MONDAY, JUNE 8.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3399, 8 June 1868, Page 2

MONDAY, JUNE 8.

The election of even one new member to the House of Representatives is a matter of very great moment to the interests of Auckland at the present time. As yet no decided course of action to be pursued in the ensuing session of the Assembly by the province has been indicated in any way, either by the people or by their representatives. The occasion of the election of a new member for Franklin, it may be hoped, will be taken advantage of to elicit public opinion on this subject before it is too late to be of any use. We sincerely trust that we may be spared a repetition this year of the humiliating spectacle of our members proceeding South; to legislate for their constituents, and to give their sanction to important public measures affecting the liberties and pockets of the people, without any definite understanding among themselves, or any clear apprehension of the wishes of those they represent. The constituencies, no doubt, are greatly to blame in permitting such a course. Their supineness in the matter will debar them from just ground of complaint hereafter, if it should transpire that serious blunders have been committed, or that favourable opportunities have been neglected which might have been turned to good account ; but this will not eionorate the representatives themselves if they persist in ignoring, as they , hay© done hither' j ; 'heir own obvious duty^

at a time like the present, of calling together the general body of the electors, for the purpose of inviting a popular expression of opinion on the eve of the meeting of Parliament. We understand there is likely to be a contested election for the vacancy caused by the retiremen«fc*of Mr. Robert Graham. Up to the present time, however, nothing has transpired from which we can glean that any really comprehensive view of the existing state of affairs has been put forth by any candidate. A great deal is being said just now about local self-government. Both can* didates for the suffrages of the Franklin electors profess themselves favourable to theestablishment of the new system of administration known by that name ; there still continues, however, a very painful ambiguity about these professions. We ourselves have ever been staunch believers in the value and excellence of the principle of local self-government, especially for this colony, because we have all along foreseen that it must be our principal safeguard against extravagance and arbitrary legislation on the part of the Ministry of the day. But though the assertion of the principle, on the part of our public men generally, may be esteemed a very considerable point gained— and so far as this has been done it ia not to be despised — yet, practically, it may re-* suit in no real or bona fide advantage whatn ever to the people. Everything depends, on the right application of a principle' in any given case. And in the instance of local self-government; this will hold true in an especial degree. There may be almost' an infinite variety of conditions under which the privilege in question may be conferred. Some of these might be of a character to convert the boon into a curse rather than a blessing. Some might entail an amount of labour or expense in the working of the scheme that would neutralise, or all but neutralise, the advantages hoped for from it. It is quite possible — we will not say in this case to pay too dearly for our whistle (for some might not go with us so far)— but to discover after completing the bargain that we have not got a whistle at all, but only a painted Brummagem. What is the character of the selfgovernment desired by the people at the Thames 1 What i 3 recommended ? Such are the questions we had hoped to see answered at the public meeting held there last week. Tet no attempt whatever was made by any one to throw light on the subject. And, as we have said, up to the present the candidates for the honour of re-, presenting a district specially desirous of being brought under this system have treated the matter in a way to leave these points still an open question. No one, in fact, appears able to tell us exactly what this local self-govern--ment is to be — at least so far as the Thames is concerned — whether it shall be admiuistered under the segis of the General or Provincial Government ; whether it shall be endowed from without, or be supported from -within \ what its liabilities at starting would be, and what its resources when in operation ; what limitation to its powers would be imposed, or what extension of privileges would be granted it ; what relation it would stand in to the rest of the colony ; what allegiance it would owe to the central Government ; and how the district under its management would square off the account between it and the parent province. No doubt the new member for Franklin, whoever he may be, intends answering these questions at a future day. In the meantime, of course, if the electors themselves are disposed to be patient, there is no reason what- , ever why their representative should be in a t hurry. It is very much the fashion with us now-a-days to have our elections first, and the opinions of the candidate more at leisure ) and, if this should be the case on the present occasion at the Thames, it will be no more than has occurred in other parts of New Zealand again and again. ' ' But it is not only in reference to this question that it seems to us a great mistake just now to overlook the opportunity of having an interchange of views between the people and their representatives elected or elect. There are the great questions of" taxation, retrenchment, and administration to come under discussion shortly, when the decisions to be arrived at will affect the welfare of every man in the community for years to come. Is it not most essential, then, that something more satisfactory, by way of declaratien of sentiment, should be obtained, than can be hoped for in a mere hustings speech, delivered ad captandum, at the lastmoment, before any man is put in a position to vote on these points ? In the name of common consistency we entreat all who are, or may be, candidates for the representation of any portion of this province, as also all who are representatives already, to take immediate steps ' for bringing themselves into contact with public opinion on the questions of the day, so that there may be some probability of unity * <> among themselves, and of their being " f able to act at the proper time in accordance with the actual wishes of their constituents. ; .

The nomination of * candidate for the represent** tion of City of Auckland West in the Provincial Council will be held at the old Court-house at noon to-day, and the poll, if necessary, will ; be taken to, morrow. Mr. Staines is the only candidate who hai as yet announcedj himself, but it is not at all impro« ' bable that the election will be contested. Our Papakura correspondent wri'teVthat thVcont- IV/ . mittee appointed to carry out the preliminary af- rUi raogemenfcs for the holding of a public meeting at the Papakura Hotel on Friday will meet again on Wednesday next at 12 o'clock, and not on Wednesday week, as stated in the report which we published on Saturday. - < - y Onr Thames correspondent mentions that Mr. Swan, of the firm of Kerr andi-Swan, Shortland, and a member of the Improvement Committee, is to contest the election for Franklin against Mr. W, Buckland. An active canvass is to be commenced. We hold over our Tanranga correspondent's] lw letter. " ' _ ' ,\ .. The Native Compensation Court, held at Tauranga terminated it* sittings on the 30th May, after being open a week adjudicating upon the olaims of a very large number of natives. The statement published by us on Friday last, ' respecting the extension of theaukati toWhangamata and Mataora, is confirmed by a gentleman who lately arrived in town. v We ajsp learn that the Hauhaus of the Upper Thames had) endeavoured to induce Te Hira to interdict the, crossing of> theaukati by their own people, and .to allow, only natives to come from the European side. This, it will" be sefen, > * is a new phase in the history of aukatis, inasmuch a such a one would operate mutually.' upon natives and Europeans alike^would cut both' w»js in fact. Te Hira is said to have declined to entertain the proposal— whether from a conviction that the arrangement wowld be inconvenient we know not. A man, named Adam Chioholm, of Waiheke. was „ on Saturday last apprehended b'y'coiwiwblcF^dr- 1^ ruon and Greene, on warrant,, charged with using abusive and threatening language towards William Hodgson.and landed at Auckland yesterday morning. : <Jeisie; > ' f " alJci "^ ni '^^' X'K '

Intelligence ha* been received in Auckland of tbe ■adden death, on the 27th ulfc., of William Field, a olerk redding at O«mbridge. At an inquest hehl before Captain Clare, aoting coroner, a verdiot of "Died from excessive drinking" was returned. In the report of the meeting of the City Board, which appeared in our Satm day's issue, an error VM made in the name of one of the speakers. The •eoond and fifth paragraphs from the bottom should begin with th« name of Mr. Finlay, instead of Mr. Bugden, as it was the former gentleman who made the remarks placed by our reporter after the name of Mr. Bngden. At the Police Court, on Saturday, Anne Holdsworth and Robert Leary were each fined ss. for being drank. Eliza McGinn, convicted of habitual drntikeaness, waa ordered to be kept in priion for on* month. Richard Dawkins was brought up for sentence— having pleaded guilty on a previous oooasion to stealing a large quantity of wearing apparel, the property of Ellen Dougherty. During the time he waa remanded another information had been laid against him for stealing a watch, the property of Patrick O'Neill. To this charge the prisoner at onoe pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to tax months' imprisonment. For the original charge of stealing wearing apparel hi* Worship sentence! him to twelve months' imprisonment, with hard labour ; the one sentence to commence on the termination of the other. Basil J. Gabert was charged with stealing 300 Hobart Town Palings, bnt, tbe evidence not being sufficient to sustain the charge, the prisoner was acquitted. Qwine to want of space we were compelled to exclude the following remarks made by Mr. A. McDonald from the report of the proceedings of tbe Papakura Association, published in Saturday's issue. M». McDonald, in moving his resolution as to the desirability of the settlers meeting their representatives before proceeding South, said:—" Mr. Chairman and fellow electors, my end in asking you to pass this motion v, that you may prove yourselves worthy of having a voice|in the government of the oountry; bat in the time past of our political existence in this province, one would almost be inclined to think that the administration of our political syttem was carried out by a few despots ; and I for one must say that such, as a rule, has been the case in this province. Now, let me ask you how this came to be so. Was it becase our representatives were such able statesmen, and that the electors, who returned them, were so thoroughly unable to judge for themselves or for the commonwealth, that our members never would condescend to ask advioe at their hands ? Now this was not so, for let it be said in truth that the major part of the Auckland members for the Assembly were a lot of muffs, and as soon ss they were elected acted as if they were elected despots of the districts of Raglan or Franklin, as the case migh*: be. A few of oar Auokland members gave way to the pressure that was brought to bear upon them in the Auokland press on this subject, namely, that it was the duty of tbe representatives ef the people, at the clo<e of each Session of Parliament^ to render an account of their stewardships to those whose representatives they were ;' and in like manner, before going to attend to their legislative duties, they ought to know tbe mind of the electors, that when they have learned the mind of all they may go to tbe Assembly determined to use their influence in carrying out, not the mind of the few, but thai of the many. And this, I maintain, is the aim and true interpretation of our representative institutions; and tbe member who does not seek to represent his constituents in this w»y is not worthy of snob a responsible and exalted position. Nay, unless this course be pursued, our representative system is a dead-letter and a farce. Then let us demand that which belongs to us, namely, a voice in the government of the country ; and this is the way we ought to exercise that voice, by speaking, as it were, in tbe councils of the colony through our representatives. And here let me congratulate the Franklin constituency on the opportunity of returning one of our old political veterans — one who has been tried, and has not been found wanting, namely, Mr. William Buckland. lam sure that, after you return him as your representative in the General Assembly, he will most gladly meet JOU, so that he may oonsult with you on the important measures whioh ought to be brought before theforthooming session of the Assembly." For one reason, we are heartily glad that the Duke •f Edinburgh has gone away. We shall be spared the infliction of those incessant communications from his Hiuhness's equerries to bootmakers, gasfitters, greengrocers, tailors, fancy bread bakers, and other useful members of society, informing them that they have been selected severally to supply hit Royal Highness with all sorts of domestic conveniences, whenever he shall require them. And considering that his Royal Highness will most probably never Visit Australia again, his Royal Highness* custom is not likely to prove a very profitable connection. The amusingly absurd part of all this " Koyal appointment" fuss is, that every one of the greensrocers, gasfitters, Ac, has seemed to consider himself theexclusiveobjectof the Duke of Edinburgh'B favourable regard. The letters of appointment have been published from day to day, something after the manner of those intensely uuinteresting snake stones whioh all through the summer appear so regularJy in the new^pap*™ — everybody who is fortunate or unfortunate enough to see a snake, or bear of a snake, or dream of a snake, conceiving himself bound to make publio mention of it. It would be well indeed if a oategorioal method were generally adopted in recording these events, so that one could take them all in at a gulp, say half a column at once, and get them oyer in a single effort. It is no doubt highly interesting to the persons immediately concerned in these Royal appointments to know that they have the exclusive privilege of supplying a Royal Prince with boots, lamp-oil, candlesticks, fresh vegetables, blacking) *°d opossum skins ; but as the rest of the world does not care a straw about it, but gets rather irritated than otherwise to be continually told about it the faat of the announcement having, let us hope, come to an end is a subject for congratulation.— Australasian. At Ballarat the other day the police arrested a man whom they prononnoed drunk, and took him to the watchhonse as a desperate character, who had offered violent resistance to the officers of the' law in the •xeoution of their duty. But it was afterwards found that the poor fellow was not drunk at all, but suffering from a terrible seizure of epilepsy, to which he was subject. It is perhaps not unnatural that the constabulary mind should be habitually prepossessed in favour of the drank theory, considering how abundant is the rule of drunk, and how rare the exception of fits. But it is at least not re-sssunng to those who are unhappily the subjects of cerebral disease, that they may at any time find themselres oharged with an offence against the law, when in reality they ought to be the objects of the most careful medical treatment. The very violence ued to force a struggling epileptic to prison might so aggravate his malady as to convert into a fatal attack What would perhaps otherwise be only a temporary seiaure. It is too much to expect a policeman to discriminate between drink and epilepsy, but it seems desirable that, wherever there is any doubt on the ' subject, medical supervision should be promptly i resorted to. The new Lunacy Act, as interpreted by some 1 ■apient police constables in the country distucts, is, certainly a most marvellous statute. It appears to be even more elastic than the Vagrant Act, under , whioh a man with perhaps £100 in his pocket has been arrested and sent to gaol for having no lawful . or viable means of support. Not that in these days j "Of ""three up" the possession of £100 is any guarantee of respectability, though itdoes appear, for a time at ' least, a v«ry visible means of support. ' A few days I since at Ballarat a man and his wife agreed to differ, , or, to quote matrimonial parlano*, had a slight j tiff" The affair coming to the knowledge of anj aoiive and intelligentgentleman in blue, he diligently ■ shepherded the errring husband, and at last lodged , him in gaol as a lunatic. Here he was iieen first by one doctor and then by another. Neither of these learned disciples of examined the unfortunate man, but contented themselves with remanding him from time to time. The consequence was, that for twenty-three days he was confined in gaol, and but for the interposition of a mauiutrate po«»«"- . inif some little common sense, w.ho l*w that tbe man was perfectly sane, the nndutiful husband Would have been committed to the A**'*' i Asyftm. It is said that in, this instance the wife Mad .nothing to do with the affair; but she appears at any rate to have very .quietly acquiesced, in; ,tbese, e x br »* ordinary proceedings, Jflthe Lunacy Act is to be administered in this way, it will, no doubt, prove very convenient for wivesjde»irous of getting rid of too exacting hnsbandT, or for husbands desirous of •ratner 'more freedom than their too particular wives are disposed to grant. Seriously, very great care should be observed in dealing with persons under this statute. Evidently it can be very easily abused if there, jm tfre .slightest carelessneis on the part of tbe authorities, and we think that no person ' charged with lunacy should be detained, even for, fonr-and- ' twenty hours, save after proper examination, and on of tw6 and highly respect.