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Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 228, 14 March 1866, Page 2

On Monday evening a question was asked in the Provincial Council by Dr. Menzies why certain documents referred to last session had not been printed and circulated for the information o the public. The answer given, which will be found in our report of the Provincial Council, can scarcely be deemed satisfactory. The documents mentioned — railway contracts — are of great importance, and no false economy on the part of the Government should keep them from the public. There are other documents which should be published, that are withheld on the same plea. The following is the state of H. M. gaol for the week ending Tuesday, the 13th current : — Sen tenced to penal servitude, 7 males ; sentenced to hard labor, 7 males and 3 females ; lunatics, 5 male 3 and 1 female. Total, 19 males, 4 females. Discharged, 3 males. Discharged for the week, 2 males. Our representatives will require to exercise a cat-like watchfulness during the ensuing session of the Assembly or assuredly the South will be sold — Separation may be obtained, but it is possible "to pay too much for the whistle ;" as a straw floating on the surface of a stream indicates the direction of the current, so a paragraph in a leading journal will frequently show the cards of the party they represent. The Southern 1 Cross says : — " With regard to the Waste Lands Regulations of the province, and the regulations for the sale and disposal of the Waikato and other confiscated lands, the representatives of Auckland ought to take counsel together, and go prepared to the House to snpport any Bills that may be introduced by his Honor the Superintendent, by and with their concurrence, to facilitate the settlement and improvement of these lands. And indeed a very great deal of the future success of this province, and of the ultimate attainment of separation and independent self-government for Auckland, will depend upon the form which the measures indicated will assume. We say nothing of the quartermillion, which appears to us not to have anything to do with the separation movement. The colony is bound to carry out the Waikato settlement scheme as best it may, at its own cost j but if this province accepts the responsibility of settlement, ; and asks only for a money advance to enable it to do so effectually, which is to be repaid with principal and interest, at a future period, it requires little argument to prove that that loan in no way arrests the agication for separation. Granted that separation is the accepted policy of the colony, there must be a settlement of the partnership account between the .North and the South ; and the South would infallibly be compelled to make advances to meet the prospective and invetiable disbursements which the North wul be called upon to make in consquence of the colonial policy , in the shaping of which llie Qjuth

«^ffhe mining progress in the Lake District is ■Udy and encouraging ; nsw discoveries are continually maie, the most recent of which is thus noticed in the Wakatlp Mail. It says : — " Bees and party have discovered three separate lines of quartz running close to one another . at Moke Creek. One reef is about three feet through, another about the same, and another about four feet." *