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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4512, 6 September 1875, Page 2

We have before us the full reports from the Dunedin papers of the abolition meeting held lately in that city. Some remarkable incidents seem to have occurred there. Mr. Robert Gillies, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Otago Daily Times Printing Company, in spealdng to a motion in favor of abolition, is reported to have quoted from a speech by Mr. James Macandrew, Superintendent of the province, and to show that he was quoting accurately, he exhibited a proof-slip from the Daily Times office, with the corrections made in Mr. Macandrevv's own handwriting. He explained how he had obtained this slip. Ho happened to be in the Daily Times office. (Oh, oh, and disapprobation.) He (Mr. Gillies) wished to explain that there was no breach of confidence in the matter. The speech had been printed and sent broadcast throughout the town. The speech, he said, had been distributed throughout the town. A Mr. Isaac here exclaimed "How about the original from the Times t Is not that private property ? I say it is simply disgusting." Further on in his speech Mr. Gillies was asked, " What about the Daily Times 1" and to thin ho replied : "•One gentleman had asked him, ' What about the Daily Times f Of course there were people in this place who, like the Daily Times, could agitate one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow; whose opinions were so plastic that they would bend any way. (Oh, oh.) If they liked to bear that, let them do it; but for his part, he was made of sterner stuff than that. He could form an opinion and stick to it. The opinions expressed in the Daily Times in reference to the Abolition Bill seemed to him to wear a remarkably clerical appearance. • (Laughter.) Speaking on both sides, and acting on the grounds of expediency." But the most remarkable occurrence of the meeting, perhaps, was the giving by Mr. Hallenstein, at one time M.H.R. for Wakatipu, of the late Judge Gray's opinions on abolition. Mr. Hallenstein is reported as having said :—" He remembered well when the first news of the abolition question reached them at Queenstown, where he had been a resident for tho last twelve years. Their late friend Mr. Wilson Gray was holding a sitting of the District Court there, and he remembered how earnestly, in the course of a conversation with him, the kind old Judge spoke upon the subject of the Abolition Bill. Mr. Gray, said :—' If you abolish provincial institutions, you will take away the bulwark of your liberties. Provincial ' Councils stand betweon you and class legislation. (Applause.) The General |

Assembly will not for many years to come fairly reflect the opinions of the people, nor be a fair representation of the bulk of the population. Your choice will be : narrowed clown to those interested in getting possession of large tracts of the country, and to political adventurers ; and the chance of justice being done to outlying districts will be but small.' The infiuenceof runholders in the Provincial Councils was gone. Wherever these had not been restricted by inferior legislation, wherever class legislation was not in the ascendant, provincial institutions had settled the people upon the lands under the deferred-payment system. Itwas well known to the runholders that as soon as the leases held by them fell in, the lands which they now possessed would be cut up into small runs, the same as was done in the Tuapeka and Wakatip districts. Then one man would not hold 150 miles of country. One might at present travel from the Lindis to Lake Wakatip, and see only a shepherd's hut. If provincialism were continued, that state of things would cease. They might depend upon it that the institutions interested, as well as the runholders, would do all in their power to carry abolition. He considered that the loss of a portion of their money, by its being spent in Wellington, was a mere bagatelle as compared with the settlement of the people on the land. He hoped the meeting would express itself in unmistakeable terms, and say that they would not have the Abolition Bill passed that year. They should fight hard against it, and pay the expenses of their members to oppose it word by word, in order to prevent so great a constitutional change being perpetrated by a dying Parliament. He concluded by thanking the meeting for the attention with which they had listened to him. (Applause.)"

Telegrams have appeared in more than one Northern journal, stating, as a result so far of the sittings of the committee on the improper issue of miners' rights at Ohinemuri, that a Mr. Brissenden confessed to having surreptitiously obtained them in conjunction with a Mr. O'Halloran. The Thames Advertiser, commenting on this, says :—"The fraud, as we have pointed out on several occasions, was cleverly contrived and planned, and was carried out in a bold and daring manner. It was meant to cheat honest men of their just claims, and was intended to secure, by corrupt means, that which could not be obtained legally and fairly. Certain ground was believed to be rich with gold, and, to secure the ground, thirty or forty miners' rights were obtained in the manner stated by our telegrams from Wellington. Had the ground-been as rich as was expected, there would have been endless litigation through this fraud, but the Government must not, by inaction, say that the offence is condoned by the poorness of the ground. The people expect, and will demand, a full investigation of the affair in a court of law. They will look to the Government to treat Mr. Brissenden in exactly the same manner as a miner would be treated if he walked into the Warden's Court and stole public documents. We may say that we are surprised and pained to see Mr. O'Halloran's name connected with the matter, because we really thought that he was clean-handed, and until we hear of some confirmation of Mr. Brissenden's statement, we shall be inclined to think that he has been dragged forward to save some one else, or that his name has been used as conniving at the fraud, without efficient reason. We hope to hear in a few days that the committee have reported in favor of handing over all further investigation to the police."