The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IV, Issue 187, 5 August 1854, Page 1

The Lyttelton Times.

I' August 5, 18 >4. - Me. Wakefield's speech on moving the "' address to hie Excellency the Officer admin- £ istering the Government, thanking him for I his ready acquiescence in the expressed 1 wish of the House with regard to Ministerial ~ Responsibility, is in many respects a strange and irrelevant production. As we have befox'e said, it is more like an attack upon f the new Ministry than a speech in support of the motion he brings forward. A careful scrutiny of his speech irresistibly forces upon one the suspicion of hidden and personal motives in pushing forward the subt ject of Responsible Government. His tone , betrays an evident disappointment at the { almost unanimous concurrence of the House f in his own views. He expected to have [ been the hero of a protracted struggle, and; to have beeu carried into power, so to speak,; on the shoulders of a constitutional measure. But when he finds that this measure would have been introduced without his help, that his assistance is not required in carrying it into effect, that there are plenty men in the house able and willing to initiate the system without his advice, then he begins to see dangers in every difficulty, and - to start at every shadow. He was very hapl pily likened by one honourable member to f Frankenstein, shuddering at the result of \ . his occult labours. One of the most strenuous advocates of \ Responsible Government seriously proposes ; that a Responsible Ministry should collect : the opinions of the members of the House before framing a course of policy or introducing a measure founded upon that policy.

That is, that they should cast the responsibility of their policy upon the House, and wash their hands of all consequences ;—that the underhand schemer should have more power in the House than the open leader of a party. This surely is not" what the colonists of New Zealand meant when they laid such stress upon the necessity of constituting a government responsible .to the representatives of the people. How can a go.,verjam_ent_ be called to account for its actions by those who have previously given their assent to the policy about to be adopted? Mr. Weld's answer to this point in Mr. Wakefield's speech is very much to the purpose. We cannot do better than quote it here. Mr. Wakefield says, \ " I fancy that in the framing of it, there has nut been enough of consultation with the house. In framing that policy, my hon. friends can'only have been guided by their private knowledge of the opinions of members; for not any one subject of those which are laid before us-as parts of: a settled policy lias been biibmitied to di.-cussion T>v the house. The declaration of a policy as being- that of the Government, before discussion, of its several parts by this house, appears to me peculiarly inconsistent with the provisional stale of the Government." In answering Mr. Wakefield's criticisms, Mr. Weld replies with regard to this objection, " But ihere was one piece of advice offered by the hon. member for the H uttUhat he (Mr. Weld). could not pass over without comment ; he had advised them to seek counsel and assisiance in preparing their measures from the various nonofficial members' of that house. They would be always ready, to receive in a friendly spirit suggestions made to them in that house ; but, with his hon. friend the head of the Executive in that house, he totally'dissented from the views of the hon. member for the Hutt, —as to the duties of the members of the Government. It was not, in his opinion, their duty to ascertain by any indirect means, whether their measures would or would not be acceptable to that house, it was not their duty to feel their way by consultations with this or that member, who might be supposed to command the respect of this or that subdivision of the house, —that would be shifting the responsibility; they must lay their measures before that house, and stand or fall by the result. To his mind, the course proposed by the hon. member for the Hutt would be Government by out-of-door .Committees,—Government by clique,—anything but Responsible Government." . Respecting Mr. Wakefiei/d's objections ,as to the provisional nature of the present arrangements, and the duty of consulting the House on proposed measures, Mr. Fitz Gerald says, " I entirely agree in all that has been said as to the unsatisfactory nature of the present provisional arrangements. We have stated our position fairly to the house ; and the hon. gentleman himself said he would be quite satisfied with such a provisional arrangement as that which exists (hear, hear). All I can say is, we have made the best arrangements we could under the circumstances, and we cau do no more." "I do not think it a vight or dignified course for any one charged with the duty of performing a policy on the part of the Government to go about asking for opinions. It is my duty to frame my own opinions ; if they agree with those

of the house they will be accepted ; if not, we must resign to others whose opinions are more acceptable."

This is a fair statement of what Responsible Government ought to be.

Mr.. Wakefield should have remembered his own words on moving the resolution advocating Responsible Government. "As to, fhe rest, I mean general responsibility, speaking for myself alone, I shall be content with a small reality for the present, but utterly discontented withi the largest possibleusham." Why is he now discontented, with a "responsible" provisional goyernxnent, and anxious to institute a merely, l sham" responsibility r. If the, present state of things is necessarily provisional, it is only the more important that; a fair trial should be given to the system of government which tha House has declared its determination to adopt. The admission of a felse principle in limine would'6e a serious breach of the duty imposed upon the provisional Government. We are glad to observe that the feeling of a large, majority of the House lent towards the .'views which we have endeavoured to express...

Communication between the Poet and the ■ f Plains. We .have been requested to publish the following; coiTespondence : — - ' ?l Onboard the ship Eagle, Port Victoria, July 26th, 1554. Sir, -I do myself the honour to address you on> a subject of much importance to the public at large ; namely, the communication betweenvthe Port and the Plains. The country: being now so well known, no doubti,: need exist of Port Victoria being the only port for all the country north of the Peninsula, south of the Kaikoras, as well as the wide country south of the Peninsula, and north of the Waitangi river ; and thenef re the central harbour of a line of coast nearly two hundred miles long. I only, advert to this surveyor-like description in passing, to show the absolute importance of keeping in mind, that Nature has formed Pert Victoria for 'what it must become,.setting aside all other considerations. In-January, 1851, the unanimous voice of the newly-arrived colonists, nearly 800 in number, (His Honor the Superintendent being a leading man among them) urged on the then agent of the Association the propriety of expending every farthing he could command in the completion of the Sumner road. The Association at home, on hearing of this, at once very laudably sent out i|lo,ooo with strict instructions to lay it out on that indispensable public work. The proceedings of the last three years and a half appear to have stultified that unanimous vote $i and its consequences; for not one step- has been taken in advance since. Bacon ..said, " Some difficulties resolve themselves^' In the case of this country a solution ofesome of our difficulties will not be long-i delayed. The Papanui bush will soon be exhausted ; and the increasing popularity of Kaiapoi points to the inexhaustible woodiiin that neighbourhood as the secret of its locality being so much in request. Kaiapoi possesses no advantages over Christchurch but in its abundance of wood. It wants no prophet to tell that all the produce north of Kaiapoi will be ship -

ped from thence, and supplies be imported thence from Lyttelton, or when it is made a pojt of entry like Wanganui, from Wellington or Sydney. If the navigation had been improved between Lyttelton and Christchurch, this would not be. By this oversight, Kaiapoi has been called into a precocious existence to the injury of Christchurch, and ultimately of Lyttelton. I would ask you, Sir, to look at the neighbourhood of the ferry over the Heathcote. Two years and a half ago that locality was all life, even with an unmetalled road to .'Christchurch. Now, the untenanted lands and houses show that some cause exists which has deterred the population from settling there. I attribute the desertion of au otherwise eligible position to the difficulty of obtaining wood. If it were worth while, I could multiply instances to show how indispensable the improvement of the navigation is to save the population around Christchurch from absolute suffering when the Papanui bush is exhausted.

I beg to refer you, Sir, to a letter of mine to Mr. Le Cren, which the editor of the " Lyttelton Times " obligingly inserted in his last number of that paper, on the 22nd instant. If the Provincial Council think proper to consider the matter so as to have plans and estimates ready by the time His Honor the Superintendent returns, I will devote a month to the survey and preparation of the plans. I will also give £100 towards a sum, to be 'raised in any way that the Provincial Council may think proper, for the completion of the works at the Sumner rocks. I am also at liberty to make contributions from friends for the same object.

It may be justly urged that I am interested in the object of this letter. I am indeed greatly interested in seeing the navigation complete between the Port and the Plains, as my children have one hundred acres of land at Sumner. The early choice of No. 2 gave it that position, and induced me to bring out my family to this country. lam only one of several in similar circumstances. But lam also one of a large community who are not blind, to our present dilemma; and I see what is likely to happen by the lamentable want of unanimity and action in striving to get out of our difficulties ; yet I am too much of an Englishman to sit down crying in the rut and call on Hercules to help me. We cught to be thankful for abundance of fine land, with immense natural advantages. We should forgive and forget our injuries, whether of omission or commission, in short, we should let bygones be bygones, and^ set to work energetically to make a beginning: by only aiming at a little at first, we may effect a great deal at last. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient Servant, Felix Wakjefieud. H. G. Gouland, Esq., Provincial Secretary.

Chrislchurch, July 29,1854. Sir, —I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 26th inst., on the subject of the communication between the Port and the Plains. I gather from your letter and from the interview with which you favored me yesterday, that your object is to induce the Government to undertake the improvement of the navigation at the Sumner Bar, and that you are willing to prepare plans and estimates of the works which you consider necessary, and to contribute towards the expense of executing those works. In reply I have the honor to inform you that the Provincial Government will be happy, provided -it be not thereby put to any expense, to receive from you any plans or information which can assist it in form-

ing an opinion and in deciding on the measures which it will propose at the next sitting of the Provincial Council.

You will not of course construe the readiness of the Provincial Government to receive information into a pledge to adopt the course of action you may propose ; the whole question of communication between the Port and the Plains will come under the consideration of the Government before the nest sitting of the Provincial Council, and the only pledge I am able to give you on its behalf is, that any plans and suggestions you may be disposed to favour it with, will receive the most attentive consideration. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant, H. G. Gooxand, Provincial Secretary. Felix Wakefield, Esq.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times. Lytleltcn, August 1,1851. Sik, —The notice in your last number of the concert given by the members of the Choral Society on the 26th ult., although bearing testimony to the zealous spirit in which that body is carried on, hardly conveys to the mind of your readers the gratification which the audience experienced at their performance. The pieces sang during the evening were, generally speaking, both of a higher character, and performed in a more masterly manner, than at the previous concerts, and abundantly prove that the love for the science of music increases in an equal degree with the performance of the members themselves. It must be a source of gratification to them to feel that the pleasure deVived by them in culivating the musical art is abundantly shared by their hearers. 1 cannot omit a tribute of especial praise to that gentleman who conducts their performances, and who has labored so unweariedly and so successfully in the establishment of the Society. I am, Sir, your obedient servant. One of the Audience.