GENERAL GOVERMENT DELAYS.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 49, 28 April 1863, Page 3

GENERAL GOVERMENT DELAYS.

(From the Otago Daily Times.) It has been one of the main arguments in favor of Separation, tbat under existing circumstances necessary domestic legislation was either neglected altogether, or at best hurried through without due consideration. The last session of the General Assembly, it is well known was mainly devoted to that inevitable subject, native affairs, and the few bills, bearing on either the commercial or social affairs of the colony, were hastily rushed through committee and passed in the simplest formal manner. Two of the most important measures passed last session were the Debtors and Creditors Act, and the Act for establishing Marine Boards. Both these measures were urgently required. The state of the laws affecting insolvents and imprisonment for debt had long been considered a disgrace to the Golony, and the immense increase in the commercial transactions of the colony caused by the gold discoveries, rendered it absolutely necessary that the insolvency law should be thoroughly revised and amended. Accordingly the Debtor and Creditor's Act of 1862 was passed, but although about eight months have elapsed since it received the sanction of the Governor, it has not yet been put into force. Not long ago Mr. E. B. Cargill, one of the members for Bruce, and who had taken an active part in the framing and passing of the bill, wrote to the Colonial Secretary, explaining the urgent necessity there existed for the Act being brought into immediate operation, and pointing out the loss and inconvenience suffered by the trading community under the existing anomalous and unsatisfactory law. If our memory serves us correctly, the answer vouchsafed to Mr. Cargill's application was an" intimation that some of the provisions of the Act requiring modification, they were to be submitted to the Judges of the Court of Appeal, and after receiving the requisite legal emendations, the Act should immediately be brought into force. The Court of Appeal has met and dissolved, and yet nothing is heard of the intention of the General Government as to when the Act shall be proclaimed. As far as we are aware, all the necessary preliminaries have been fulfilled. The Chambers of Commerce, in the various Provinces, have nominated the persons required by the Act as Mercantile Asessors ; and yet we believe that although the names of the proposed assessors have been submitted to the Government for some two or three months, the nominations have not yet been fully sanctioned. Here we have a measure affecting seriously the commercial interests of the whole colony, in the first place prepared so hastily and passed so inconsiderately that it is found to be unworkable in its present shape, and to require the assistance of the judges in improving it, and then quietly laid on the ehelf. It does not require us to tell the mercantile community how much their interests are injured by the existing state of the insolvency laws. It is nnsatisfactery alike to debtors and creditors, the former are too much at the mercy of vindictive creditors, and the latter to that of unprincipled and dishonest debtors. There can be lio doubt that i the Debtors and Creditors' Act had been in force during the past few months, it would have had a very salutary influence, and tended much to preserve a healthy tone of commercial morality.

Equally important in its way, and equally affecting the commercial interests of the colony was the Marine Boards' Act. Even before the recent enormous extension of the shipping trade of the colony, there was an urgent want of legally constituted authority for regulating the management of ports, pilots, and other matters "relating to navigation, but now it is an absolute necessity, and it was the recognition of that necessity which prompted the Act in question. The members of the Central Board have been appointed, and the gentlemen have drawn their salaries for some months, but beyond an abortive sitting in Wellington, and some recommendations in respect to new lighthouses, the Marine Board has shown no signs of existence. One of the main features of this act was the provision for local boards in the various provinces, and the power of constituting these was delegated to the Provincial Councils, under certain well defined conditions. The Councils of Otago and Canterbury passed the necessary measures for constituting Local Boards, and yet for some unexplained reason both these Ordinances have been disallowed. We notice that at a recent meeting of the Auckland Provincial Council, Mr. Daldy, who is a member of the Central Marine Board, stated that at a meeting which was held, " they found great difficulty in understanding and carrying cut the intention of the act, and it was generally the opinion, not only of the Board, but also of the General Government, that this act would have to be amended to a very considerable extent, if not repealed altogether." Can anything be moie unsatisfactory than such a state of legislative disorder? Surely the

people of the Middle Island in general, and of Otago in particular, will now see how, under the existing system of Government, their best interests are sacrificed.