THE Lyttelton TIMES. September 18, 1852.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 89, 18 September 1852, Page 6

THE Lyttelton TIMES. September 18, 1852.

Judge Stephen must at all events be accredited with consistency and determination. He has fined Mr. Robinson Twenty Pounds for the alleged contempt, and has bound over the Editor of the Independent in recognizances of One Hundred Pounds to good behaviour. •; The fine not being paid,and the sureties not being forthcoming, those gentlemen have gone to gaol, where they lay when the " Munford" sailed. The inhabitants of Wellington, however, have exhibited no less determination. Public meetings have been held, and subscriptions set on foot; the one—a half-crown subscription to pay the fines and expenses; the other, to guarantee the recognizances, into which the Editor has been compelled to enter. The fines will be paid— the recognizances entered into—the delinquents liberated—and so the scene may be supposed to close; —and the Judge and his friends will no doubt exult in the triumph of law, and the defeat of faction.

And their exultation would be justified if the matter were to end here—but it willnay, it shall not end here. With Mr. Robinson, we repeat, we have nothing whatever to do. Our business is with the press, to repel, as far as we are able, a dangerous encroachment upon the liberty of our order. As we said before it is a matter of no importance whatever, whether the Judge has acted legally or illegally in this matter. If he has exceeded his lawful authority, there are abundant means—legal means— whereby he may be called to account and punished. But the real question is one prior to one of law ; it is a question of justice. If the Judge really possess the power he has assumed, ihere is but one answer : that power must be taken away. There is no mincing this matter. The people must choose at once which they will have, a free press or an enslaved one

the press of London or the press of Paris. Take from the public press its right to censure the conduct of public officers of Government, and of the administrators of the law, and what remains ? The Sycophants of wealth and power and the recorders of private scandal. If a Judge may by an act of arbitrary power punish past actions as a contempt of court, and determine in mV own cause what shall be interpreted into contempt; why may not any other official be endowed with similar powers, why riot ' a Governor, or a Magistrate, or a Constabler? Why would it not be as wise and as right' to entrust such a power to one as another?-* For our own parts, we would rather throve our types and presses into the sea ihatf'yield to such base prostitution; of the duties^alid powers which the general patronagerof,the "1 public has committed to our hands. . ? 1 0.1 ' Whatever the law may be, it is the uni-.1 versal habit of the press in England tau animadvert on the conduct of Judges as of all other public officers. The Judges at Westminster have never thought of stoop- ■■ ing to vindicate themselves from such at* tacks. Those august personages know well that possessing, as they do, the deep respect of broad England, if such attacks are. unmerited, they are best answered by dignified silence ; but on the other hand, if. the press have really expressed the opinion of the mass of the community, such charges cannot be quashed by any formal or technical machinery of the law; they are arraigned at the awful bar of public opinion, a power which they are too Avise to affect tode- .~' spise, because they know that it is that power alone which maintains their authority, and gives dignity to their high position. - ■ Therefore it is, that whether lawful or R; unlawful, a certain latitude is given to the :■ organs of public opinion in England. Nor • without reason, for who will assert that there has ever been a period in the history > of our country, even in the days when arbi- : trary power has been most uncontrolled; when the law or its administrators have been so universally respected, or so cheerfully obeyed as now, when almost unlimited licence is given to the organs. of publicopinion. But the real secret lies here^rand we :■ shall find that every question-at last re- :'■-■ solves itself into the same one deep and mi §; nty grievance—the want, of responsible -■■ Government—the real secret is here. la >;. England, any matter of public interest which / has found expression in the newspapers, at■••: > last forms matter for debate in Parliament*-;:.^1 If the power exercised by the Judges -were >;■%& found incompatible with the. liberty \Qss* f4 the press, Parliament would %Q% yZ indeed.;nc-v trouble itself to enquire whether such power.* o?: were strictly legal or not; it would inter* $4 pose its own supreme authority, and pass a '< law defining the law, and limiting the power ■ < which had been abused. i And that must be our remedy here. A. few months more, and the reign of this miserable autocracy will 'be at an end. A few months, and we must look to the Par- ■ liament of New Zealand to define the law in matters of contempt of court. But in the mean time, we have no doubt, that the individual case which has been the qause of so much excitement, will be made the subject of appeal to the higher powers,

both in the Colony and in England ; an appeal which some passages in Judge Stevens' own life may remind him will not be made in vain.

The constitutional law proposed for New Zealand, imperfect as it undoubtedly is, is portable. We proceed to consider the probable mode in which it will operate. This is the main point after all. The English, it has often been remarked, are the clumsiest race under heaven at inventing; systems or devising schemes ; but for working any system, however bad, to the best advantage, they have certainly no equals. !cN,b,w r :v,;we, conceive it will appear upon consideratidn that : the worst parts of the proposedv-Constitution are those most likely to fall into abeyance, whilst the best features are in those parts which will come into most active operation. The chief difficulty, consists in the power of the General Parliament, one house of which consists, wholly of nominees, and which is to over-ride all the acts of the Provincial Councils. The. Provincial Councils, however, are the bodies to which the people should look as the means of carrying almost all the practical legislation of the country. First they are wholly elective; and secondly they are local in each settlement, and will therefore be composed of men possessing practical acquaintance with the matters on which they will have to legislate. The whole aim, therefore, of the people should be to throw as much as possible of the legislative work of the colony into the hands of, the Provincial Councils. If this policy be steadily pursued the power of the General Legislature and its nominee element 5 may be rendered practically harmless, at all events to a great extent. The Lower House of the General Parliament, it must be remembered, will be wholly elective; and it is probable that the members returned from the. Provinces will in most, if not in all cases, be the same as those 'returned to the Provincial Councils. Now it is impossible but that the trouble, annoyance, and expense of a voyage to, and a long continued sojourn in a distant settlement, will become so disagreeable to the members of the Lower House that they will refuse to pass any lawdn the central Parliament which might have'been passed by the Legislatures in the several settlements. If they steadily adhere; to this policy-—-if the people steadily refuse to return any member to the General Parliament who is not pledged to vote against any law which might have been passied \by the Local Councils, the Governor soo'ri final it practically useless to cslMhe Body together, and will be compelled to legislate mainly through the Local Councils in each Province, from which-nominees are excluded. In this event, it will become a custom which may be made to have all the practical weight of law, that the General Parliament is not to be called together except for the purpose of legislating upon some subject especially reserved from the power of the Provincial Governments, or upon subjects.of really common interest to all the settlements of New Zealand. At first sight' it may appear necessaiy that' the General Parliament should meet yearly for the pur-

pose of voting the public revenues and expenditure. But even this will not be absolutely necessary. It would be competent, we conclude, to the General Parliament to pass an Ordinance empoweringl and requiring the Treasurer in each Province to retain in his hands all the revenues collected in his Province, with the exception of a certain per centage which must be paid to the Treasurer of New Zealand, for the purposes of the General Government, and to meet the charges on the Civil List. The Provincial Council could then be empowered to dispose of the funds in the hands of the Provincial Treasurer in ' any manner it might think proper. Thus it would not appear at all necessary that the General Parliament . should be summoned to meet oftener than once in every two or three years, and then only for such purposes as would probably render the session of very short duration ; and consequently render attendance less burdensome upon the several members of the lower House. There is one point which we omitted to notice in our former article on this subject, from which more danger is to be apprehended than from any other. We allude to the Sum of Seven thousand Pounds annually reserved from the disposal of the Legislature by way of Civil List, for native purposes. Now, since the law provides that within the Electoral districts, the Maoris are to be entitled to the same privileges as Europeans—thatj.is, are to vote at Elections, and to possess the same franchise, there is an enormous power placed in the hands of the Governor to ' manage' the Elections by means of the native population. This Seven thous md pounds is just so much ' secret service money' by which an unscrupulous Governor may bribe the natives to swamp the English. Electors. Against this part of the Constitutional law no doubt a vigorous and successful stand will be at once made by all the Provinces. The enactment is grossly unjust on the face of it—for if the natives ere fit for, the franchise, why reserve money especially to their use? —if they require the reservation of this money for the purpose of civilizing them, then they are not fit for the franchise. It may be said that this money is intended to be spent outside the districts, where the natives are to have no vote ; very good—but let us have some guarantee to that effect: let the expenditure be regularly accounted for to the Parliament, so that the public may be assured that it has not been spent in party purposes. But even so, the power given is dangerous, because the Governor has it in his power to assign limits to the districts, and thereby to include as much of the native population as will suit his purposes. The main point, however, is that the whole scheme proceeds on the idea that the Government are more likely to expend this money beneficially to the natives than the representatives of the people; a proposition which is monstrous. .On the contrary, we are satisfied that the Maori population would have fared far better had they been left to the generosity of the popular assemblies, than they are likely to do now that a fixed sum has been set apart for their benefit, with which those parties may not deal. Upon the whole, however, we think the law is a satisfactory one, and may be made j to work well, and we repeat this opinion after having read the remarks of several of the London journals, which display a more than usual amount of ignorance on the sub- j ject. i