LYTTELTON.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 795, 16 March 1853, Page 3

LYTTELTON.

] The following Address to the Governor is in course of signature at Christchurch and Lytrelton, It is, we understand, to be forwarded by the Minerva, which will not leave probably till Monday. To His Excellency Sir George Grey. X.C.8., Governor-in-Chiefqf New Zealand, %c, 8(C. Sir, — We, the undersigned inhabitants of the Canterbury Settlement, beg to address your Excrlleucy for the purpose of submitting to you certain apprehensions and anxious hopes wf£ch have been excited in our minds by reflection on the critical circumstances in which this colony is necessarily placed by the approaching introduction of a totally nevr form of Government. Having regard to the" oiganized state of hostility between the Executive and popular party, which has invariably subsisted in colonies peopled by the British race so long as Representative Institutions were withheld from the colonists, and from which, of course, New Zealand has not been exempt, we cannot help fearing that, as has happened on many like occasions, the important and most valuable public objects which the New Constitution is calculated to effect, may be seriously impeded, or even for a time entirely frustrated, by tfose mutual feelings of animosity and distrust which have arisen out of past collisions ; and we pray of your Excellency to believe that it is our most earnest wish to see all past differences and angry party feelings buried in oblivion, to the end that Your Excellency, as the Representative of the CrowD, aod those who enjoy the confidence of the peogle^jnav sincerely concur and co^oper***"~~" ITTT 7^ viov to the future along, *~"Z>q task of ctrryiog into effect the purposes of th« Crown aod British P»rii,»meut, in bestowing upon tbe people of this country the inestimable boon of Provincial and General Representative IflstimtioDS. We are ia hopes that these assurances may be acceptable to Your Excellency, and that they may have some weight with tbe popular leaders in other parts of New i Zealand, where the heats and animosities to which we have alluded havo taken deeper root than amongst ourselves. We could have wished that the inhabitants of the Canterbury Settlement were able to convey to Your Excellency without delay some expression of our apprehensions and desires, in tbe more weighty form of resolutions passed at Public Meetings ; and we have only resorted to the I less eligible means of an Address signed by those who may concur in its object, in order not to lose tbe early opportunity of communication with Wellington which is afforded by the sailing of the [ Minerva. We have tbe honour to be, Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient, humble Servants. Canterbury, February 22, 1853.