatoes, onions, and other articles in demand, as the produce of their labour is so much added to the wealth of the Colony, while the profitable employment of their time will tend no less to the peace than to the prosperity of New Zealand.

The Carbon, from the East Coast, reports the loss of the schooner Falcon which had' been wrecked at Hawke's Bay, and plundered by a gang of runaway convicts and deserters who have established themselves in that neighbourhood, and who have also plundered the Post Boy, schooner, from Auckland, which was lately wrecked there. We alluded to the lawless state of that district in our last number, and hope some steps may be taken by the Government to abate the nuisance.

Our readers will remember that about the 7th ult., his Honor Mr. Justice Chapman was assaulted in the Karori Road, by a prisoner named John Smith, who had been convicted at the last criminal sittings of the Supreme Court, at Wellington, of an assault with intent to commit a rape on a respectable married woman, residing in this town, and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour. On the day after the assault, the Sheriff requested three of the Justices of the district to attend at the gaol to investigate the matter. The evidence against the prisoner being conclusive, he was sentenced to receive fifty lashes. On Thursday morning that sentence was carried out in the gaol yard, in the presence of the Sheriff, the Colonial Surgeon, the Sub-Inspector of Police, the whole of the Police force at present stationed in Wellington, and all the prisoners under confinement. The Sheriff addressed the prisoner as follows :—: — John Smith, you have been sentenced to receive 50 lashes, atter an examination by three magistrates of the charge preferred against you of an assault upon his Honor Mr. Justice Chapman, on the 7th of last month, in the Karori Road, where you were engaged at hard labour, in pursuance of your sentence from the Supreme Court. This is the first time since I have been Sheriff of this district that a prisoner has been punished in the manner in which you are now about to suffer, — although one man was some time since ordered by the visiting Justices to receive the like punishment for having assaulted me while in the discharge of my duty in this gaol. It would appear that my not having had the punishment, awarded on that occasion, carried out, has had an evil effect. I therefore trast, painful though it be to me, that the present example will prove beneficial to you and the other prisoners. I have within the last few minutes been informed that you were instigated by some of your companions in crime, who now hear me, to commit this offence under the impression that you would be tried for it, and, if found guilty,' you would be transported. The result of this experiment of yours must, I am sure, visit those who thus advised you with no little mortification — if not remorse. I will now read you the sentence of the Justices. The prisoner was then tied up, and received the awarded number of lashes without apparently suffering much pain. The man who was employed lo inflict the punishment appeared to be influenced more by a feeling of sympathy for the prisoner than a desire to

discharge his duty. The prisoner is a private in the 65th regt., who committed the offence for which he is under sentence in order to get transported. It might have the effect of preventing crime, if these candidates for transportation were sentenced (whenever practicable) to imprisonment with a good flogging at the commencement, and another at the expiration of the term.