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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4133, 19 June 1874, Page 2

Mb. Mobiabty, Engineer-in-Chief in the Colony of New South Wales, after a profitable visit to Auckland, paid a flying' visit to Greymouth, and for a liberal consideration promised to furnish a report upon the character of work necessary to render the river available for the entrance and exit of larger vessels than now resort thither. The local appreciation of the necessity for such work stimulated the inhabitants to raise among themselves the funds required to. meet Mr. Moriarty’s fee, but the stimulus was scarcely equal to the occasion, and dependence had to bo placed upon contributions from the Borough Council and the Governments of Westland and Nelson. This dependence was not misplaced, for certain amounts were voted in aid of the fund which it was necessary to raise, but the Municipal Council seem to have assumed more responsibility in the matter than they were either morally or legally bound to do. In the exercise of this self-imposed responsibility they have sued the firm of Messrs. Hughes and McCarthy, lessees of the Brunner mine, for an amount which these gentlemen are alleged to have promised to the general fund, but have been nonsuited in the District Court, and Mr. Moriarty and those who engaged him will probably have to look to other sources for the full amount of the fee which was agreed upon. A nonsuit in such an action was not an unlikely result, and it may serve as a lesson to Municipal Councils to adhere more closely to their specific duties, and to attend rather to the collection of borough rates and their fair expenditure than to meddle with matters which are outside of the scope of their proper functions. It is a frequent fault with Borough Councils—probably with the best intentions—that they venture to deal with matters with which they cannot legitimately interfere, and, not for tire first time, the Council in question have found this to their cost, or to the cost of those whom they represent.—From the same locality there comes a telegram of a more satisfactory character. It is, in fact, a very cheering item of news for many speculative shareholders, and for the Colony generally. It is that, in the main shaft which has been sunk by the Greymouth Coal Company, a seam of coal of excellent quality and fourteen feet thick has been struck. The complete confidence which the promoters of the company had in its success is thus fully sustained, and the practical working of the new mine will now, no doubt, be pushed on with, all energy, and with the result of placing in the Colonial coal market a supply of coal more commensurate with the demand than any supply could possibly be from the one mine which was lately leased by the Nelson Government.

In Tai-auaki, it appears, they sometimes propose more than they accomplish. The people of that Province, however, are not alone in forming good intentions -which are never carried out. The latest instance recorded there, however, of good resolutions falling to the ground is one ranch to bo regretted, and not yet hopeless of accomplishment There, as elsewhere, the importance of acclimatising game of all kinds suitable for the locality, and of stocking with British fish the now almost touantlcss waters, is acknowledged ; and some months ago it was resolved to form an Acclimatisation Society immediately. Since the day on which that resolution was arrived at, however, no mooting has been held and nothing done to carry out the suggestion. A sum has been voted by the Council for the purpose of placing trout, procurable from Tasmania if not in the Colony, in the rivers of Taranaki, but as there is no society there is no one to conduct the experiment, or to whom the vote could be paid. It is also stated locally that if such a society wore formed the fees for licenses to shoot and sell pheasants and other game birds would place it in possession of a sufficient revenue, with which much good might be done to the cause of acclimatisation in that Province. We echo the hope the local journals express, that the original intention may be carried out as early as possible.

The disposition of tlio Government evidently ia to liberalise aa much as possible the regulations relating to the combined use of the telegraph wires and the Post Office. We lately intimated that the use of the wires for the transmission of special information would be given to Chambers of Commerce and other public bodies at rates identical with those charged to the Newspaper Press. In the Onzcttc of yesterday another announcement relating to the same Department is made, to this effect ; 1. Telegraphic messages originating in the Colonies of New' South Wales, Tasmania, and Queensland, may be transmitted by post as letters for delivery in New Zealand, without any payment for postage; and letter's addressed to any officer of tho Telegraph Department in charge of tho Telegraph Office at any port or placo in the Colony of Now Zealand, containing any such telegraphic messages for transmission, with no writing other than the necessary directions for transmission, may bo transmitted free of postage. 2. Every such message or letter shall bear on the outside of the cover, above tho address, the words “ Telegraphic message only,” and shall bo

posted to its place o£ destination by the officer in charge of the Telegraph Department by whom it shall be received ; and every such officer shall, immediately before posting such letter, subscribe his usual signature across the face of the cover of such letter or telegraphic message.

An anomaly in Provincial Council etiquette which was inaugurated by Mr. John White, M.H.R., seems to have ceased with the cessation of that gentleman's occupation of the honorable office of the Speaker of the Council of Westland. It was Mr. White’s theory that the Speaker should have leave, even when in the Speaker’s chair, to take part in the debates, and when he himself was elected to the office his theory became his personal practice, and, so far as could be learnt from the reports of the debates in which ho joined, the practice was not abused, nor did it become a source of any special inconvenience to the general body of the Council. Put it was the initiation of a system which did not meet with unalloyed approval, for we notice that no sooner did Mr. White descend from the Speaker’s chair to assume the portfolios of Secretary and Treasurer for a period of provoking brevity than the clause in the Standing Orders which conferred upon the occupant of the office this peculiar power was struck out, mainly on the recommendation of the new Squeaker, the Hon. Mr. Lalnnan.

It seems to be somewhat difficult to catch the eye or the ear of the civic authorities. A few days ago wo directed attention to the fact that the late gales' from the south-east had thrown the waters of the harbor so strongly against the roadway of Thomdon Quay, just beyond Mulgrave Street, that the soil had been sucked away, and dangerous holes left. We may be excused for being unwilling to suppose that no one in authority has leisure to glance over the columns of The Times, but it remains a fact that the roadway is still in the dangerous condition it was left in the beginning of the week, The road at the best is narrow ; at present it is narrower and more dangerous than it was ; and as the Corporation have been most niggardly in the matter of the street lamps, and the moon is yet young, a'serious accident is at any moment not only possible but probable. The traffic along Thomdon Quay has increased enormously since the opening of the railway, and darkness—at this season of the year—sets in long before the business of the last trains has been done. The junction of Mulgrave Street and Thomdon Quay has always been dangerous ; it is doubly so now ; and we hope it will not be necessary that the City Surveyor should break his neck in one of the traps in the road before someone thinks it his duty to see that the road is made at least as good as it was a fortnight ago, for the safety of the lieges,