NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, April 8, 1854.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 906, 8 April 1854, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, April 8, 1854.

The convention of the General Assembly hj his Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, is an event of the greatest importance ; and, as the harbinger of a crisis for good or evil, it necessarily suggests anxious reflections to every one who has the interests of the cplony at heart. Whatever may be the results of our newsystem of government, to it New Zealand must accommodate herself. Some may think that very democratic representation has come too soon or too suddenly ; but nobody will question that it has come, or that it must henceforth be the guiding principle of government for this country. Besides the Superintendents, all the members both oi the Provincial Councils and of the House of "Representatives are elected, and almost by universal suffrage. Nowhere in the British dominions is representation carried so far as in New Zealand. Nor is it questionable that Parliament, in doing this, deliberately intended to relieve the Imperial Government from responsibility with regard to the local affairs of the colony, and to make the colony itself alone responsible for the management of them. There is not the least chance that the step taken by Parliament will ever be retraced. Unaided and unrestricted, the people of New Zealand have to work out their own future. But hitherto that general government which the Constitution makes paramount, has consisted only of words ; words full of instruction, truly, and pregnant with consequences, but nothing more. By convening the General Assembly, his Excellency establishes the Constitution a§ a

working reality. He closes the past, and opens a totally different future. The General Assembly has supreme authority on all subjects and over the whole colony. It is even empowered to alter the Constitution subject to approval by the Imperial Government. After the 24th of next month, if the Constitution should work smoothly, all questions of moment to the colony will become practical. Theories will give place to deeds and facts. Soon afterwards, everywhere in New Zealand, the power of a sovereign legislature will be felt, instead of being only thought about or anticipated. If, as all must hope and pray for, the two branches of the Legislature which aTe not elected, shall practically recognise those principles of representation on which the Constitution is based, then a number of questions which agitate the colony and deeply concern its well-being, must be finally settled. We allude to the Land Question, the extension of the Provincial authority, the appropriation of general revenue to the Provinces^ the future composition of the Legislative Council, the seat of Government, and, above all, the question of ministerial responsibility. This last affects every other question, and the whole course of the General Government both legislative and executive. But even this is not the first question in point of time. Anything so new to this colony as Responsible Government, cannot be established impromptu. It must be the result of thoughtful and pains -taking concert between his Excellency and the House of Representatives. Accordingly there is a question for solution which comes before all others, because all others | depend upon it Will there, at the outset, be harmony or collision between the representative body and the head of the Government ? They may meet only to differ, dispute, contend, and separate in anger. In bygone times, whole sessions of colonial legislatures have been wasted in quarrels between the Executive Government and the popular representatives. Such conflicts have produced disaffection, sedition, rebellion, the ruin of Governors, the miseries of civil war, suspension of the Constitution, and, at last, a new Constitution more representative than ever, with positive orders from the Queen to the Governor to be guided by the wishes of the representative body. Shall we in New Zealand have a conflict of this sort, ending as others have done ? Or shall we i begin as other colonies have ended, by a state of mutual good will and confidence between the head of the Government and the representatives of the colony ? This is just now the -question of questions for New Zealand. What its solution will be seems to depend on the feelings towards each other, with which these two parties shall meet, in whose hands the destinies of the colony are placed. If, on the one side, his Excellency should either ignore the great leading principle of the Constitution and imagine that anything like the old system of government can be preserved, or if he should distrust the actual representative body and be unwilling to let their wishes prevail in legislation and executive government, then collision is inevitable. On the other side, if the popular representa- | tives should distrust the Governor ; if they v should not make allowance for the singular awkwardness of his position as a I mere temporary administrator of his office, totally without experience in the sort of work that has fallen to his lot ; if they I should begin by dealing with him in an intolerant and exacting temper, then, supposing him to have the spirit of a man, collision must ensue. Perhaps there is more risk of error on the popular than on the official side. His Excellency cannot be blind to what Parliament has done and intended by doing it. He is new to the office of Governor, committed to nothing, unfettered by the past, and without personal animosities or favoritism to indulge. His interests dictate that he should frankly agree with the representatives of the colony ; for what can he desire but the peace, the ease, and the popularity, the honor and repute, which would attend that course if it were successfully adopted ? The representatives, on the contrary, are connected with the past ; and many of them have been long engaged in conflict with the Government, whereby they have acquired habitual sentiments of distrust and animosity towards the Executive. These, in a word not intended to be offensive, were demagogues ;

and it is proverbial that the sudden acquisition of importance, like setting a beggar on horseback, is very unfavorable to discretion. In this case, discretion would comprise moderation in askings patience to wait for the ripeness df every pear, and the suppression of prejudice' occasioned by the past; also a willingness to compromise, to accommodate, to bend rather than break, to wind round insuperable obstacles, to be content with less than all, and to be glad when gentleness can be nsed instead of force. If this should be the temper of the representative body, the blame of a collision will rest with the Executive alone. A heavy responsibility attaches to both ; for the beet dispositions oil the part of either will be of no avail unless cordially responded to by the other. Both will be closely watched by the public. What is needed on both sides, as the ground-work of harmony, is an earnest wish to make the Constitution work for good, with a sincere belief that collision is the worst evil that could befall the Colony. AH the rest would follow by a natural and easy process.

La Destruzione, an Italian vessel, with, stock for Port Cooper, put into Port yesterday, having left Newcastle eleven days ago. Not having brought a mail we have been unable to obtain any items of late English news.

In the last number of the Independent are some rambling observations, intended as an answer to some strictures by the correspondent of the Lyttelton Times, on the garbled and unfair reports of the proceedings of the Council published in the Wellington paper. It seems the \s riter in the Lyttelton Times cautions that journal against placing any reliance on the reports in the Independent, and refers to those published in the Spectator, as being copious and accurate, and as impartially reporting the speeches on both kides. No doubt the caution was sufficiently called for, and this plain statement of a matter of fact the Independent being unable in any way to contrcn crt, and having nothing else to say, it falls to abusing Mr. Wakefield and the Spectator. Of course the abuse of the Independent does not in any way affect the question, nor alter the plain matter of fact. It is well known we did take great pains at the time to publish an impartial and accurate report of the proceedings in the Council, as we have also done of the different public meetings held at Wellington, and the accuracy and impartiality of the Spectator's reports have been readily admitted on all sides ; while it is as notorious that those in the Independent are for the most pait so unfair, so incorrect, and one-sided as to to be perfectly worthless, and unworthy of being considered of the slightest authority, and that on more than one occasion, members in Council complained of the gross unfairness of the reports in the Independent of their observations, which conveyed a totally opposite meaning to what they really did say. Of course the Independent, as the Government hack, must abuse the Spectator, — it is its vocation; — as far as we are concerned we are perfectly indifferent to its abuse or to anything it may choose to say about us ; and this we think must be sufficiently evident from the very slight notice we ever think it worth our while to bestow upon it.