AUCKLAND. [From the New Zealander, August 23.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 953, 20 September 1854, Page 4

AUCKLAND. [From the New Zealander, August 23.]

,We this day bring up a portion of the arrears into which we h&ve unavoidably fallen in our more extended reports of the proceedings of the House of Representatives; and on Saturday we hope to be able to publish what remains except one or two special debates, particularly on Mr. "Wakefield's proposition to set apart a portion of the Waste Lands for working settlers, for which we have the copy in hand, awaiting an opportunity when other demands on our space may enable us to do the topics the justice their importance demands. We propose then to devote some time and space to a general historical review of the proceedings which have compelled the Head of the Government to prorogue the Assembly, on the ground (to use his Excellency's own words) that "he was p:infully convinced that, as respects Legislation for the service of the Colony, the Session had come to an end." Such demonstralily was the fact. Conciliation, concession, even entreaty — as well as argument and remonstrance — had been tried in vain. A few rash and egregiously self-opiniated men, backed by a majority, such as, in popular assemblies, various more or less honorable motives and influences sometimes gathers around men of that description, when accidental circumstances have placed them in power — showed a determination to carry instantly and at all hazards points which the Officer Administering the Government,' — while be was willing and even desirous that they should be carried, provided it was done in a constitutional way — yet was advised, was himself convinced, and had declared from the outset of the arrangements, should first be submitted for her Mafesty's sanction. His Excellency had no alternative but a tame prostration before insulting dictation, which would have proved him unworthy of any office of trust in the Queen's service, or asserting a position which, — although it was taken cautiously, deliberately, and with dignified courtesy in every movement, — yet once taken, was to be maintained, come what might. The result is known to our readers. The first Session of the New Zealand Parliament, from which such great things were anticipated, and might have been realized, has closed under circumstances which the future historian, if he be an enlightened lover of the country, will record with sorrow and shame ; and the first year of the "full operation" of the highly vaunted Constitution Act will leave behind it only the memory of one of the most miserable of all " miserable abortions," unless the interval until the 31st inst. should suffice to lead the majority of the Representatives into a better state of judgment and .feeling, — a consummation which, we must confess we more devoutly wish than confidently expect, for tbe leaders have hitherto exhibited little of that genuine nobleness which moves men of a higher stamp to own that they have been wrong, and to prove the sincerity of the acknowledgment by energetic efforts in a wiser course. Even then, very few of the most urgently pressed measures of tbe late session can be carried ; but this, we apprehend, will be deemed only a mitigated evil, as we already learn that the policy of the ex-Mi-nisters was regarded by many, in various par ts •of the colony, as crude, hasty and ill-considered ; "and we have already cited evidences (which intermediate papers received since our last by the Cashmere confirm) that the portion of the Southern public represented by the Wellington Independent would have greatly preferred a delay, and even a dissolution of the Assembly before laws affecting so extensively not only the present but the future interests of New Zealand were permanently placed upon our Statute-Book. Tbe proceedings of the majority on the day of prorogation, which were reported in our last, outHeroded Herod, adding to all that had gone before not merely a new development of the principle of lawless defiance, but the literal employment' of physical violence. The climax was perfected ly the active part taken by the Solicitor-General-Designate of the ex-Ministry in these exploits. We had long since been aware of the professional sympathy between that worthy "limb of the law" and Mr. Justice Stephen, in the attempt initiated by Mr. Sewell to deprive the colony of the inestimable benefit of Sir George Grey's Cheap Land Regulations ; — we are now made acquainted with a further and very striking point of resemblance between tbe learned functionary who belaboured a poor man at Otago on the avowed ground that "he could not wait for the slow and tardy process of the law," and the " great constitutional lawyer" from the effecs of wboRR closely applied arguments^ on Thursday the ribs of the hon. member for Nelson are still suf-

fering. The conduct pursued towards the Officer Administer! og the Government, though different in its practical manifestation, was the same in spirit. A Message from his Excellency had been read, which — although couched in admirably calm and temporale language, considering the character of the address which had called it forth — explicitly declared that the difference between the House of Representatives and the Officer Administering the Government was "at that moment irreconcilable," and announced his Excellency's " intention forthwith to prorogue the Parliament." Another Message was immediately delivered into the hands of the Speaker, whose duty it was, according to the Standing Rules and Ordeis, to have instantly stopped all other business and pro- i ceeded to read it. But the ex-Ministers and their , party were determined that it should not be read until they pleased ; and thereupon ensued the \ imprisoning of protesting members, (in order to ] keep within the House the semblance of legality to the suspension of the Standing Orders) the disgraceful roiv, which had the disorder, without the fair-play, of a fight at Donnybrook Fair, and the other sayings and doings which it was our humiliating duty to record in our last ; — until, finally, the series of violent resolutions wjbich have already appeared in our columns were passed by i the (so far) victorious combatants and their friends. And this at a time, when the Assembly was j actually prorogued ! A Gazette containing the i Proclamation had been published, and a copy lay { on the table enclosed in the contumeliously treated Message. A fact full of significance is that the ex-Ministers not only themselves believed such to be the case, but actually made the supposition that the Message contained a prorogation their avowed reason for refusing to have it read 2 Their defiance of the constitutional authority of the Queen's Representative was therefore undeniably intentional, deliberate, and utterly inexcusable. The resolutions passed after the prorogation had really taken place, we must regard as wholly inoperative. There may be questions of law involved in some parts of the case which it would require the acumen of a genuine — not a sham — constitutional lawyer to decide ; but to our non-professional mind it seems clear that, if .it be attempted to embody these Resolutions amongit the acts of the Session, an application to the Supreme Court could scarcely fail to remedy such an outrage on the privileges of members who had obeyed the proclamation of his Excellency, and indeed on the rights of the people. We may have occasion again to refer to " them, however, as illustrations of tbe spirit, temper, and objects of the domineering leaders of the majority ; but for the present we pass them by with the exception of one, on which we wish to say a few words, because it is to the same purpose with an address adopted while the House was really in Session. We allude to that in which his Excellency is requested " to remove Mr. E. G. Wakefield from his councils." It would probably require a more intimate knowledge than we possess of the " wheels within wheels " by which it has recently been attempted to work the political affairs of the colony, to explain fully the course adopted by a number of the Southern members towards Mr. Wakefield. On the arrival of that gentleman at Wellington, in March of last year, a complimentary Address, in which his services to New Zealand were enumerated in glowing terms of unqualified eulogy, was forwarded to him by Dr. Featherston, whose name stood first on the list of signatures, followed by the names of Mr. Cliffotd (now Speaker), Mr. Weld (now ex-Minister), Mr. Kelham, Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Ludlam, Mr. Eevans (1) — (now members of the House of Representatives), Mr. Fitzherbert (Provincial Secretary), and a great number of others in all classes of society. We are aware that some subsequent differences led a portion of those who hid signed the document to qualify the import of their signatures, and that Mr. Fitzherbert in the Provincial Council, aud the Independent newspaper, lost no opportunity of declaring a contrary view of his conduct. But the original document must stand as a memorial of what was — only some fifteen or eighteen months ago — their united "declaration of gratitude" for Mr. Wakefield'a " many important services." Again, on the meeting of the General Assembly here, the office which, above all others must have been deemed most important by the Southern members, — that of their recognised leader in the anticipated struggle for Responsible Government — was conferred on Mr. Wakefield by the common consent of those gentlemen. But that point having been (at least according to their own statements at the time) successfully carried, the ! chosen champion, whose zeal, tact, energy, and ability had so largely contributed to the result, was — so soon as the object had been secured — treated with a shyness which ere long was changed into uumistakeable hostility, and this hostility has lately found vent in fierce invectives and in the denunciations implied in the Address aud the Resolution to which we have adverted. There is here surely prima facie evidence of great ingratitude and palpable inconsistency on the riart of some hon. gentlemen, which it will require more tangible reasons than they have ever yet laid before the Auckland public to exculpate them from. The inconsistency will require explanation, moreover, in other places, where the movement for Responsible Government of which they are so proud is closely identified with the leadership of Mr. Wakefield. For instance, we find in one of the Melbourne papers just received (the Herald of the 2nd inst.) a leading article on " New Zealand Politics," in which, while the speakers in the debates on Responsible Government are collectively praised, Mr. Wakefield is singled out lor special honour in the following terms : — •* Conspicuous among the debaters was Mr. E. G. Wakefield, a man who has probably exercised a larger influence over the destinies of this quarter of the globe than any one else living, and who having, in days gone by, laboured with un« tiring energy in bringing about the colonisation of New Zealand, has lived to witness the success of his scheme, and has in old age retired to the antipodes of his native land to end his days in the service of the people he helped to found. Nor does it appear that the vigour of his understanding and language have undergone diminution ; and it is obvious that he has cast himself into the arena of New Zealand politics with as much devotion as if he had always been confined to that limited field — instead of being the founder of a system that has extended to all quarters of the globe, — the guide and teacher of the greatest Colonial reformers during the last quarter of a century ,•— and the confidant and adviser of many

of England's greatest statesmen and political philosophers." We have for many years been rather opponents than followers of Mr. Wakefield— in his theories of Colonization, on the Price of Land, and various other matters — as may be abundantly seen by a reference to the New Zealander both before and since his last arrival in New Zealand. On the very day after he reached Auckland to attend the General Assembly, we transferred to our columns from the Independent some of the severest strictures ever penned in relation to him. This we did, we confess, reluctantly and with an apolbgetical introduction : because we deemed it most in accordance with good taste and good feeling to permit those who were then about to enter on an arduous work amongst us to mate their own way and their own impression, without anything on our part to excite local prejudices against them. From this motive we ma'ie no allusion, for instance, to the complaints preferred by the Church Trustees at Lyttelton against Mr. Sewell, which came into our hands by the same mail. But we had previously inserted a letter from Mr. Wakefield containing strictures on the Wellington Press and our sense of justice obliged us to give equal publicity without delay to the replies of our contemporaries. Though it may be somewhat a digression, let us here notice that for this course we were at the time assailed — anonymously but unmistakeably — by a writer in the Southern Cross, who expatiated on the duty of receiving members from the South with "the hand of welcome," and told us that " the taste of that man is not to be envied who, fit such a moment, would assail the character of one of the most able and intelligent of the body, by giving currency to statements, and raking up by-gone disputes, about which we are probably only half-informed, &c." And more recently, in a leading article, the Editor takes credit to himself for having used his best endeavours to secure for him (Mr. Wakefield) his legitimate position." The readers of the South' em Cross do not need to be told with what torrents of unmitigated abuse this "most able and intelligent" member has been attacked ever since he refused to become a party to the attempts of the ex-Ministers to coerce the Officer Administering the Government into compliance with their demands. Did our contemporary know, or did he not know, when he was making these alleged efforts to counteract the "intense prejudice" with which he says Mr. Wakefield was regarded in the North, that he was the untrustworthy man he now describes ? If he did (and he would have his readers believe that he knows all about him) why did he try to mislead the public ? If he did not, what has so greatly enlightened him since? What is the difference, but that then Mr. Wakefield "was in the ranks," rendering his valuable aid to the cause of the party 5 while he now rei Bists what he believes to be wrong and injurious in their proceedings? Thus it has always been, however, with the Southern C?'css, and thus some whom it now caresses may find to their cost, so soon as they diverge a point from the course which its "real Editor" may think fit to insist upon. No matter how much they may be praised to-day, if they offend him to-morrow they will have to sustain every epithet of abuse that his teeming vocabulary of vilification can supply. To return : we take Mr. Wakefield as we fipd him, holding ourselves at entire liberty to eeusure his policy or public conduct whenever we I feel scch censure to be our duty. But we must in justice say that, since his arrival here, we have seen much more to approve in many of bis proceedings than in the proceedings of some who are now loud ia condemning him. As respects the interests ot Auckland, it would be ungrateful to deny that he has done steady and valuable service. We may particularly mention his exertions for the release of this Province from the New Zealand Company's Debt — which the exMinisters had not courage, or sense of justice enough, to make a ministerial question, and on which Mr. Sewelj at least seemed disposed to throw every difficulty in the way that attorneycraft could devise. The Northern members will, we are sure, be, one and all, ready to admit that none amongst themselves could have taken up the subject as effectually as Mr. Wakefield, for various obvious reasons, was able to do. Then, again, his endeavour to obtain a provision for setting apart a portion of the Waste Lands for working settlers, though cried down by the exMinisters and their party, was the advocacy of a principle felt to be of vital importance to the prosperity of the North. We repeat we are 'no followers or partizans of Mr. Wakefield, but we remember these good deeds ; and our love of fair play precludes our having any sympathy with those who would now vilify his character because he will not be an instrument in their plots.