NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, September 2, 1854."

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 948, 2 September 1854, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, September 2, 1854. "

In last Wednesday's Independent is a letter bearing the signature of " John Dorset," intended as a defence of the circular referring to the Colonial Hospital, which was published in Saturday's Spectator. It is almost needless for us to observe that the two documents, though bearing the same signature, afford very sufficient internal evidence that they are not the production of the same mind ; every one appears to be agreed that there is no intimate relation between the coarse, vulgar, peremptory tone for which the circular is remarkable, and the laboured sophistry by which it is attempted to defend it. By a singular obliquity of intellect Mr. Dorset (or his apologist) affects to treat ' the question as a sort of personal affair — an unjust attack upon himself; and not as one affecting the usefulness of a public institution and involving considerations of the highest kind, — the light in which it is viewed by the ministers of religion to whom his circular was addressed, and by the rest of the community. We forbear, therefore, to notice the attack wjiich Mr. Dorset has thought fit to make on the Rev. R. Paul, and which we have no doubt will be duly appreciated by. the public; it is enough to state that the "circular," as its name imports and as the matter to which it relates shews, was a public document, and we have no doubt would have been furnished indifferently for public information to either Paper by any minister to whom it was addressed, as a copy of the memorial it has called forth has been furnished to both Papers. Mr. Dorset assures us he sets the highest value on the consolations of religion — a constant attendant himself on the church to which he is proud to belong, such a paragon of every moral excellence as to make Even the good with inward envy groan, Finding thetntelves so very much exceeded, In their own way by all the things that he did, he assumes that the public ought to repose implicit confidence in the discretion |of the surgeon in charge of the hospital, and by way of shewing hisimpartialityshuts the doors of the Institution in the face of every minister of religion. Bulfc let us suppose for the sake - of. argument, what ■ may be considered a barely possible contingency, — let us suppose the hospital under the control of an open contemner of religion, one ready to have followed Morgan in his bucaneering expeditions against New Spain, or any leader of mercenaries in Old Spain — how would the hospital fare from the discretion of such an officer, unless the force' of public opinion be exerted to control him. -It is for this principle we contend, the right the public have to know, and to express their opinion on, the manner in which public Institutions are conducted. If Mr. Dorset had acted wisely or well in issuing his circular, his conduct would have needed no vindication, it would have called forth no protest from every minister of religion to whom it was addressed against the violation of a public principle,—no memorial asserting "the right of

British subjects to receive religious instruction and consolation from the ministers of their own communion, at all reasonable times, and in allplaces? — it would not have received the general condemnation of the public. The only argument advanced in justification of- the circular is a miserable piece of sophistry in which the exception is put forward as the rule — a mere attempt to beg the question. Because, it is said, in a few exceptional cases religious ' excitement may be injurious (and a case of delirium tremens is adduced as an example) therefore all religious ministrations in the Hospital" must be forbidden. It is assumed that ministers of religion will visit all patients at unreasonable times, as a plea for preventing- their visits at' all reasonable times. If Mr. Dorset in any exceptional had privately and courteously intimated to the minister visiting the patient the necessity of discontinuing for a time his visits, not a whisper by way of censure would have been heard. But the course he has pursued admits of no defence, and the best proof of this is to be found in the sort of defence that has been put forth. If he or the Provincial Executive have any discretion, they will allow matters in the Hospital to be quietly — if they are not already— restored to their former footing, which indeed ought never to have been disturbed.

By the Steamer Nelson we have received our usual files of Canterbury and Otago papers but they contain no local news. The Canterbury papers are mostly filled with reprints, from the Auckland papers of the proceedings of the General Legislature ; the Otago Witness, as usual, with petty local squabbles.

In order to conclude, in our present number, the report of the debate on the second reading of the Waste Lands Bill, we have been obliged to abridge several of the speeches as given in the New Zealander.