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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4496, 18 August 1875, Page 2

A petition was presented yesterday by Mr. Charles O'Neill, M.H.K., from Mr. Jerome Cadman, M.P.C., and seventeen members of a committee representing the Coromandel district, setting forth the importance of the district ; that its exports alone amount in value to £250,000 annually ; that its population was 2100, exclusive of natives, who numbered over 1000. There was a large number of electors in the district, nearly 500, independent of those who held the miners' franchise. The district was twenty-five miles apart from the Thames district. The petitioners prayed that a distinct and separate member of the House of Representatives should be given for Coromandel. ~ | ~™n—-"^^^^

A private telegram from the Thames, states that the two Grahamstown papers have articles in reply to Mr. Kees's speech at the Auckland meeting, and Mr. Wm. Howe, who is looking forward to parliamentary honors at the Thames, has written a letter in which he says that this speech will unite the Thames as one man. This'is a consummation devoutly to be desired, as hitherto they have been about as equally divided a community as one might wish to find. The Thames papers allege that spurious public opinion is being manufactured in Auckland by the Provincial party ; but this allegation is open to some doubt. We have private information from anti-provincialists which gives a different complexion to the affair. No good can come of charges of this sort. The abolitionists cannot lay claim to all the public virtue in the colony, although doubtless they possess a fair share of it ; but it is not wise or politic to deny the smallest particle of virtue to their opponents. Let us have fair play all round. We take the resolutions at public meetings to be precisely what they profess to be and nothing more. Besides, we cannot conceive provincial officials being opposed to the Government measures, inasmuch as under these their position will be bettered, m the matter of permanence and the advantages accruing under the Civil Service regulations.

Mr. Charles O'Neill, M.H.R., yesterday presented a petition in the House of Representatives, from Captain George Beadon, R.N., being the eighth petition presented by Mr. O'Neill this session in connection with his district of the Thames and Coromandel. It seems that Captain Beadon invested £2OOO in New Zealand land (about thirty-six years ago) in the year 1839, through Messrs. Willis, Sandeman, and Co., of Sydney, who employed a person of the name of. W. E. Cormack to complete the purchase, which was duly effected at Coromandel, and a tract of land situated near the River Piako, in the province of Auckland, was bought from the chief Koeuaki, in the presence of a living witness, Lachlan Allan McCaskill. The land extends to 15,300 acres, and is described in the Government Gazette of sth April, 1843. Captain Beadon's claim was afterwards withdrawn by W. E. Cormack, without the authority of Captain Beadon, in presence of Mr. Commissioner Godfrey. Captain Beadon petitions to. be established in the land which he purchased.