SOUTH AUSTRALIA. [From the Maitland Mercury, March 31.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 704, 1 May 1852, Page 2

SOUTH AUSTRALIA. [From the Maitland Mercury, March 31.]

We have Adelaide papers to the 28lh of February, and news via Melbourne to the 6th of March. Another of Governor Sir Henry Young's remarkable minutes is published in the Adelaide papers. Sir Henry still continuing his course of economy by dismissing various public officers, clerks, &c, and more particularly by materially lessening the police force of the colony, causing some of the more distant police stations" 7 to be discontinued — the inhabitants living near three of these stations sent in memorials, re- L monstrating on the danger to which this exposed them. Thereupon Sir Henry prepared a minute as groundwork of a reply to these memorials, and the minute itself wa«_ published. It 'was in. fact a general statement of the policy under which he was acting, in his economical proceedings, and referred only incidentally to the subject matter of the memorials. It stated that it was most desirable that the public should be * coirectly informed of the ground on which : excessive retrenchments in the public service were being made, not from caprice, parsimony, or panic,' but as being unavoidable and necessary. The reductions in the public service, great as they were, were but one-fourth of those made under the same necessity in the ordinary pursuits of the colony. Up to the recent period the population was 70,000 souls, consuming largely those imports the duties on which ' mainly furnished the Government revenue ; the ordinary expenditure of the Government was £140,000, and of the Burra Burra Patent Copper Company and other mines, £350,000 ; and this gross expenditure of £500,000 annually was greatly increased by th.c private expenditure of those whose means were derived from years of accumulation. The change that had since occurred was enormous : the expenditure of the Government might be set down for the year at £64,000, and of the mines at £120,000, while the private means of individuals were similarly crippled by a fall in rents of 75 per cent. Yet so vast a change in the public revenue was pioduced by the emigration of great numbers of import consumers, and the lessened iceans of others, that the revenue from Ist Jan. to 22nd Feb. 1852, had been only £1000, so that it was even problematical whether the reduced expenditure of £64,000 would be covered in the year. The government, therefore, like all the members of the community, must perforce reduce their expenses to meet their altered income. Nor, turning to the memorials before him, did he think that a large police protection was now required : up to quite a recent period the expenditure of the colony had been small, and the police force small, and the exteusion to its recent state was not then felt as a necessity ; the police force was extended as the means of the colony extended ; it must now be reduced, but would be again open to extension when the revenue improved with the revival of the colony. Meanwhile facilities would be offered by government to the colonists to form bodies of special constables among themselves. Ot the ultimate and not distant revival of the colony Sir Henry had no doubt ; its resources were as large as ever , and the more vigorous the colonists met the present difficulty the sooner would ths re- action take place.

[From the Maitland Mercury, April 3.] A correspondence is published in the papers relative to the Bullion Act, between Mr. Tomkinson, as manager on the part of the Bank of Australasia at Adelaide, and the Government; MjvToraldnson,. on the part_of the Bauk,_me- . morialising the Governor to call the Council together in order to repeal or amend the Act, and the Governor declining to do so. It may be necessary to explain that when the Act was recently passed by the Council, Mr. Tomkinson was not in South Australia, and Mr. M. Macdermott was manager of the Adelaide Branch Bank of Australasia ; but that Mr. . Tomkinson had since returned to Adelaide, Mr.. Macdermott resigned his situation (which he had held many years) and Mr. Tpmkinson taken it. Mr. Tomkinson for the Bank of Australasia, objects to the Act on several grounds : its provisions force the branch bank (with the other Adelaide banks) to give their notes or coin in exchange for all the stamped bullion presented to them, and this Mr. Tomkinson describes as practically requiring them to make an unlimited issue of notes, contrary to the express provisions of the charter of the bank — the Act was passed, Mr. T.' objects, with such unusual haste and precipitation that the bank had no time to become acquainted with its nature, and to memorialise the Council against any provisions injurious to its interests — it was a hardship to compel the bank to take Government stamped gold at a fixed price without any guarantee from Government, or any, effectual guard against any adulteration or mistaken value— an unlimited issue of, notes, not convertible into coin, must tend to depreciate the"

notes of the bank, and so injure its credit — it vras unjust to seek to compel the bank in England to ship off coin to meet these unexpected liabilities —it was unjust to depositors, who might be compelled to take other than coin, or notes convertible into coin — the branch bank never needed the support to its solvency implied in the preamble of the Act, describing it as necessary to uphold the solvency of the banks against a probable drain on their coined specie — and, finally, the Act was in many other respects unsound in principle, impracticable in operation, and beyond the power of local authority. The Governor replies to this memorial, through the Colonial Secretary, at great length, but does not answer the objections in detail, the answer being principally directed to proving that the then manager and directors of the bank not only knew beforehand the nature of the Act, but that a draft of it was actually laid before them for consideration with the managers of the other banks, before it was submitted to the Council, and that the then manager and directors of the bank concurred with the almost universal voice of the community in urging the Government on to take some. steps; that the "legal tender" feature of the Act actually emanated from the Bank of Australasia and the Bank of South Australia, during these preliminary discussions, while the directors of the bank, as members of Council, voted .for jts passing. The Governor .says he cannot understand the nature of the powers which now enable Mr. Tomkinson, having succeeded to the position of manager of the branch bank, to repudiate, as for the bank, all these acts of concurrence, and to assert that the bank knew nothing of the provisions of the Act in time to object to them. The Governor twits Mr. T. with the " foreign ties " of his bank, as being opposed to local interests. The Governor does not advert specifically to any other of Mr. Tomkinson's objections, but says generally that the operation of the Act so far has been beneficial in allaying panic, and providing for a gradual and necessary contraction of the circulation, instead of an alarming and immoderate one, as was previously anticipated. Mr. Tomkinson replies briefly that he understands, on consulting the late manager, that that gentleman never contemplated or knew that he should be compelled by the Act as passed to issue an unlimited amount of notes in exchange for bullion ; that the local directors of the bank never interfered in its financial policy; and that the bank has nu " foreign ties " but has inter-colonial ties, which it was now using for the benefit of the colony to its own immediate loss. -. Gold to the amount of £28,000 at £3 lls. per ounce, had been lodged in the assay office to be assayed and stamped, and deliveries of ingots from that office to the banks, on behalf of depositors, had commenced. We do not observe in the papers so much mention of the commercial panic as formeriy. but prices of securities appear to remain nearly the same, Burra Burra shares being quoted at £76.

The Adelaide Press. — We venture to say that in no part of the world has there heen greater competition in one year, or greater destruction in another, in printing and newspapers, than in Adelaide. Last year we enumerated in this city of 15,000 inhabitants, no less than twelve printing offices and thirteen newspapers or periodical publications, including the Government Gazette, and a gratis advertising sheet. Two of the newspapers were published daily, four bi-weekly, the advertising sheet three times a week, and the remaining six were published weekly. Of these newspapers eleven were English, and two German. In the brief space of one year the following changes have taken place. Seven of the newspapers, viz., The Old Colonists Journal, the Oddfellows Chronicle, The Austral Examiner, The Zued Australische Zeitung, TJte Deutche .Zeitung, The South Australian Mercury and Sporting Chronicle, and The South Australian Gazette and Mining Journal, have become defunct. There is now also only one dajly paper, and the advertising sheet is reduced to the smallest possible dimensions. The newspapers extant consist of one daily, two bi-weeklies, one weekly, besides the Government Gazette, and the aforesaid gratis advertiser. — Morning Chronicle. The Adelaide Times, of the 6th inst., gives the following notice to its readers :—": — " As we are now reduced, by the migration of most of our printers to the Diggings, to little more than our two apprentices and a pressman, we shall esteem it a great favour if our advertising friends will in future let us have their advertisements at as early an hour on the day before publication as possible. Our intention is, to hang on as long as a strand of the rope is left, and we do not despair yet of labour in this, as in many other departments, being as abundant in Adelaide as it is now scarce."