THE STAFFORD UKASE AND THE PRESS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 123, 29 May 1867, Page 2

THE STAFFORD UKASE AND THE PRESS.

The following remarks, from the Otago Daily Times, on Mr. Stafford's recent Gazette, forbidding any Government employe to give information on public matters to the Press, deserve the attention of our readers : — Secrecy, that engine of despotic powers, is now enjoined upon every employe of the General Government, upon pain of dismissal from service. It has always been difficult to arrive at the course intended to be taken by Ministers even of Representative Governments; for what passes at Executive meetings is very •properly forbidden to be disclosed ; matters of details are discussed, and modes of operation considered, the objects of which would be defeated by publicity. But there I are questions of geueral interest on which ' the public have a right to expect to be informed. The merit of the representative form of Government is' that it invites the co-operation of the people governed. Although they speak in the Legislature through their Representatives, they are expected to form an intelligent judgment

upon all measures proposed ly the Government, and they have! the right, under prescribed conditions, to meet and discuss them, to oppose or condemn, to resolve and to petition, concerning them. When, therefore, a Representative Government cloaks its intentions iv secrecy ; forbids its officers to give information on any subject connected with public affairs, excepting by express permission of the political head of the department, under pain of dismissal ; takes a sudden action upon frivolous or insufficient grounds ; and subverts institutions uuder which a community has prospered, interests have grown up, and which have become in some sort identified with the business arrangements and social habits of tha people ;. there is good reason for supposing that it nourishes designs that will not bear the light ; that are arbitrary and, perhaps, unconstitutional ; and that are known to be distasteful to those who are required to submit to them. All this ha 3 been done by the Colonial Government. They have assumed the control of the gold-fields, and the right to expend the revenue derived from them. They have prohibited the civil servants from giving any information on public affairs ; it is believed that they design to introduce measures into the General Assembly that must altogether supersede established institutions ; and the speeches of two of the leading men in the colony, uttered in the presence of the Governor, umnistakeably point to a determination to take the whole of the Customs revenue for geueral purposes.

The embroglio between the General Government and the Provincial Government of Otago shows no symptoms of coming to any satisfactory termination, and Mr. J. C. Richmond's mission seems to have so far failed. On Thursday week Mr. Richmond wrote to the Superintendent, Mr. Macandrew, a temperate and dignified letter, making a formal demand that his Honor should recall the instructions under which the agents of his Government proceeded in forcibly entering Wardens' and Resident Magistrates' Offices, and seizing departmental documents and papers ; and should direct that the buildings and other property thus seized should be replaced in the hands of officers acting under the authority of the Governor ; and concluding with the following statement of the General Government's intentions : — " Those officers, iD the mean time, will proceed to carry on their usual functions to the best of their means and ability, and are strictly enjoined not to meet force by force, but to abstain from interfering in questions of property and policy, which cau only be dealt with by the Supreme Court, the Colonial Executive, and the General Assembly." Mr. Macandrew replied to this letter ou the following day, but in a very different temper, refusing to recognise Mr. Richmond's authority or power to act at all, as owing to the delegation of powers to Mr. Stafford, the Governor in Council had ceased to directly administer them ; and asking whether, on behalf of Mr. Stafford, he superseded Mr. Bradshaw ? His letter, which is couched in the most impertinent terms, concludes as follows : — " Until I receive from you an application in the capacity under which you claim the right to address me, I shall delay replying to your inquiries, further than to say this : that had the emissaries and agents of the General Government recognised, as you appear to do, my right as Superintendent to the owuership of the Provincial Government property,* it might not have been necessary to adopt the steps for retaining possession which were forced on me by the lawless attempts of those emissaries to seize possession." The receipt of this letter was simply acknowledged by Mr. Richmond on the following day ; and this, we believe, is all that has transpired of the present position of affairs.

To tue Editor of tue 'Nelson Evening Mail.' Siu, — I find the following notice in your issue of yesterday : " The s.s. Egmont, John Vine Hall, Commander left Suez, on the 13th instant, with the Suez Mail, and arrived at the Bluff, on the 19th, after an excellent passage of live and a half days, etc., etc." Immortal shades of Flying Dutchmen ! How your glory pales compared with Mr. John Vine Hall's passage of five days and a half from Suez to the Bluff. Let alone the transit through the ■ Suez canal, not yet finished, the Straits of Babel Maudeb, and the dangers arising from Pharaoh's chariot wheels, sticking

up in the Red Sea. How on earth, or rather on the sea, did Mr. Vine HalL run the distance ? Iv the year of Grace, 1498, Vasco de Gama did what he considered a smart thing in running from Ajan to Mysore in 19 days, but then he had a fair wind, and the ship was only in ballast. But old Jonah licked the lot when he made the passage from the east end of the Mediterranean, through the Pillars of Hercules, round the Cape, probably up the Mozambique Channel, and right to the far end of the Persian Gulf, in three days and three nights, in a whale's belly. Verily, that was au extraordinary trip. I wonder if he also had the Suez mail with him. Was wool up or down ? and what was the price of consols, or Yankee twenties ? By giving insertion to these ideas in your smart little sheet, you may get something more from A Constant Reader. Nelson, Tuesday. [Our amusing correspondent doubtless experienced little difficulty in surmising that the startling statement, of which he has made such capital, arose from one [of those oversights to which " the best regulated establishments " are occasion-ally liable.— Ed. E. M.~\