GENERAL NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 923, 6 February 1872, Page 3

GENERAL NEWS.

The " Nelson Examiner " is opposed to the removal of the next session of the Assembly to Dunedin. Our contemporary says:—lt is a great pity that a question of this nature comes before the House of Representatives in the way it annually 'does. By the Constitution Act, the power of summoning the Legislature is given to the Governor, who calls when and at what place he chooses. When, in 1866, responsible government was conceded to the colony, it appears to have been taken for granted that this power, like most others, was to be exercised in accordance with the will of the majority of the popular branch of the Legislature. No doubt it is a question upon which the Assembly as a whole ought to be in a position to pronounce a decided opinion ; but that is not the position practically assumed at the present moment. The claim of the House of Representatives is to settle the matter by its own vote, without reference to the other branches of the Legislature. The Parliament of New Zealand Consists of a Governor, a Legislative Council, and a House of Representatives. The united will of these three bodies is ex-

pressed by an instrument termed an Ace of Parliament. It is a pity, we think, that the question of the place of meeting of the Legislature has not been settled by this legal and constitutional proceeding. If it rested upon the authority of an Act, it would still ho open for the consideration of and possibly revision of Parliament; but it would not bo the privilego of the popular branch alone, as at present, to be constantly tampering with and deranging everything that has been settled.

Many ingenious calculations have been made with regard to the amount which has been realised by the woolgrower owing to the advance which has taken place in the price of this staple? but it has perhaps never been noticed that the addition to the income of the colony, owing to the increase in the quantity of wool produced, has been obtained by this rise in pi-ice. The quantity of wool exported from New Zealand in 1870 amounted to ? and it may be safely estimated that the quantity which will be exported this season will reach 50,000,000 lbs. Even an advance of 4d. per lb. on the whole of this quantity would only realise £945,0)0! but if the prices of wool had not advanced at all, and remained the same now as it did in 1870, the value of the increased quantity at 2s. per lb would amound to no less than £650,000. This large increase in price must have a more beneficial influence on the prosperity of the country. The production of wool will go on increasing year by year; but it is probable that the rise in its price has already reached its limits, though this is by no means certain. ;

Messrs. Driver, Stewart, & Co., of Duneclin, have sold the Hugged Kidges Station, situated in • the Waitaki district, 60,000 acres, with 26,43S sheep, for the sum of £16,500, to Charles Nichols, Esq.; also, the Stotfold Statiou, situated in the Oamaru dis trict, 26,000 acres leasehold and 2740 acres freehold, with 18,000 sheep, for the sum of £12,100, to Philip Oakden, Esq.—"Daily Times," Jan. 25. The following Dunedin items are under date Feb. I: —Bishop Moran, in a sermon, asserted that the Government has instructed against Irish immigration, but it has" siuce been officially contradicted. Cagli, of the Opera Company, assaulted Graham in Princes street, for publishing slanders regarding his wife. The Executive has been re-constituted: Eeid as Provincial Secretary, and Bradshaw as Secretary to the Goldfields and Public Works. The City Council offers to purchase the Waterworks; they paying a yjremium of £2 on paid-up capital, £44,000, besides clearing the liabilities amounting to £IO,OOO.

In Chambers at Christchureh, the other day, his Honor Mr. dustice Gresson announced a decision of some importance—to the effect, as we understand, that it will no longer be necessary for a creditor desiring to have the power to arrest his debtor, to obtain the order which has hitherto been usual, withdrawing his protection during the suspension of the order ef discharge. The protection will henceforward be taken to be withdrawn by the fact of the suspension of a discharge ; and it will in future be necessary for debtors desiring to avoid arrest during the time of suspension to get a continuance of their protection endorsed upon the order. A tunnel 3700 ft. long and costing £20,000 is about to be constructed by a public company through the Cape Colville Peninsula to connect Coromandel harbor with Kennedy's Bay. The tunnel will, it is said, not only open up a large extent of auriferous ground but make an excellent means of communication from the Coromandel mines to the crushing batteries.

That "Heathen Chinee" has been victimising the banks in Southland to the tune of £SOO, says the Dunedin " Star." The perpetrator of the swindle is named Kee Chang, and has several aliases. He was acting as " boss" of a mining party of his countrymen at Orepuki, for the last three months, and disposed of spurious gold on three separate occasions. The first was to a Mr Howell, buyer for the Bank of New Zealand, who purchased a cake of amalgam weighing 27oss; the next day he got rid of a cake of 25ozs to another buyer from the same bank ; and subsequently disposed of a cake of lOOozs to the agent of the Bank of Otago. Chang has decamped. Two men have been arrested as accomplices of Chang, and the police found £3B on them, and succeeded in intercepting two letters of credit for sums amountizg to £350.