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Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1382, 4 April 1865, Page 4

By some fatality the news from Southland, which is now and has for some time been peculiarly deserving of notice, always reaches us irregularly and imperfectly. The last mail brought only two newspapers, the Southland Times of the 15th and 22nd of March. The fragmentary news in these papers is interesting in several particulars. The Council had sat again for a temporary purpose on the 13th and 14th of March. The reason of its being summoned was that, owing to doubts as to the technical legality of Mr. Taylor's election to the Superintendency, the General Government had -disallowed both his election and that of Mr. Heale, which had previously taken place with still more evident invalidity. It was necessary to supply the vacancy; and this was done at once by the re-election of Mr. J. P. Taylor, who forthwith re-appointed his former Executive Council. The proceedings of the Provincial Council were very short. A protest against the trouble which had been caused by the interference of the General Government in the elections was agreed to. A private grievance petition, from the discharged Provincial Engineer, caused a debate which came to nothing. The preservation of wild birds produced some discussion. A supplementary Appropriation Bill was passed as a matter of course. A motion to spend a few hundred pounds on a road was lost. It was stated by the Executive that another session of the Council would probably be held in time to consider the Waste Lands question before the Assembly should meet. And the Council was prorogued. It would be inferred by strangers from these proceedings that the Council of Southland is sublimely indifferent to the critical state of the Province. And yet we learn, from other sources of information, that a pressing and heavy pecuniary claim is about to be urged against the Government by one at least of its creditors ; and that, if this claim cannot be met by either the Provincial or the General Government, the case will be reported to the Imperial Government, and so the bankruptcy of the Province will be officially notified. The public seem more alive to the emergency. A public meeting was held on the 14th, and was adjourned till the 24th, to take a variety of important public matters into consideration. A. protest against the late decision .of the Supreme Court, by which a nonfulfilment of the improvement clause of the Land Regulations has been held to incur forfeiture of the land, was adopted. Resolutions on other subjects were put before the meeting, so as to be ready for consideration on the 24th., One of these was in favour of separation from the North Island ; another demanded three representatives for the province. And the third dealt with the whole Waste Lands question. The proposal made as to this last subject, was that a fixed price of 20s per acre should be adopted for rural land; that small freeholders should have a right to lease additional land for five years, with the right of purchase; that runs should be let at 2d an acre, but that the system of hundreds should be maintained; that runholdera should have a limited pre-emptive right over the homestead, and be entitled to repayment for their improvements; and that immigrants should receive the value of their passages in land, after four years' residence. This proposal is that of the small holding interest, and is not supported by the runholders, who wish to have the Canterbury regulations adopted as they stand. We regret exceedingly that the Waste Lands question is not yet settled, and still more that it is so little likely to be settled soon; for excellence and permanence in the system of dealing with the provincial estate is everything in the security which the province has to offer to its creditors. If the difficulty continues, the Assembly will probably demand that the province shall satisfy its creditors directly out of the land, by commuting their claims on the Treasury for land scrip at such a price as to entail no loss on the creditors.