WEL GTO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 218, 20 August 1862, Page 5

WEL GTO

(FEOM ODE SPECI.VI CORRESPONDENT.) Wellington, August 13. Yesterday's proceedings, after a few enquiries of no great importance, were opened and closed by the Treasurer in a speech of about four hours' duration. It might be represented rather as an effective review of our past and present position, than as a delineation of the mannerin which the large demands on the public purse are to be met j but still there was that £5,000,000 loan, by the Colony for the Northern Island to be eventually met by the Provinces composing it which is apparently the key-stone of the future policy. The Treasurer, than whom there does not exist a harder-working man, and one who works to a more successful end, has had only a week amid the pressure of other business to master his subject, and he has succeeded ; but he was restrained from fully meeting the case by a sense of the impropriety of developing the policy of the Government not yet quite matured, but which will be expounded on Tuesday next. So that the speech might be justly regarded as an able financial review rather than a\ Treasurer's exposition of his *: ways and means."

The evening was a "■ review" day—devoted to one of those scientific conversations in which the Assembly delights, under the able leadersliip of the "member for EUesraere," Mr.Fitzgerald. The subject for discussion was the " Nominated Superintendent's Act;" and it was handled by the mover in a speech which you listen to with, pleasure, because the speaker is blessed with very considerable powers of oratory, and a riiind stored with first principles and historical recollections ; but it is impossible to hear him address the House without a conviction tliat he is confiding to the magic influence of his eloquence : impracticability and often a present undesirability, undeniably stamp hi 3 measures. The whole affair was settled beforehand. Those who, on the occasion had no minds of their own or who were disposed, as the inaideu of fifty to yield to the first solicitation, had been reckoned ;* and in the language of the House it was said' that " noses had been counted," and the result would be an affirmative vote for the second reading. The motion was seconded by a member from ! Taranaki, Mr. Watt—who read the appendix to j the Constitution Act in a voice that was not heard j in the galleries. The motion was going by default, when the Superintendent of Otago, Major Richardson, arrested the fatal blow—which would have acknowledged the principle—by assuring the House that he was not yet prepared for decapitation ; but when the hour was come he was willing that tha people, to whom a great constitutional privilege had been granted by the Queen, should decide » whether they would hold or restore it. The bill was hastily analysed ; and it was made manifest that a Superintendent nominated by a ministry existing perhaps on sufferance by the usual majority of one (for evidently " Governor in Coun•i" is meant by ''Governorf), would be only transferring the power from the people to a Geuerai G>vernmentJ//fl/s/ryand would be madetheenane of political action. It was shown that so eh a Superintendent,receiving his "instructions" from the Governor in Council could not act harmoniously with the Executive of the Province ; and, also, that, with reference to the last clause, the' principle iavolved would defeat the object of the promoters of the bill—for the peop!« never willingly resign power. When the hour for our present institutions passing away has come, the time will even have arrived tor their being changed for those more in conformity with an advanced position. Then the whole machinery will undergo review, but the present moment is exceedingly inopportune, when the vrhok* of oar energies are required to establish, ou a f rra and safe basis, our connection with the mor'icr country, now in a very dangerous position. M . Fox, the Ex-Colonial Secretary, supported tli shelving of the bill, by seconding the formal resolution that it be read a second time this day six months, reserving his speech to a later period in the debate. Several speakers addressed the House. Mr. Nelson and two or three others whom I could not see fpom the gallery, and Messrs. Moorhouse aud Ward in opposition to it, both effeetivelv. The debate was then adjourned till Monday, to enable two or three Bills to advance a stage, the Upper House bein * ravenous, and therefore the « Massacre of the innocents" is postponed. Even now it is s&id, that reason is resuming her sway. That if the second reading is carried from a desire to avoid the unpleasant retrograde movement, when coses and opinions are on different sides, the Bill will be so mutilated ia committee, that its mover wiU shnnk appalled from tlie claims of the orphan child looking out for adoption. The Attorney-General moved the second red- . ing of the Representative BUI, and the Miner's .branchiseßill; the former giving four member* t > Otago, which will pass, and the latter <nvin"- the miners two members to the Assembly, and recalling their power of voting as miners for the Supermtendency, leaving them to take out the nsnal qualification, which the purchase of a quarter acre section in a township, will enable them to do It would have passed the second reading at once but was arrested by the member for EUesmere' who pounced upon it by a fell swoop, earnestly en'treatmg that it might be left for his morrow's meal, humorously asserting that he was so alarmed that if pressed he would vote for the omission of all words, after the 2nd Clause wirch the former law, giving the electoral rWnz. Hhe fails m his opposition, he ?rill use the recognition of the right to introduce a Maori franchise of a peculiar kind. I suppose on the grounds that by their late physical exhibition the Maoriesmav by a figure of speech, be considered " diggers " 'That honorable member, to whose manly eloquence the House delights to listen, has much to answer for —to day he " derates" Maories to a future preeminence; next day slaughters the "innocents"— then follows, out of pure democratic affection, a dig at the miners and on Tuesday next I fully expect that the House will see the Imperial Go^vernment with the Duke of Newcastle in the lore, pitchforked in a most merciless manner, symbolical of our barbarous tendencies. As was justly said by the proposer of the amendment, the times are out of joint, the or^an of destructireness is rampant, that of constructiveness has collapsed into a valley. This is a time requiring the utmost circumspection to rebuild the tottering fabric* and the House is engaged in pottering about the foundations, which have evinced no indications of unsoundncs<= Truly may it be said that "While Rome was burning, Nero fiddled." I sometimes fancy I see written on the walls of the House, by an unseen hand Mene, Mene, Teket Upharsin. Shortly it the current; rumours be correct, the cry will arise " To your tents, O Israel." Already the'members for Auckland long fo- the flesh-pots of their bgyyt, while those from the Southern Islands long to embrace the pledges of affection which cluster around their hearths, and it is by no means improbable that the real work of the ttouse will be performed by that sturdy few who, from conscientious principles, sit grimly in the House, when the dull and dreary details of a •Law Bill require an attendance; a curious prvin«eye could often have counted out the House, "and that with but a slight acquaintance with tha simplest arithmetical knowledge.

«• Give hkr Calomeju.-"'—We have a physician in this city (siys an Erie pa ie r) who is well known for the liberality with whicli he dispenses calomel No matter what the disease is, calomel is sure to be a part of the medicine he ad-oinh ters, ii there is any chance to use it. The do&or, too, is subject to fits of abstraction. One day}., was silently sitting by the stove xn one of cm stores, when the crowl of loafers around comme : oi talking on the subject of S?«- i? U *f On, £ s c" said one of them. « Giveher calomel," broke out the doctor. The burst oflau^iter which Mowed succeeded in rousing him from his reverie; and he seemed to enjoy the mistake as much as any of them.