SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Colonist, Issue 97, 24 September 1858, Page 3

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

[From the Argus Correspondent) . Adelaide, September 4. The Governor delivered his speech, and declared the session (which is expected to be a short one) opened on the 27th ultimo.

The squatting interest is very feebly represented in the Lower House, and is not strong even in the Upper; and the only point in the Governor's opening speech likely to give rise to a keen contest is the proposal to tax stock depastured on the waste lands of the Crown. I think it will be carried; it is to be made a Cabinet question, and is popular out of doors. The squatters are fe\y in numbers, aud generally wealthy; and people are disposed to think them only too fortunate. But it is scarcely fair to tax the squatters as squatters; and perhaps, no tax could fall more unequally: an assessment of say fid. ahead upon all sheep on the waste lands would fall light on those having a fine run within 50 miles of Adelaide, but would be a heavy matter to the struggling settler 300 miles away, who runs the risk of losing his whole flocks fcom the numerous contingencies inseparable from his distant location.

The sum proposed to be raised is £12,500, which is not declared to be for any special purpose, but to be absorbed into the general revenue. ;

Mr. Burford's motion, that the Attorney-Ge-neral should, not have a seat in the Cabinet,

was Shelved for the present, by moving the previous question; but the matter will turn up again, and will probably then be better looked into. On the previous day a resolution was passed declaring that no employ^ of Government, other than a member of the Cabinet, should have a seat in either House-'-a wise general rule, but which, I think, must have an exception in the case of the Attorney-General, if he has no seat in the Cabinet. At present, people feel that Mr. Hanson, the Attorney-General, must be iv the House, therefore he must be in the Cabinet.

For the past year our revenue has been greater, and our expenditure less, than was estimated to the amount, iv the aggregate, of £77,778. This appears prudent aud cautious; but whether that money would not have been better employed by pushing on useful public works than in swelling our balance-sheet is a question which I would answer in the affirmative. No one knows why the works in connection with the railway extension to Kapunda were so long in being commenced, and mauy other sums voted have not beea expended, without any reason being assigned.

Mr. Babbage's expedition is still uncrowned by success, and people begin to think that Government exploration is a useless expense, and that we may trust to the squatters discovering new available country as they want it, without caring to increase our geographical knowledge, or to investigate our geological formations. A Government party of good wellsinkers, to bore for artesian wells in some of the most waterless spots, would be cheaper and more useful than an exploring expedition, headed by a man of science.

The Rev. Mr. Binney is delighting various and numerous audiences in town and country by his forcible and original sermons. I should like to hear him gratifying us on the platform by one of his lectures—wise, practical, and religious. I think that in none of the Australian colonies he would find the Congregationalists proportionably so numerous and influential as in this. Though the fourth in point of number, they are in reality the strongest body herestrong in the Cabinet, strong in the Parliament, strong in the Press, uniting freely with all orthodox sects, but jealously alive to the slightest infringment of their theories of religious liberty.

[by electric telegraph.] Adelaide, Bth September. Markets are without change. There has been a fair business done in flour at £15 IGs. to £16.

In the Assembly, the subject of boring artesian wells has been discussed, and a resolution passed that a sum of money be appropriated for that purpose.