New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, October 15, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 647, 15 October 1851, Page 3

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, October 15, 1851.

lln the observations in our previous number lon the last attempt of the Company to beInefit its shareholders at the expense of the Icolony we alluded to the conduct of the so ■called Constitutional Association, and its origan, the Independent, with reference to the (Company. Our readers may, perhaps, agree ■with us in thinking that neither the Association nor the Independent are worth wasting •many words upon, and we shall therefore be (very brief in what we have to say about ■them. But we may remind them that when ■Mr. Fox, the Companj’s Agent, managed (both the Association and the Independent, fend was arranging sundry matters connected with the compensation scheme file contrived to have a resolution passed iby the Association expressive of their confidence in the Company, and of their belief V 1 in the reasonable prospect of its operations (being productive of benefits equally to itself (as to the colonists,” and the Company relied ■strongly on this certificate of character from jjthe Association in its attempts to make fresh

{terms with the Colonial office. The settlers pviil find some difficulty in reconciling the ■ormer cordiality of the Association with She furious diatribes and bitter personalities ■directed against individual Directors of the pompany in last Wednesday’s Independent. put let them read a little further ; in the lame number of the Independent they will pod an announcement of the arrival in England of “Mr. Fox, our political agent.” It pill be difficult even for the Independent to petermine whose political agent Mr. Fox F an be, if he be not their agent; he certainly is not the agent of the settlers, as pheir interests are proved to be diametrically ppposed to those of the Company, whose pgent Mr. Fox was. But when we rememfrer the way in which Mr. Fox left the colony, his refusal to surrender to the GovernP len t the maps and records of the Company, r. the other steps which he took to the serous embarrassment and injury of his emF f?y ers aQ d the detriment of the settlers, it Fpl excite no surprise if the most influential gJirectors of the Company, acting under a sense of the injuries their interests have gUuered from the reckless and unjustifiable fnduct of their Agent, should have given a ver y epol reception. At all events £ c 1 a is generally current, and the ■ tfsonalities in the Independent directed rSamst “ Messrs. J. A. Smith, Currie, ManAglionby & C 0.,” shew that f e J W roour ’ s n °t without foundation,

The Independent of Wednesday last has reprinted from the Nelson Examiner an extract from Lord Grey’s despatch, referring to the resignations of Messrs. Greenwood and Monro on the occasion of the postponement, by the Governor-in-Chief’s direction. of the meeting of the Provincial Legislative Council announced by the Lieu-tenant-Governor for the Ist August, 1850. “ I think,” says Earl Grey, “ that Dr. Greenwood and Dr. Munro had valid reasons for tendering their resignation, on the ground that the functions of the Legislalature had been superseded by the Lieute-nant-Governor taking upon himself to announce that the expenditure of the Province would continue beyond the period for which it was sanctioned by the then existing Ordinance.” On this the Nelson Examiner remarks—“ The extract explains itself. It will be a matter of surprise, however, to those who recollected that the Provincial Council was summoned by the LieutenantGovernor, and the sitting put off by the Governor-in-Chief on the ground that the questions to be legislated upon * were of no pressing importance,’ to see the LieutenantGovernor made the scape-goat for ‘taking upon himself to announce that the expenditure of the Province would continue beyond the period sanctioned.’ ” The Independent refrains from making any remarks on the extract, in the expectation that the despatch in question will be laid before the public, and that it will be sufficient to clear the Governor-in-Chief of the charge of having been guilty of such unworthy conduct as is imputed to him.

However much we may have disapproved of the course pursued by the Lieutenant-Governor in his official capa-. city, during the residence of the Governor-in-Chief at Wellington, we have studiously refrained from commenting on it, as we felt persuaded that no serious or permanently injurious consequences would be likely to rCsiliL num it tO tli6 CvxGliy $ uilt Wuuu > as on the present occasion, we find the opponents of Government,—who appear desirous on all occasions to make the Lieute-nant-Governor their cheval de bataille, and to look up to him as the leader of the Opposition (whether with or without his consent we cannot pretend to determine) —endeavouring to impress the public with the idea that he (the Lieutenant-Governor) has been harshly treated by his superior officer, we consider it our duty to put the question in a clear light, which a reference to the facts and dates connected with it will easily enable us to do.

The Government Gazette of July 8, 1850, contains a notice by the Lieutenant-Gover-nor dated June 27, announcing that the Provincial Council would meet on the Ist August; on the 13th July, (five days afterwards) another Gazette was issued containing an announcement postponing the Council, and the following despatch from Sir George Grey:— “ I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of May last, acquainting me that you proposed, soon after the Government Brig returned from Auckland, to call the Local Legislature together to pass certain enactments to which you allude, but which appear to be of no very pressing importance. As I have every reason to hope that, by the month of October at the latest, I shall receive definite instructions from Her Majesty’s Government regarding the future form of government to be introduced into this colony, regarding the appropriation of the civil list, and other financial subjects, I think it desirable, unless matters ofurgent importance arise for its consideration, that the assembling of the Legislative Council should be delayed until that period.”

In the same Gazette is published by the Lieutenant-Governor a list of the bills he intended to submit to the Provincial Council.

The first point which strikes us is that the Lieutenant-Governor, having written to Sir George Grey informing him of his intention to call the Council together, was bound to wait his (Sir George’s) reply, before adopting any active steps, and the published despatch of Sir George above quoted, in reply to Mr. Eyre, shews that he was under that impression : the LieutenantGovernor’s conduct, then, in publishing the notice in the Uazette of July 8, summoning the Council together before he had received the Governor’s answer to his communication was, to say the least, highly irregular and precipitate, since the notice was no sooner published than he was obliged to retrace his steps. The Appropriation Ordinance passed by the Provincial Council was “ for the year commencing from the Ist day of July, 1849, and ending June 30, 1850.” The Lieutenant-Governor’s despatch to the Governor informing him of his intention of summoning the Provincial Council together was written in May; so that in the ordinary course the Appropriation Ordinance must have expired before be could receive an answer to his despatch. But the Lieutenant-Governor did not propose to call the Council together until the

Ist August, the ordinance expiring on th? 30th June; thus in any case, even if he had received Sir George Grey’s consent to hold a Council, he had in effect “ taken upon nimseu to announce that the expenditure of the Province would continue beyond the period for which it was sanctioned by the then existing ordinance,” Sir George Grey, at Auckland, could only act on the information supplied to him by the Lieutenant- Governor, and the inference to be drawn from his despatch clearly is, (and his expression seems to be, as it were, an echo of Mr. Eyre’s despatch), that from the information so supplied, Sir George Grey was led to believe that the meeting of the Council could be postponed for a few months, without any detriment to the public interests, and that the enactments alluded to “were of no pressing importance.” The publication of the list of proposed ordinances with the notice of the postponement of the Council .looks very much as though Mr. Eyre intended an inference to be drawn unfavorable to the Go-vernor-in-Chief; but before a correct judgment can be formed on this point, it would be desirable to know whether the list published in the Gazette was the list submitted by Mr. Eyre to the Governor; and whether, when Mr. Eyre wrote to the Governor in May, informing him of his intention of summoning the Council in August, he also informed him that the Appropriation Ordinance would expire on the 30th June previous. The information really wanted by the public appears to us to be the publication of the Lieutenant-Governor’s despatch of May, 1850, on which all the subsequent proceedings are grounded, the inferences to be drawn from the facts before us, in the absence of further and more complete information, plainly justify the censure conveyed in Lord Grey’s despatch. It is also a matter of notoriety that the Nelson members had as much reason to complain of the unceremonious manner in which they were treated in this matter, and the total want of courtesy displayed towards them, asttheyhad to object on public grounds. For, after having received a summons to attend the Council, the only intimation they received from the Lieutenant-Governor of its postponement, was the published notice in the Government Gazette.

We have been compelled to refer to these bygone matters from the undue importance given to them by our opponents, and from their evident desire to make out a case in favor of the Lieutenant-Governor. While on the subject of despatches, we may remind them that when a third judge was appointed for New Zealand, and was sent to Otago, no one affected greater astonishment at so useless an appointment than the Lieu-tenant-Governor ; and yet the very next Blue Book received in the colony contained the despatch of the Lieutenant-Governor strongly urging the expediency of such an appointment, and we believe it was made chiefly, if not entirely, in consequence of his recommendation.