New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, October 25, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 650, 25 October 1851, Page 3

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, October 25, 1851.

We have reprinted from the numbers ofthe Lyttelton Times recently received a correspondence between the Local Government and Messrs. Godley and Brittan, relative to the appointment of Government officers in the Canterbury settlement, and the laying down moorings and the appointment of a Harbour master. Though, at first sight, the questions may seem to be of a local nature, yet the principle involved in the applications and the liberal views expressed by his Excellency in his answers to them render it desirable to give them a circulation beyond the limits of the settlement in which they were first published. A favourite charge of the opponents to Sir George Grey’s government, one which we find continually repeated in every variety of form and on every possible occasion is, that the revenue of the colony is wasted in the support of a host of useless officials, and that any increase in its amount is regarded by the Governor chiefly as the means of gratifying his numerous friends and dependents, by the increase of his patronage and the creation of new offices. But in this correspondence it is distinctly shewn that, so far from coveting this patronage, Sir George considers the making these appointments to be an “ onerous and extremely unpleasantduty” from which, as far as he can, he is anxious to relieve himself, and that, actuated by a sincere desire of promoting the wishes of the settlers, and of giving increased vigour and efficiency to the system of Provincial Governments established by the measure passed in the last session of the Legislative Cr-uncil, he willingly consents even to an abnegation of the powers with which he is intrusted in favor of the inhabitants of the different settlements if, in doing so, he can promote their general contentment without impairing the efficiency of his Government. In all the documents hitherto published relating to the Canterbury Association, a very strong desire has been uniformly exhibited on their part to grasp at the patronage of the settlement, and to get into their own hands the exclusive power of appointment to Government offices, a pretension without parallel, and exemplifying as was forcibly shown by the Attorney General the danger of this Imperium in Imperio who have monopolised one of the finest and most ex 'ensive districts in Nev; Zealand for car-

rying out their own peculiar views, while all the responsibility of failure will devolve on the Government and Colony, and in the same spirit desire to obtain the possession of the patronage, without the responsibility, of the appointment of Government officers, no doubt with a view to making it an attractive feature of their scheme, and an additional bait to induce those who may hesitate at paying so high a price as £3 an acre to qualify for a Government appointment by first becoming a land purchaser. The want of a Pilot or Harbour master at Lyttelton has been, repeatedly urged as a grievance, and an instance of neglect on the part of the Governor by his opponents, and this charge is repeated by Mr. J. Wakefield in his letter, yet it is here clearly shewn that the Governor "would have made such an appointment the moment the settlement was established,” and was only prevented by the urgent remonstrances of Mr. Godley, the Agent of the Association, “ against the propriety or necessity of his so doing.” It is currently reported that the real cause of Mr. Godley’s opposition was his desire to keep the place open for a protege of his own, and we may no doubt shortly hear more of this matter ; but the charge when sifted proves, like most allegations of a similar nature proceeding from the same quarter, to to be entirely without foundation.