The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IV, Issue 166, 11 March 1854, Page 7

The Lyttelton Times.

March 11, 1854. The Meeting of the first Parliament of -New Zealand is a great epoch in its history. It is full of suggestion ; it brings up recollections of the past, and awakens anticipations for the future. We take the opportunity of making some remarks, not merely for our,ordinary readers, but with a vague hope that they may reach the eye of pur ,new temporary ruler. Our ."present p litical state is a kind of interregnum. The old regime has not yet given way to the new impulse of the Constitution. The departure of Sir George Gr.y leaves his System without its Master Spirit; but the practical administration of Government remains in the same official hands, amongst whom there lingers still the tradition of their old faith—a faith with its single Article of the Absolutism of the Governor. How Col. Wynyard will manage, with such a Cabinet, to meet and carry on business with the General Assembly is a difficulty, the solution of which we do not pretend to foresee. Jt is now quite clear that the members of the Lower House will .carry with them (and in doing so they will but express the mind i f the colon}? at large) a rooted dislike of. and antagonism to, the past policy of Government which will .direct itself naturally against the present holders of office, as the apparent embodiment of that policy. Between the old and the new party there can be no natural union or hnrmony, and we cannot see by what means the fusion of such opposing forces can be brought about. Nor, on the other hand, can we disguise from ourselves the fact that hostile collision between the Legislative and the Executive Government will be dangerous to the peace and obstructive to the progress of" the colony. Sir George Grey has unworthily shrunk from the difficulty of the crisis, casting it upon his successor. We would willingly say nothing of the departed Governor. De mortuis, nil nisi bonum. Sir George Grey's dynasty has passed away ; and we would bury it in obliv:on, except so far as it may supply suggestions or caution for the future. The characttr of Sir George Grey's Government was necessarily the reflection of his own mind ; for he was the Government in himself. The only quality approaching to statesmanship capable of being discerned in it, is Secretness. This quality Sir George Grey possessed in a remarkable degree. His powers of dissimulation isajve been rareL equalled ; his practice of it became habitual; all his wisdom lay in concealment, and his Government was a plot, distrusting and distrusted, he would have been a tyrant, but for want of power. Shaping his whole policy as nearly as possible to that end, he roused against' him the spirit of Englishmen, and made the colony

his enemy. Then began a miserable state of things. Popular animosity, unable to find legitimate vent, grew into faction ; and so, as is always the case, wrong begat wrong. His political assailants attacked him with virulent and unscrupulous language, because language was their only weapon. We recur to this topic, not for the sake of attacking Sir George Grey, but by way of warning to his successor. There is in Col. Wynyard's private character strong ground of hope for the future. He has the reputation of a frank, openhearted soldier. His first act has been to summon the General Assembly. If by this act he means to throw himself on the colonists for support, and to carry on his Government in harmony and co-operation with them, he will have done a good work, and however short his reign may be, he will have earned a lasting title to their gratihide and affection. The past will be forgotten. A frank and unsuspecting confidence on his part towards them, will be sure to breed a reciprocal feeling. This will indeed be fulfilling the intentions of Parliament. In restoring to the colonists the privileges of Englishmen, Parliament has reproduced in the General Assembly an image of itself. From henceforth, the House of Representatives will be to New Zealand what the House of Commons is to the Empire. Any Governor who desires the welfare of the colony and his own honour and happiness, will establish himself in the confidence of that body which must from this time be the spring and moving principle of Government.

It may prove in some respects an advantage that the meetings of the several Provincial Councils have preceded that of the General Legislature. Each Province may now instruct its representatives in the Assembly as to the measures which experience has proved to be most requisite i'cr enabling them each to conduct their local affairs successfully. All for example will, we conceive, concur in calling for the power of dealing with their own waste lands. Speculators in land seem already aware of .this, at least as regards this Province, their operations having commenced in earnest, as staged in our last number. It will now be a race between the capitalist wishing to secure his purchase at ss. or 10s. an acre, and the law-maker wishing to obtain a fair price for public land. Although any revenue arising from sales of land will be very beneficial to us, we trust that the public will not fail to see that if the same amount can be realised by the sacrifice of less Innd, such sales will be much more beneficial, and will continue to be a source of revenue for a proportionably longer time to come. We may be sure that as the accumulation of money from the gold fields goes on, and as the land in this Province becomes scarcer aad more settled, as roads and other public works give it value, so will the price of all which remains unsold continue to rise. There should be no anxiety to sell —to grasp at a present advautag-e by 'offering pur land, at a nominal value, a covirse which, if adopted, will be deeply deplored by us and our posterity some years hence. Whenever the Province obtains the management of this 'property, we hope tiiat our statesmen will be too wise to fix any arbitrary price, whether £2 or £3, or any other amount, per acre, without reference to the condition of the money market and other circumstances ; rather let them confide the disposal of it. to those who are ! most capable of making the best bargain for ' the public., and who should receive a per centao-e on the amcunt obtained from purchasers.

The difficulty in such an arrangement is of course the risk of favouritism and jobbery; but surely if the Commissioners for selling lands were properly selected and well paid and the fullest publicity given to all their acts by requiring an accurate report on each transaction to be laid^before^ the Provincial Council, they would he.rdly risk their characters and emoluments by unfair dealing. In the mean time, if the ss. and 10s. an acre sales do not proceed too rapidly, we shall not be sorry (excepting as they may injuriously affect stockowners) to have a few actual examples of the working of that system. It will shew the public, more clearly than anything we can say, the real meaning of the delusive cry of " cheap land." It will prove to the labourer what we have always asserted, that this system will open to him very little if any land, of which he can make any use, that is, land near a town and market; for of course that is the very land upon which, under an arbitraiy low uniform price, the large capitalist, by means of his agents, will first lay his rapacious grasp.

What is a Commissary.? This is a question which is suggested to us by the late debates at Christchurch. All we know is that a Bishop's Commissary for Canterbury has asked the Provincial Council to give him Episcopal powers, and that he is extremely offended because they will not do so. We understand that he threatens to bring .the question into the Supreme Court. This has lately become a fashionable expression—a ' good word ' among vs — what does it mean ? Does the Commissary mean that he will get a mandamus from the Supreme Court, • requiring the Council to make him a Bishop ? We are quite at sea. Can any of our readers answer our question—What is a Commissary ?

By the "Prima Donna," which arrived in this harbour on Tuesday last, we have received files of Sydney and other Colonial papers, but they do not contain any further news from England.

We have to apologise to our readers for: the accidental omission last week of a paragraph explaining that the portion of our supplement headed " Terms of Purchase and Pasturage of the Waste Lands of the Crown," &c. were resolv tions on that subject, prepared by the Executive to be submitted to the Provincial Council.