WELLINGTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IV, Issue 224, 23 December 1854, Page 5

WELLINGTON.

Adjoukned Meeting at the Hutt.—The Hutt electors have refused to make up their minds as to which of their members was in the right at the late Sessions of the General Assembly. Mr. Ludlam said that if Mr. Wakefield received a vote of thanks lie would resign. Mr. Wakefield did not go so Air—he said that if the meeting expressed any distrust of him, lie would retire from their service. The Hutt

electors, anxious as they are for compensation, \ and willing us many of them seem to be to give support to a man whom they distrust because lie promises them that boon, were not prepared to lose, the services of their constitutional member, Mr. Ludlam. After Mr. Wakefield's ..boast that he would turn Mr. Ludlam out, he must be considerably disappointed at the iinal adoption of the following resolution :—

"We, the electors of the Hutt, in public meeting assembled, most cordially approve of the great and laudable endeavours made by our representatives fof the introduction of Ministerial Responsibility into the General Assembly of New Zealand.

And notwithstanding the difference? that arose between our members during the latter part of the first session, and which continued throughout the whole of the second, still we do not feel ourselves justified in passing any vote, the certain effect of which would be to cause the resignation of either Mr. Wakefield or Mr. Ludlana." NELSON. The following remarks made by Dr. Monro at the dinner lately given to him by the VVaimea Electors, will he interesting to our readers. Dr. Monro said before returning thanks he must advert for a moment to the melancholy event which had been the cause of the dinner being postponed. He then spoke of the deep regret felt no t only by his friends, but by the people of the settlement generally, at the melancholy death of Mr. Otterson, and paid a wellmerited tribute to the memory of that gentleman, referring to the services he had rendered to the district of 'Richmond in especial, and to the general estimation in which he was held. Having done this, he thanked the company for this testimonial of their approval of his conduct in the Session of the General Assembly. The duties of a first session were necessarily of an arduous and important character, and they had become ipeculiarly'difficult in consequence of the unfortunate circumstances which developed themselves in the course of their proceedings, and which threw upon every representative a very great degree of responsibility. Some approval of the conduct they had pursued was the more cheering to him, because he had observed that very hard things had been said of the House of Representatives in the newspapers of the neighbouring colonies. He had only two days before lighted upon a paragraph copied into the Neiv Zeaiander from the Sydney Morning Herald, and taking this as a fair specimen, he would, with their permission, make a few remarks upon it The first thing that struck him about itfwap, that it indicated a degree of fastidiousness and delicacy, an excessive shrinking from anything like coarseness or vulgarity, which one would hardly have expected from the press of that colony. This extreme nicety was so conspicuous in the newspaper he had meutioned, that he was involuntarily reminded of what was said to he the practice at some boarding schools in America, where they put little trousers round what it was fashionable to call "the limbs" of the piano forte, lest the young ladies should have their morals corrupted by seeing them naked (laughter). He was remiuded also of the celebrated definition of a nice man, which ifc was said meant a man of nasty ideas (laughter), and although' the definition was perhaps chiefly valuable on account of its apparent paradox, and the ridiculous ideas it suggested, it nevertheless contained within jt "a jewel of truth, for there was no doubt fthat a man of blameless character and conscious honesty could afford chanty of interpretation, and see but little harm or danger where the man of shaky and dubious reputation would find it necessary to express a large amount fof pious horror (cheers). He would now let them hear what this New South Wales editor said of the proceedings of the first Parliament of New Zealand:—

" The political intelligence from New Zealand, conveyed by the Queen, and of which the letter of our correspondent, together with an extract from the "Southern Cross which appeared in our impression of Saturday, will have enabled our readers to form some idea, is of such a character that, painful as the task must be, we cannot feel ourselves justified in passing it over without some comment at our hands."

Now he had not seen the letter of this correspondent, but he had some idea who he was (hear, hear). He should not be surprised if the correspondent had been in Nelson lately, and had gone to Wellington by the steamer (laughter) : and if this was the case, the evidence on which the editor relied certainly came from about the worst possible source, viz., that of a man who, having made a miserable failure, and been thoroughly exposed, now tried to blacken the characters and misrepresent the conduct of the Assembly that repudiated him. (cheers). The Editor proceeds:— " Amid the various conflicting results which have arisen from the experiment which has been

made in that colony towards solving the great question of Responsible Government, one fact, at least, stands patent and displayed in most unenviable colours to the world at large, and that is that the first session of the New Zealand Parliament has, up to the present moment, proved a total and disgraceful failure. "The letter of our correspondent, lo which we have already adverted, has set before our readers so distinctly the history of the General Assembly of the Representatives of New Zealand from its first meeting fon the [24th of May last, up to the crisis which has resulted in its prorogation, or in plainer terms, its dissolution, that we feel it would be mere tautology to recapitulate it.

•'One fact, however, will speak volumes for the efficiency of the Assembly—a fact which our readers will hardly credit. During a session of two months and a half, only one bill has been passed, and that one had for ils end the authorization of the sale of spirituous liquors 'on the premises,'§for the use of the honourable members. It would be almost pardonable to imagine? did we not believe that our neighbours in New Zealand were a more temperate race, or perhaps subjected from local causes, to less fiery tempt* ation than our own fellow colonists in New South Wales and Victoria, that this bill was the moving cause of the extraordinary scenes which the walls of their Council Chamber have lately witnessed. Hie fans et origo mali."

The charge brought against the General Assembly in these paragraphs is one of incompelencv, with a sort of insinuation of " being drunk upon the premises" (laughter). The facts, as stated by the editor, were correct: tl.ey even fell short of truth : for he believed that not even the tippling act was passed—it had not received the assent of the Governor, and was therefore no act; but the inference without explanation is essentially false, and was singularly falsified by subsequent events. For it turned out that the same General Assembly which had spent two months *and ailialf upon one bill, could in a session of a fortnight pass thirteen bills, one of them being a bill to appropriate the fre venue, which alone occupied at least a week. The fact is, as everybody now knows, and as the unknown correspondent (if he had had the least sense of justice and candour about him, and had not been anxious, in order to conceal his own wretched failure, to blacken New Zealand generally in the persons of its Representatives) ought to have informed the Sydney editor, that bills which were ready to pass were purposely kept back until a complete understanding was come to with regard to the footing on which the Executive was to be placed. This having been settled, although not in the way the house wished, the result was as he had already stated, that the Assembly passed thirteen acts in 3 fortnight, some of them of great importance (cheers). "But be this as it may, we defy the annals of any representative assembly to present us with a parallel scene to that which took place at Auckland, on the 17th of August, 1854.

"We may call up recollections (pai-vis componere magna) of Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Parliament, of the celebrated scene of the Jeu cle Paume at Versailles, or of the outrages committed in the name of order and reason in the National Convention —but they dwindle into insignificance when compared with the very disgraceful display of disorder and even personal violence, which characterized the proceedings of the House of of New Zealand on that occasion."

When he read these paragraphs he felt inclined to fancy that the learned editor who had been so much tickled with Uie sole fruit of New Zealand legislation, the Tippling Act, must himself have been indulging: in something that had disturbed the fine" balance of his reason (laughter). Like other editors, he claimed a right to lay down the law, a certain amount of infallibility, and an oracular tone. He appeared to be a learned man—there, were several Latin quotations in his article: and there w a s even French. No doubt he was well read in history, and so, taking a sweeping survey of all rhat has ever happened within the"four walls of legislative chambers ,*from the days of the Greek republics, down to our own, he boldly " defies the annals, of any representative Assembly to present us with a parallel scene to that which took place at Auckland, on the 17th of August, 1854." Aud he then informs us that the dissolution of the Lons? Parliament, tbe celebrated scene of the Jeu de Paiuue, at Versailles, and the outrages committed iv the name of order and reason m

the National Convention, "dwindle into insignificance" when compared with the proceedings of the house of Representatives (great laughter). This was redly a'terrible editor, a'slashing fellow : Cromwell inarched his grenadiers into the House of Commons, and marched the members out, locked up the house and put the key in his pocket: the French Convention murdered thousands of innocent people, and murdered one another, and in their frenzy destroyed and insulted everything that men had been taught to reypect; not as our learned pig of an editor says, " in the name of order and reason," but in the name of the Goddess reason, and in the name of publicsafety, equality, fraternity, and other ideas ot that sort, pleasing to the imagination of Frenchmen. But what has the General Assembly done? Something before which the minor horrors of ttie French reign o( terror must pale their ineffectual lights. Actually a Mr. Sewell had given a Mr. Mackay a push, with a view to the ejectment of the latter from the house (roars of laughter) ; and our thunderstruck and horiorstruck editor sinks back in his editorial chair, his feelings being too many for him, as the old women say, and writes down, and has it printed in his paper, that this is decidedly the most awful thiug that has yet been recorded in the whole annals of legislation, (cheers and laughter). Dr. Monro then proceeded to read the account of the scene referred to, as given in the New' Zealander, and stated that, as an eye-witness, he could positively assert that it was not true. It was an unfair and garbled version of what took place, written apparently by some one whose interest it was to represent the conduct of the house in as bad a light as possible. The facts were simply these; that Mr. Mackay entered the house in a manner and with language which indicated a deliberately formed resolution to insult it. For instance, he "did not salute the chairman, as was the customary practice with members entering the house, and with his hat on he marched in a swaggering manner up to him, and threw down upon the table before him a copy of the Gazette containing the proclamation proroguing, the house, at the same time making Use of offensive language; and was still swaggering about the house, when Mr. Sewell ■ who was addressing it, in a state of much excitement ran at him, and endeavoured to push him out. It was entirely untrue that Mr. Sewell struck Mr. Mackay ; he merely pushed him with his open hand. Mr ■ Mackay's conduct was quite unjustifiable : they were either a house, or they were not a house: and even upon the latter "supposition, the one, he presumed, Mr. Mackay would contend fur, there was nothing to warrant any one in insulting them. ""But Mr. Mackay's conduct was such, that in any other place, in any public room, for instance^ where the persons present were uot res rained by a sense of their position, he would have beeii at once unceremoniously rejected. But after giving its version of the affair, the Sydney Morning herald, adds, "and this is only one example; others there are which we will not sully our columns by inserting." After having treated its readers to a " morceau" before which Cromwell and Robespierre dwindle into insignificance—mere infants, in fact, by the side of Sewftll and Mackay—it insinuates that there are siill lower depths, that scenes stiil more anarchical and licentious have occurred. But these the pure columns of the Sydney Morning Herald rejects: they are too bad for the pages of a journal, which lias had to record tbe events of the Newgate Calendar, and tbe doings of C.'ckutoo and Norfolk 1.-lands (hear, bear.) People that were so extremuly particular on the subject of political behaviour, and attached so much importance to despatch in legislation, ought to betake themselves to itns-ia or Turkey, or some other despotic country. They will iiiid laws made veiy quickly there, and'their nice sense of decency wiil not be outraged by debutes, recriminations, public nuttings, petitions, processions, r.m:s or any i>"Jkt disgusting exhibitions of political aetiMiy. But where institutions are htm, and the public; take ;m

interest hi them, there \A-iH nhvavslte two >iartie«, :ni(i these two parties will t]iff--r i'y<M,u one uin.itter with greater waniv.li than a p!iii;nniirojiisi \v:l! desire, h'vee discussion is ihe lily of jxijitics: but tn^c-ussion t-xhiljiis liiif'i';nci!oor, r u];;ni;*n ; this a^ain lie^i-ts iitui ana siriiV, ;in• i fo j)eoj>}e tome l<> (jnat'ie!. [t niiuiiL lie l-i-tit.-r perlmpi if il were «tberv;i -m -. liut it bad j'.hvstys been, :in<i always wnul«i iie so. Vro-n the (one of tlie"Sv<iuev .Uyriiin^r Hern id," hv t houidi:;!'-^-

that the editor was about as incapable of understanding political practice in England as foreigners generally are. He had heard of a Frenchman who happened to be in an English country town when an election was going on. He met processions with banners and music, going up and down, which rather alarmed him: he heard rival candidates assail one another with invectives and recrimination; he saw the crowd working itself into a fever, and finally it commenced what is commonly called a "jolly good row" (laughter). The Frenchman said it was a revolution : he expected to see barricades, to heir of a provisional government, and Queen Victoria having fled in the disguise of a washerwoma. He rushed to his hotel, packed his carpet bag, and with the utmost possible expedition left a country where such frightful scenes were of no infrequent occurrence. Dr. Monro next proceeded to remark upon the very difficult task which the General Assembly had had to perform in its first session : pointing out that it had to lay the foundation of the structure of the government of the colony, to restore order, and to repair illegalities. He showed that there were manj' untoward influences in the way ; as for instance the inexperience of the members; their ignorance of one another ; their provincial jealousies; and what developed itself before lonaf, the action of individuals bent before everything else upon seeking their own personal aggrandisement and importance. The action of the General Assembly was further rendered infinitely more complicated, and more difficult in consequence of the Provincial Councils having been put in operation first by Sir. G. Grey, who. in doing so, had frustrated the intentions of Parliament—had robbed the colony of its constituent powers—and had committed an act of usurpation and illegality. Notwithstanding all this, there was much in the conduct of. the General Assembly that was worthy of admiration. Some of its debates were considered equal if not superior, to any thing of the kind that had occurred in this part of the world, and it exhibited on the whole a vrv exeat degree of unselfishness and public spirit. He concluded by saving that there was nothing about this demonstration which pleased him more than to see that confidence now existed between himself and many of his constituents who had formerly stood aloof from him. He was not, and never had been, a popularity hunter ; but there was a difference to be drawn between the popularity that preceded and-.the popularity, thai followed a man's actions. For the former lie cared very little; of the latter any man might be proud (cheers). This kindness on their part would not be thrown away upon him : he could not say that it would make him to seek to do his duty more truly than if it had not been shown ; but it was a thintr that would support and encourage him, and render that which was a duty rather a labour of love. He trusted that lie should continue to retain their confidence ; but should he unfortunately, on any future occasion, differ in opinion from them, he only asked that they would give him credit for honest and earnest motives.. For himself, he was not ambitions of political honours ; his ain'tiit'mn ua- to he a useful ami in-dependi-nt memocr of ihe Legislature. While he was their rei>r*'seiuative he should endeavour to rnomoie their interests to the best of his ability ; and if at any future lime a majority of the constituency should inform him that his conduct was unratisfartory to them, he would be prepared to re-iirn into their hands the trust which, for the p:es''n!, tbey had committed to him. Tiie lion. iic:it!cuian resumed his seat amidst much cht-mii". MELBOURNE. A serious oul-Nreak had taken place at Ballarat. For som<T rii>ni' past great discontent has'pn-vaiicl auiouyr ihe diggers, which the arrival of Sir C. il-»i!i:uo, the now Governor, it was h,»|i.-i w.uti.l ;t lay ; but the conduct of his lixc-'ik-sicy sino-: bis arrival, has not, it appear-, worn \\w. c liifi U-iice of the disrtrcrs. Having mi j)'ife:Tfi ,-s of papers, we are inwiblc to <i'\:<; the lii-oi v (ij tho occurrence ; but we peiceive that ti.e Kirn-!;;, llot.-l, at Ballarat, bad !);■(-!! Ijiinit. iiit -i ihat Mime per>oiis were ill custody ii: .\l.-ii. ( .ui-:, (/ .•oiici-niiii'j ih<' fire ; and we now hj-mi ii)i«t a b..,iv of .liters iuid secured the p-r-.n-; of C-.. ! iin;ssioi.».r Jt«de and Inspector ivr.us, v.-!,<.:ii : !.v intend to hold as hostages j for liic-mf-. in ; t -1 aho wcr« concerned in the in:. Inc.- ilov.-r-'.uwni had despatched to Bali laiat two c,.„},.-„!,. s „r hoidiers, two pieces of

artillery, and a strong force of mounted police and the result was anxiously looked for in Melbourne

The state of Melbourne is descril^l as^ery deplorable; employment was source,- ami a mercantile crisis hail arrived, the result of which was difficult to be foreseen. Several vessels are advertised for this colony, lour of which are fur Cook's Straits.— Nelson Examiner.