The Lyttelton Times March 6, 1852.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 61, 6 March 1852, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times March 6, 1852.

The relations between the Canterbury Settlers and the Government have been frequently discussed in our columns; those between the Settlers and the Canterbury Association, seldom. The reason has been

that we have been accustomed to regard the latter as of so temporary and makeshift a character, that we could not treat of them as they were a permanent or recognised arrangement. The Government, both Home and Local, are opposed to the principle of local self Government for colonies. They profess indeed to approve of it; and they put forward shams pretending to grant it, but really retaining that in which alone it consists, the patronage and the purse strings. The Canterbury Association on the other hand has been the public advocate for the self-government principle; and the most active members of the Managing Committee are some of the leading members of the colonial reform party. § While, therefore, we know that self-government must be wrung, step by step, from the Colonial Office, we have been wont to assume, as a matter of course, that it would be acted on by the Association. And this feeling, we conceive, has hitherto pervaded the minds of the community of Canterbury. The murmurs of the public, however, which begin to be heard, must find a voice in the public press. The discontent of the land purchasers, expressed at their last meeting, followed by Mr. Cholmondeley's letter, a letter manifestly giving utterance to more than his individual opinions— warn us no longer to avoid dealing with the question of the present and future relations between the Association and the Colonists. We have formerly stated our view of what those relations in the first instance were; they are expressed in one sentence —that the function of the Association was to found a colony not to govern it. The minute of the 24th May published in the fourth number of the Canterbury papers, defines the Association to be " a body," simply " selling land." They were a body, similar to the Commissioners for waste lands in Park Street, entrusted with the sale of the waste lands of the Crown, and with the disposal of the monies arising therefrom, upon certain objects specified in their charter. It is true that there was no provision in their charter for making them responsible to the colonists for the administration of these funds, but they undertook to dispose of them ■" according to the wishes and direction of the colonists." [See Canterbury papers, No. 1, p. 7~|; and they promised that " the utmost publicity would be courted and the most detailed information of expenditure afforded." [Ibid p. 17.] Vaguely as these undertakings were worded, they were accompanied by so many personal assurances on the part of the leading members of the committee to the colonists, at the meetings in the Adelphi, that a general impression prevailed amongst the latter, that after the first work of getting together, and sending off the first body of colonists was accomplished, the latter would find themselves in the colony invested with a certain recognized control over the proceedings and policy of the Association. Without some such assurance and belief, the organization of the Society of Land Purchasers, an organization adopted, if not at the actual instigation, at all events with the formal recognition of the Managing Committee, would have been at best a miserable farce. Fifteen months have now elapsed since the arrival of the first settlers, and it is a matter of public notoriety that these anticipations have not been realized. The Society of Land Purchasers remains as it is truly but facetiously termed by Mr. Cliolmondeley, " a debating club with Mr. Brittan for chairman :" and above all a new Act of Parliament has been obtained, conferring some very large additional powers upon the Canterbury Association, but entirely passing over the Colonists as beings who have no existence in the eye of the law.

Let us then take a review of the present actual position of the Canterbury Association in our settlement. In the first place,' they draw a revenue from the settlement amounting to £50,000 a year, that being the mininum value of the land sales they are bound to effect. The revenues of the Local Government it must be remembered are but £5,000 or £6,000 a-year. 2. They derive an additional income from the sale of licenses for pasturage purposes and for thivcutting of timber. 3. They hold by convey- .„ ance to themselves, all the public property of the settlement, all the land reserves for public purposes, and all the sites of the offices of Government. 4. They hold in trust all the land endowment fund for ecclesiastical and educational purposes. 5. They possess various extensive powers in reference to rights of way, rights over water courses, &c. It follows then that the Canterbury Association may be described as one large department of the local Government of the settlement —much the largest department,— because possessing nine parts out of ten of the public income, and the whole of the public property of the settlement. Now upon what principle, and especially with what consistency can it be argued by those who maintain that the General Government ought to be responsible to the colonists for the administration of its powers, that the Canterbury Association ought to be relieved from a similar responsibility ? We do not wish to imply that this has ever been argued. We do not believe, because we cannot believe, that the Duke of Newcastle, or Lord Lyttelton, or Mr. Adderley or Mr. Frrncis Baring would for one moment differ *" from our proposition as a theory ; and yet it is certain that the Committee are acting as -* though they were prepared to maintain it. What is the fact? that the colonists are in total ignorance of the financial condition of the Association. No detailed account whatever has been placed before the public, excepting Mr. Bowler's report upon the expense of the first eight ships. The receipts and expenditure in the colony are open to public inspection down to the minutest and most trifling detail, —any one may inspect them upon the payment of one shilling. There ought to be a similar publicity given to the whole of the financial proceedings of the Association. Again the affairs of the Association in the colony are to be managed by what Mr. Cholmondeley happily terms a " Board of Guardians," appointed by name by the Committee of Management in London, responsible to and removable by them, wholly beyond the control of the colonists. Now how the gentlemen we have named could one night attack the Colonial Office for constituting a partially nominated Council to manage some departments of Government, and the next could support a measure for constituting an entirely nominated Council to manage a department of Government of ten times the magnitude of all the rest, is a matter for grave and sad reflection. . _„.: What the issue of these things may be, ' is doubtful. For our own parts, we have a* very strong reliance upon the tried honour and integrity and public spirit of the members of the Managing Committee in London. We believe that when the colonists shall have represented their wishes, those wishes i will meet with the attention they deserve. -, It may be that the Committee have felt, as we have ourselves expresed, that the foundation of a colony is an exceptional case, and that ordinary maxims of Colonial Government can only come into operation when the colony shall have arrived at its normal condition : it is possible that, in the excitement of dispatching ship after ship, they may have in imagination prolonged the time in which the process of founding the colony is

supposed to be carried on. If so, it cannot but be that the first and slightest intimation from th? colonists that, as far as they are concerned, their settlement was founded when the firs man planted his foot upon the shore, will recal the Committee from the dangerous error upon the verge of which it stands, and that they will recur to those principles of Colonial Government of which have themselves been the staunchest ""IHvocates. y- But the history of the past year has taught us a graver lesson, it has opened our eyes to many deficiencies in the original scheme of the Association. In the first place we have learned that the Colonizing Association ought in fact to be the colonists. The colonists are those to whom the charter ought to have been granted ; in them ought every one of the powers to have been vested which are now held in trust by the Canterbury Association. Secondly, we have learned to see the danger of the co-exist-ence of a Government for general purposes, and an amateur Association entrusted with enormous powers within the same limits. The scheme of the Canterbury Association could only have been thoroughly .tried in a country over which no government of any sort extended. And any corporation entrusted with such great powers of local management should have been entrusted with powers of Government for all purposes whatever. It has been more to accident, to- the personal character of the Agent, and to the courtesy of Sir George Grey in placing the principal Offices of Government in the hands of those recommended by the Association than anything else, that f we have not experienced the most ruinous effects from this divided authority in the f settlement. The critical condition of affairs in this settlement is, we believe, felt by all, and we cordially approve of a suggestion contained in a letter which will be found in another column, that there should be a general organization of the colonists for the purpose of keeping a watch over the public interests. Rumour says that some such scheme is likely to be the subject of discussion at the next meeting of Land Purchasers. Should this prove the case, we hope nothing may occur to place the land purchasers in a position of antagonism to the rest of the community, for unanimity amongst all classes affords the only prospect which the colonists have of obtaining a recognition of their demands.

In the events at Otago, of which we published a report in a late number, it is difficult to say whose conduct has been most disgraceful, —that of Judge Stephens or the Otago Bench of Magistrates. 1. Judge Stephens lays an information against certain persons for defamation of his character, and in stating his case to the magistrates, he indulges in slanders so gross, that the Otago Witness shrinks from publishing his speech. 2. One of the magistrates sitting to hear v the case, is Judge Stephen's own attorney in the prosecution, and his brother magistrates allow him to continue sitting, notwithstanding an objection raised by the defendants. 3. The Resident Magistrate leaves the bench, is sworn as a witness, —the only important witness in the case, —gives his evidence, and returns to the bench to decide in favour of his own evidence. 4. Judge Stephens is prosecuted by one of the defendants for having assaulted him, and his Honour concludes his defence of conduct more becoming a street brawler than a Judge, by saying that it was not to be expected, under the provocation he had received, that he could "wait for the

SLOW AND TARDY OFEB.A.TION OF XHE LAW." The conduct of Judge Stephens so far affects us, that, as Judge Chapman has finally determined to leave the New Zealand bench, we may expect that he will, unless previously removed, preside in the Supreme Court at Canterbury, so we may shortly perhaps have the pain of ourselves hearing his Honour indulge in similar sneers at the laws he is appointed to administer. The bench of magistrates of Otago, in allowing the plaintiff's attorney to sit and vote with them, and in permitting the Resident Magistrate to be sworn as a witness whilst on the bench, and to adjudicate upon his own evidence, evinced so strange a disregard for justice, as might well encourage his Honour or any other coarse man, to express an insolent contempt for law in their presence. There is one redeeming feature in these proceedings. Dr. Purdie and a minority of the bench, which, but for the double vote of the Resident Magistrate, would have been a majority, recorded a severe and dignified censure upon the conduct, and especially upon the language of the Judge. We regret that we do not know the names of the gentlemen who coincided in that opinion : they deserve the thanks of all who desire to maintain the dignity and character of the bench in New Zealand.