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Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 117, 2 April 1853, Page 8

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times,

Sik, —The large amount of correspondence which has appeared in your columns upon the subject of Mr. Sewell's letter induces me again briefly to trespass upon the attention of your readers.

In the general discontent which that letter appears to have occasioned, there is danger lest the one main question should be lost sight of, to which all our attention should at present be directed. I mean the publication of the accounts of the Association.

Your correspondents speak of endowments, and mortgages, and various financial proceedings, of which the public know absolutely nothing, except by rumour and hear-say. It seems somewhat premature to found arguments upon suppositious facts. Let us ascertain the facts first, and reason upon them afterwards.

My object in writing to you previously was not, as one of your correspondents supposes, to " point out the weakest part of Mr. Sewell's letter;" but, iirst, to vindicate Mr. Godley's character from an unjust insinuation, because he is not here to do so for himself; and secondly, to claim for my fellow colonists their right to know how their money has been spent: a proposition which appears to be disputed.

All other public-questions appear to me to fall into insignificance, for the time, before this one—the obtaining a full and fair account of the manner in which the land funds have been expended. And there are some especial reasons for agitating that question at the rpresent moment. First, because the public have been officially informed that copies of the accounts in full are, or will shortly be, in the colony. We have not hitherto known whether any accounts were in the colony or not. I conclude they have not been now sent hither to be stored: they have been sent, I suppose, for public information. I can imagine no other object. Secondly; A gentleman has arrived in the Settlement who has for two years been the Deputy-Chairman of the Managing Committee, and who is therefore perfectly competent to lay the account of* expenditure before the public in a clear and intelligible form. Lastly; because the Association being about to negociate with the Provincial Government for a transfer of its powers, property, and liabilities, it is needful that the t fullest as to that property and those liabilities, should be before the public with the least possible delay, in order that there may be sufficient time before the meeting of the Provincial Council for public opinion to be formed upon so important a matter.

It has transpired that Lord Lyttelton and others are personally involved to a large amount in the debts which the Association has contracted. I think there must be few who will not feel that those gentlemen who placed their private means at the disposal of the Association solely to ensure the advancement of the Settlement, and who could not have reaped one farthing's benefit from any amount of its success, ought, if possible,' to be secured against pecuniary loss. But it behoves a young and struggling community to consider well before it lays upon its own shoulders, and those of its posterity, the burden of a National Debt. I am persuaded that the public will consider this question llot. only justly as regards themselves and then- children, but generously as regards the claims to which I have alluded, if they have the means afforded them for doing so; but they cannot enter upon it at all until ample information has been laid before them as to the financial affairs of the Association ; and 1 am satisfied that, until such information has been afforded, the public will not, and

ought not, to listen to any negociation whatever. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, J. E. Fitz Gerald. The Springs, March 24,1853.