SOUTHLAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1324, 29 November 1864, Page 5

SOUTHLAND.

We have received our files from this province to the 22nd instant. We take the following result of the elections and the probable action to be taken by the new Provincial Council with reference to Southland affairs from the Southland News: —

The General Election.—The new Representation Ordinance, altering the electoral districts and increasing the number of members of the Provincial Council from fourteen to twenty, has since our last summary been brought into practical operation through the issue of the writs of election. Several of the seats have been hotly contested. Nearly the whole of the new members have now been returned. The return of the Invercargill members will complete the list. So far as at present constituted, the new house stands as follows: —Campbelltown, A. M'Nab; Riverton, Dr. Hodgkinson, J. Crerar; Oteramika, M. Holmes; Longwood, E. Gillow; Waikivi, W. Stuart; Aparima, J. Howell, W. H. Nurse; New River, H. Armstrong; Roslin, W. Johnston, T. Swale; Waianewa, J. F. Collins ; Waihopai, J. Hay, J. Wilson. The topics that have chiefly been dicussed during these elections have been the choice of the new Superintendent; the question of the relative powers of the Superintendent and the Council; the financial condition of the province; and the reform of various local ordinances which are held to operate unequally and oppressively—such, for example, as the Education and Road Ordinances. —Southland News, Nov. 17.

Tiie Superintendency.—On the subject of the Superintendency, it was at one time expected that two names would be put before the electors, between whom they might make a choice, and instruct their representatives to vote accordingly. Such a distinct issue would have been raised if the candidature of Mr. Matthew Holmes against the present Superintendent had been persevered in; but that gentleman failing to get certain assurances from the General Government, without which he was reluctant to undertake the responsibilities of office, announced his withdrawal from the field, and the ground has since been allowed to be occupied by Dr. Menzies, and the myth of some " better man" not yet named. Mr. Theophilus Heale, the late Chief Surveyor of the province, has been mentioned; and doubtless, if nominated, with the assurance that he would occupy office, he would command many, if not a majority of votes. But Mr. Heale is at present in Auckland, and no knowledge is possessed of his views on the matter. Thus the public are left completely in the dark as to the name of the gentleman whom the opponents of Dr. Menzies propose to nominate in his stead. Mr. W. H. Calder, who was believed by many to have an eye to this office, has formally and explicitly contradicted the rumour, to that effect. No pledges have been made by any of the candidates to vote for any particular man, except on the part of the avowed supporters of Dr. Menzies, and these are at present in the minority. The great proportion, both of the members returned and of the candidates remaining in the field, have maintained a reserve on the subject, that justifies the suspicion that after the elections are over some gentlemen will be nominated whosepretensions the electors at large would probably be little disposed to favour if the opportunity were afforded them of pronouncing a judgment. It is at least certain that throughout the elections the most strenuous efforts have been madeto secure the return of candidates opposed to Dr. Menzies. Pressure of every kind has been brought to bear emanating from the same sources—not excluding that most objectionable of all electioneering agencies, commercial influence. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to predict the issue of the election of Superintendent, which will be the first act of the new Council after its choice of speaker.—lbid. i The Action of the House.—The House will be convened at the earliest moment allowed by the forms of law. Seven days' notice is required subsequent to the date on which the last writ is made returnable. The Council will probably commence its sittings, therefore, on some day towards the close of the present month, so as to enable it at once to deal with the financial state of the province, and allow the result of its action to be communicated to the General Assembly at Auckland, before the session of that body, which will open on the 21st instant, shall have too far advanced to allow the affairs of Southland to be taken into consideration. In anticipation of the meeting of Council, a novel suggestion has been made, which is due to the difficulty the province experiences in finding the money accommodation necessary for the payment of its liabilities and the completion of its public works. Southland, like all the other provinces and colonies, adopted the policy of anticipating its resources—or, in other words borrowing, for the formation of roads and other reproductive works, which it is impracticable for any young country to provide for out of its ordinary revenue. The works undertaken here were of a certainly bold, and many would'describe them as of a somewhat ambitious character. The bluff iron railway, extending inland for a length of twenty miles from the first harbour in New Zealand, and the one nearest to all the ports of Australia, is a work of far greater magnitude than has been attempted in any of the other provinces, although far older and far richer than ours. It is destined ultimately to form part of that great trunk line which will connect the extreme south of the Middle Island with Cook's Straits, where the central seat of government for colony is to be fixed. It is no light thing for a young colonial community, with a population of under nine thousand, to have carried almost to completion an iron railway of twenty miles in length; to have actually opened, in addition, eight miles of patent wooden rail, and to have made the way ready for the laying down of rails for a further length of some twelve miles towards the Lake gold-fields. The sound policy of these undertakings, undoubtedly large as they were, was acknowledged with scarcely an exceptional voice at the time they were commenced, and it is defended by all who take anything like a comprehensive view of the relations of these railways to the future of Southland—although the depression that has supervened has, to some extent, led to a change of public opinion on the subject. Even in their present unfinished state, these railways constitute a far more valuable asset than any other province can show of the same kind. The Loan Ordinances necessary to complete them, however, were unexpectedly disallowed by Sir George Grey, and although it has ample resources and securities in its rich unalienated lands, Southland has thus been prohibited from resorting to the same means that are universally employed elsewhere, for the prosecution of great works, by making drafts upon the i future revenues of the province. Not enabled to borrow on ourown account; entirely dependent inallmatters of finance upon the General Assembly; uncertain under the present circumstances of a ministerial crisis, what policy in the matter of provincial loans will be officially proposed to the New Zealand Parliament; uncertain, again, as to the length of time for which the question is destined to be hung up; and experiencing more keenly day by day the necessity of some prompt relief from the embarrassment under which the province is labouring; the suggestion to hand over the administration to the General Government, and hold the Provincial Executive system for a time in suspense, by the refusal on the part of the Council to proceed to the election of a superintendent, must be admitted to be not without some feasibility. Dependent as we are upon that Government for the pecuniary assistance so necessary to us it is urged that that help is only withheld from the province from a distrust of the prudence of the local administration of the revenues, and that if a full concession were made of all authority over our revenues, the Colonial Government would be willing to make whatever advances might be needed to pay off our liabilities and complete our works. Presuming this to be the case, the course suggested would involve the transfer to the General Government- of the railways of Southland as colonial property, and the recoupment of the heavy sums that the province has spent upon them. This was the scheme of relief propounded by Mr. Matthew Holmes in his address to the electors of Oteramika. Mr. Holmes said—"With regard to railways, it is certain that ere long there will be a line connecting this province with Nelson. It would be judicious for the General Government to initiate such a line, making first those portions most urgently required, and gradually extending operations until the whole was completed. In contemplation of such a scheme being adopted, I should be in favour of handing over to the General Government the Bluff and Invercargill Railway, the province receiving the sums expended on its construction." A diametrically opposite view to this has been propounded by Dr. Menzies. In his address to the electors of Invercargill, on TuesI day evening, he protested strongly against any proi posal to surrender the provincial railways. He said they were a property too valuable for the province ever willingly to release its hold upon it. It was a property that had been created with difficulty; to maintain possession of it might be difficult. Jiut any relief from inconvenience and embarrassment would be too dearly purchased by the sacrifice of an asset the prospective value of which is beyond conjecture. The Doctor is in one sense undoubtedly right. If we have it in our power on any better terms to emancipate the province from its difficulties, those better terms ought straightway to be embraced. Many a valuable security, however, has

been allowed to become an " unredeemed pledge," for want of the immediate means of releasing it, although the owner has set upon it a value inestimable. "Necessity compels," is an old axiom. If we can keep our railways, it will be good to do so. But undoubtedly the next best thin?" would be to transfer them, on conditions that would secure to us the reimbursement of the moneys we have expended on them their immediate completion, so as to beget the development of traffic wliiclnsjthe main end aimed at by their construction, and the indirect, but large ard permanent benefits resulting from the stimulus civen to the whole of the industrial interests of the province. These arc, however, considerations that form part of the general question of the financial position of the province, with which the Council will have to deal; and the debates that will intervene between this and the date of our next summary will be pregnant with interest to all of our distant readers who possess sympathy with the varying fortunes of Southland. —Ibid.

Land am> Immigration'.—Much discussion has taken place lately on two cognate topics—the merits of our present land system, and the desirability of promoting assisted immigration. Both topics are intimately connected with the subject we have in hand. By an alteration in our land system, enacted by the General Assembly, at variance with the views expressed bv the Provincial Council, the upset price of land in* Southland was recently raised from twenty to forty shillings an acre. But unpopular as this change has been, it would he to represent the case very partially if we did not state that this increased upset price had sccured for the purchaser exemption from certain improvement and taxing clauses, which previously obtained here, and which in the neighbouring province of Otago still operate as a very serious draw back to thepound-an-acre system. It is not found in practice that the two-pounds-an-acre price— the conveyancc being delivered unconditionally upon payment —is objected to by the.immigrant." who cares not so much for the difference between twenty and forty shillings as for the opportunity of making his own 5 elect ion of the best piece of land he can find, and of obtaining prompt and absolute possession of it. One of our latest batches of immigrants came by the ship Arirua, and they arrived opportunely a day or two before the new Act doubling the price'of land came into force. They were recommended—havifig funds in hand to hasten to town and lodge their claims under the pound-an-acre system. But then' reply was that poor land was worth nothing to them, and that such land as they might leisurely select would be well worth two pounds. This was an argument likely to weiffh well with a class of immigrants having brought somp capital with them to strengthen their hands in beginning their colonial career. It is this class that it is especially desirable for us to attract to our shores if possible, and to some extent we have been of late successful in this. The immigrants by the Arima are understood to have brought with them a capital for industrial development, amounting in the aggregate to not less than six thousand pounds. —Ihk

Ixvercargill Election—The polling for the elec tion of the members for Invercargill took place on the 16th inst. The Returning Officer said that the state of the poll was as follows : —Menzies, 171 ; Macdonald, 150; Calder, 136; Davies, 127 ; Tarlton, 122 ; Monkman, 116 ; Chalmers, S4 ; Osborne, 8. The choice had, therefore, fallen on Dr. Menzies and Messrs. Calder, Macdonald, and J. R. Davies. —Ibid, Nov. 22.

The Treasury Warraxtt.—lt was understood in town yesterdav, that in an action brought in the Resident Magistrate's Court against the Provincial Government, to recover upon one of the Treasury warrants or acknowledgments issued from the Treasurer's department, under the signature of the Superintendent, judgment was confessed. More than one correspondent has asked for information upon the extent of liability of the Provincial Government for debts incurred, and its liability to be sued. The Act of the General Assembly, No. 60, Vict. 21 and 22, is explicit on this point. It is intituled "An Act to enable Superintendents of Provinces to sue and be sued." The material clauses are the following Clause 1. "All property belonging to any province, shall for all purposes of proceedings in any court, as well criminal as civil, in law, or in equity in anywise touching or concerning the same, be deemed and taken to be, and shall in everj r such proceeding (where necessary) be deemed and taken to be the property of the Superintendent thereof for the time being in his proper name : and such Superintendent shall and he is hereby authorised to bring and defend, or cause to be brought and defended, any action, suit, prosecution ar other proceeding, criminal as well as civil, in any court of Jaw or equity touching or concerning the property aforesaid, and such Superintendent shall and may in all cases concerning the said property, sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, in any court of law or equity in his proper name." Clause 6. " The term ' property ' shall include lands, tenements and hereditaments, goods,chattels, moneys, and effects, and every right, title, interest, claim and demand whatsoever ; and the terms • belonging to any province, or to any person on behalf of any province'shall include having the possession, custody, care or control, or the right of possession, custody, care, or control, or having any right, title, interest, claim, or demand whatsoever, in respect of any act, deed, contract, matter, or thing, heretofore or at any time hereafter to be made, done, or entered into by any Superintendent or other person, for or on behalf or as a public officer of any province, or howsoever otherwise, any such right, title, interest, claim or demand may or shall have arisen." Other clauses exonerate the Superintendent from liability for any act done by him in the execution of his office as Superintendent, except in cases where he be guilty of wilful neglect or default.—lbid.

Lord Rossi;, the Irish Mechanist. —The Earl of Rosse is the "Tubal Cain" of the Irish peerage —a noble Vulcan, a smithandan astronomer,equally at home in the forge or among the stars. Most people have heard of his lordship, or if they have not heard of his lordship, they have heard of his great telescope, fifty-three feet long and six feet in diameter, through which the celebrated nebulae of Sir John Herscliel was first seen in its most distant aspect of a myriad of clustering stars ; and last summer it was asserted that his lordship had an early private view, through the same monster instrument, of the approach of the hot weather, and was thereby enabled to erect sheds for his cattle. The great telescope stands in the middle of the demesne, and is slung between massive stone walls something like a pier of the suspension bridge, without the arch connecting the side masonry. The first thing that strikes you is, that it is like a gigantic piece of wooden ordnance, put together with tremendous staves like a cask. The instrument is j pointed at a given angle towards the heavens, and down in the bottom of the huge cylinder, or cask, if you choose to call it.sucli,is the speculum or reflector the largest that has ever been made, and the manufacture of which, under his own superintendence, was the triumph of Lord Rosse's mechanical powers. In this metallic mirror is reflected the heavenly body under observation, and on a stage near the opening at the top stands the observer, examining at leisure planet, fixed star, meteor, or nebulas, just as the case may be. Here pigmy man reviews the heavenly host; but Lord Rosseis no pigmy. If his father had worn a blacksmith's apron instead of ermine or sables, his son would have risen from the cinders of the forge to be a Stephenson or a Herschel, The Earl's residence, Rosse Castle, is a most amusing mixture of the forge and the feudal fortress. The greater part of the structure is comparatively new, but portions of the old castle, which in the Jacobin wars stood a brief siege, still remain, and bear upon them the traces of cannon balJs. The present nobleman has surrounded the building with a rampart and fosse, so that in a sudden emergency it might be turned to strategical account. Fortification is one of the many branches of knowledge to which he has turned his thought; but when you get within the line of defence, what a contrast to baronial or military force the objects that meet your eye afford ! The genius of Watt triumphs over the imitations of Vauban. Where cannon might have bristled a tidy steam engine worked ; great lathes turned under the towers that frowned defiance at James's force. In the stable, where racing stud or steeds might have been sheltered, an ingenious and powerful apparatus for polishing the great speculum was fixed ; in the corner of the castle-yard was a furnace, and close by stood the moulds in which the monster was cast by his lordship, with face and hands begrimed with sweat and coal dust—an event more important, but not as worthily recorded, as the casting of Schiller's bell. Scraps of iron and smith's coal strewed the ground; and instead of the baying of hound, or the horn of hunter, you hear the sustained deep breathing of a pair of forge bellows, above which ring the measured clang of sledge and anvil, for his lordship is never idle. When he was Lord Oxmantown, he represented King's county in Parliament, and, when attending his duties in London ■would sometimes escape from a dull debate to the forges of Birmingham or the shipbuilding walls of Blackwall.

Equivalent of Values.—An old Indian, vho had witnessed the effect of whiskey for many years, said a barrel labelled whiskey contained a thousand songs and fifty fights.—Poitland Press.

A Perilous Position.—The Buffalo Courier of the 9th inat. says:—" It has been known that Farini, the funambulist, who several years ago was Blondin's rival on the tight-ropo at Niagara Falls, was making preparations to ford the rapids above the American Fall on a pair of iron stilts contrived for the purpose. The exhibition was to have comc off on the 15th. Early yesterday morning, we learn, the foolhardy man went out to rehearse the dangerous feat. He succeeded in getting more than half across at n point between the Falls and the Great Island bridge, when one of his stilts broke or gave way, and he was instantly in the rapids. Fortunately the place of his accident was directly above Robinson's island, a small piece of wooded land which lies to the right of Lunn island and very near the brink of the American fall. Ho succeeded in struggling to the shore of this island, and dragged himself from the water. He had apparently sustained a painful injury in one of his limbs. The poor m*n was soon discovered sitting very composedly on a log at the edge of the island. A large and not very sympathizing crowd collected on the Goat Islaud bridge and elsewhere, but up to yesterday afternoon not an effort had been mado to rescue the unfortunate man. In fact, our informant tells us that in a few hours public curiosity seemed to have sated and scarcely any excitement was visible. Farini's frightful perch is about 800 or 1000 feet below the bridge before spoken of, and undoubtedly a rope could be floated to him, and thereby a cable perhaps be swung," by which, if the man is not too much exhausted or injured, he might be able to effectual! escape. It is feared, however, that before anything is done he will be incapable, from lack of food and ! nervous excitenicnt, to help himself. At present he can be distinctly descried, cool enough apparently, but making not the slightest eflort to attract attention or signal for relief. He is in his tights and bareheaded, and is seen frequently to rub and press his wounded limb. A more frightful predicament than that he is in could not easily be conceived. We understand that some persons suppose Farini to be playing a practical joke, or to be practising an advertising dodge. It is scarcely possible that this can be the case, or that any such felicitous results can come from such a desperate-looking state of things. From the latest reports it appears that Farini was still a prisoner on Robinson's Island, about 200 feet above the American falls, and where the rapids have a tremendous Telocity. His partner had Succeeded in effecting 9 line of refreshment communication with the forlorn stilt-walker, who had been in his uncomfortable position over 40 hours. What steps are being taken to rescue him, if any, were not known. A large crowd Avas expected down from Buffalo and Rochester to see the sad spectacle. The t condition of this poor fellow was really heartrending. He was within speaking distance of the shore, but the throngs who had assembled to witness his critical situation were powerless to help him." An Artist painted a cannon so natural, the other day, that when he finished the touch-hole it went off. Sorry to say it was taken for rent by the broker.