The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1865.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1363, 21 February 1865, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1865.

The present mail from England contains less interesting news for the general reader than we are accustomed to receive, even in the dullest of times. There are, however, one or two points which specially concern New Zealand, and which may serve to stay the craving of those whose appetite for news waits on the monthly English mail.

In the first place the money market records show a further reduction of bank interest to six per cent, and this fact has already affected the colony. The old six per cent, loan of New Zealand has recovered something like its original position, and is now quoted officially at 105 and upwards. At the same time, the new loan, a million sterling of which was sold under Mr. Reader Wood's authority at 80, in September, had, by December, advanced to 90. So large an improvement tells its own story. A want of financial ability in the Government, added to the severe pressure brought to bear by the Government bank on the colony, has caused the colony to lose about 10 per cent, in the negociation of the loan.

;XThere is little to be said about the affairs of this province. No further sales of Canterbury debentures had taken place in the month, and a waiting policy was preferred to one of hasfcb. A portion of the Half-Million Loan, which had been bought here privately at a good price, was being offered by agents in London at 90. The Government has no control over the dealings of private agents with provincial debentures; but the province suffers from the transaction. We may have still to wait some months before the hope of finding aii appreciative market will be realised. Even the Emigration arrangements of the province were forestalled. The Auckland free passages, with gratuities to boot, were coming to an end, in January, awaiting further orders, which we know would not be given in favour of their continuance; but while they lasted, and no doubt for some time longer, it would be impossible for the Canterbury agent to offer sufficient inducements for emigration to this province on the terms which we find ordinarily satisfactory. The Greyhound would leave in January, with a small number, most of whom have been invited and helped by their friends on this side. She may arrive in April; and from that time till September next, no further immigration need

be expected. Unless the goldfields on the West Coast turn out peculiarly attractive, the want of additional labour will not be felt during the coming winter; and the accounts from home on this point are therefore jot unpleasant. We trust Mr. Marshinan will find some congenial employment connected with his official duties to occupy ihis time usefully to himself and the province. Going abroad into the field of politics, we find some expressions of the British Government, and of the principal organs of British opinion, respecting New Zealand, which deserve especial notice. The Times has a special correspondent who has written from Wellington, in October last, an able and temperate letter concerning the war and the state of the colony. Enough is there said on behalf of the colonists to bring their case fairly before the editorial mind; and the numbers of the Times which follow are clearly not unaffected by the arguments adduced. Three articles in the middle of December are devoted to New Zealand affairs, of which we reprint the last and most important. The tone recently prevalent in the great newspaper, which is useful to us as a reservoir of condensed public opinion, has been impatience of the war, and haste to cast the trouble, expense, and responsibility for it upon the colonists. The impatience seems still to remain, but it is somewhat otherwise directed. In one article the Times declares simply that the war ought to be ended, and that by Great Britain, because the country cannot afford to carry it on. It is not at all suggested that the duty of the colonists to fight has been unperformed; but merely that Great Britain should end at once a war which is costly and ineffective. The right to do so is assumed. England, we are told, has a right " to insist on the close of the war as a matter under the command of those who provided the means of carrying it on." There is no talk of abandoning the colony, only of compelling the adoption of another policy. A little later, in a second article reprinted to-day, we find the Times proceeding to the logical result of its first argument. How, it is asked, can war be conducted properly when the responsibility for its management is vested in no one ? We have been asking the same question for years past; perhaps the absurdity which it suggests will now be brought home to those who can remove it. The means of removing it are boldly suggested by the Times, and they have a peculiar bearing on the most important questions of last session. It would almost seem that the Auckland policy of abnegation had been anticipated. The Times is polite to Sir George Grey, while it urges that " a soldier, accustomed to deal with difficult countries," is wanted as Governor, instead of so amiable and peaceable a man. It insists that the Soldier-Governor shall be " vested with the fullest powersthat is, no colonial constitution shall be allowed to stand in his way. He is to be " supplied with the amplest meansthat is, the British troops are not to be withdrawn, still less hired out to the colonists. He is to be " only instructed tobring the war to the speediest possibleend;" to which recommendation is added, as a sort of after thought, that that end must be some "good arrangement with the natives that shall promise a lasting peace." The war, we are further told, must be " vigorously, unflinchingly, and unhesitatingly tought out," without any controversy as to who bears the responsibility. That is the Times' conclusion. Let the diplomatising Governor and the feeble colonists both stand out of the way, while a strong military force pursues the war to an end ; and if the " good arrangement with the natives " must be their extermination, let it be so, provided there follow a lasting peace and no more expense. This is very like the Auckland programme, and ifc may commend itself to the Colonial Office. If so, we may soon see it applied to the region of the disturbances, within which Wellington has but now managed to include itself.