THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, July 30, 1842.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue I, 30 July 1842, Page 82

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, July 30, 1842.

Les joarnauz deviennent plus n£cessaircs a mesure que les homines sout plus egaux, et 1' individualiame plus a craindrc. Cc serait dirainuer leur importance que de croire qu'ils ne servent qu' k garantir la libert6 : ils maintiennent 1* civilisation. De TocauBViLLE. De la Democratic en Amerique, tome 4, p. 220. Journal! become more necessary as men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared, It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve only to secure liberty : they maintain civilization. Us Toc«ubvil£.i. Of Democracy in America, vol. 4, p. 320.

We have papers from England up to the 24th of Februaiy. We have given such a sketch as our columns would allow of what passed on the opening of Parliament. We shall give our readers some sketch of the proposed alterations in the Corn laws, and of Lord Stanley's bills on Emigration and Land Sales, in our next. The sliding scale is adhered to, the averages are to be taken from a larger number of towns, and the arrangements as to the rise and fall of the duty modified. The case of the Creole is exciting much interest. Lord Ashburton is gone to America on a special mission, to settle that and other difficulties. The Conservative majority is large ; the division on a resolution of Lord John Russell's relating to the Corn Laws, gave 349 to 226, making 123. On the evening of the 24th, the house was to continue a discussion which had lasted five days, on a resolution of Mr. Villiers' to the effect that all duties on corn should at once cease. Mr. Smith O'Brien had announced a resolution that all colonial wheat be admitted at a duty of Is. ; and Mr. Valentine Blake a resolution that, in consideration of the existing distress, corn be imported free for one year, and such longer period as Parliament may determine. The French Government had withheld its ratification to the treaty between the five great Powers for the more effectul suppression of the slave trude : it had been ratified by the remaining four. Ministers propose to continue the Poor Law, with such modifications as experience had shown to be advisable. Sir Jqjin Easthope gave notice of a bill to abolish Church Rates, and levy a tax upon pew 3 and seats. Sir Robert Peel is being burnt in effigy at intervals. The deputies of the Anti-Corn Law Association are busy at their conference in London. The infant Prince had been christened by the name of Albert Edward, the King of Prussia standing godfather. All the English papers are teeming with accounts of the distress of the country. There appears to be an impression that Lord Ashburton's mission will end in nothing ; any change of opinion, especially on the subject of the Creole, is not to be looked for iv America.

As we are now nearly four months without news from the seat of Government, with only the incomplete authority of a Police Magistrate, we would fain not expose the neglect of our rulers, fearing it should tend to bring the law into disrepute, to which, considering the. circumstances, a signal regard has been paid by the community ; but we have a duty as public journalists to perform, which becomes more imperative as the public necessities are disregarded by the authorities. We therefore state a case which has arisen in consequence of this port not having been made a bonded port — whioh simply means the receipt from the local Government of authority for establishing a bonded warehouse at the expense of our own merchants. A Nelson settler and merchant, who came out in the London, landed at Wellington, and bonded his goods subject to duties, waiting an opportunity to proceed to Nelson. When about to proceed-, he found it was necessary to pay the duties at Wellington, thereby subjecting himself to the risk of the amount over and above the value of his goods, which could not b* insured. And what is the <rause of all this? Becaosj^ Nelson is not a bonded port. The gentle- 4 man protests, to no purpose, that he does

not wish to bond his goods at Nelson, and that he is prepared to pay the duties on arrival. He is moreover told that if he ships them in a vessel cleared out for a bonded port, via Nelson, that instructions will be sent to the sub-collector at Nelson to prohibit his landing them ; which, by the bye, we cannot believe could hays been complied with. Now it appears that an application was made four months ago, in the usual form, for authorizing a bonded warehouse ; but no answer has been received. To what is this to be attributed ? Was it not known in Auckland that our population had exceeded 1,500 people, sjadj that 4,000 tons of shipping had been lying in our port at one time ? So much for the bonded store. But what motive could there be to put one of our merchants to the risk, and perhaps the inconvenience, of paying his duties at Wellington instead of at the place of his destination, where his future business lay, but that of throwing obstacles in the way of trade between the southern settlements ? The ship's manifest, and the bond of three times the amount of the duties entered into at Wellington before clearing out, surely were sufficient for the goods not being smuggled at an intermediate port. It is of a piece with his Excellency's fiat, that the Nelson preliminary expedition should pay duties on their stores and provisions at Wellington r on their way in search of a site, when they would have had no difficulty in obtaining the permission of the Lords of the Treasury in London to put them upon the store bond until their arrival at the port of destination. Facilities to commerce, to colonizing, forsooth, with a witness ! This is not the way the Duke of Wellington used to do business ; nor would he excuse a colonel of brigade neglecting his brigade because his time was absorbed in attending to his own regiment. [Since this article was in type, we received the letter irom our correspondent, the *' Englishman," on the same subject, which takes so precisely the same view of the matter as ourselves.]

Messrs. Tytler have let their house in the town, and have proceeded to their suburban section on the Waimea with all their implements. We could have wished them better weather.

Situ of Nelson. — It will be recollected that Colonel Wakefield, on bearing of the projected departure of the preliminary expedition, despatched the Bailey to the Middle Island, having on board Captain Daniell and Mr. 6. Duppa, authorized to examine the harbours and to report upon an eligible site for the new colony. We have not heard of any official report ; but an impression prevailed at Wellington that the most probable site for Nelson was Cooper's Harbour, in Bank's Peninsula. It is an excellent harbour, with a great abundance of rich flat land. At Auckland, however, a report had gol abroad that Nelson was to be brought to the Thames — probably at Coromandel Harbour; and the Auckland people rejoiced because they would be able to obtain a good supply of labour at no cost to themselves. This is the peculiar morality that Governor' Hobson has introduced : ft wilt take a quarter of a century to purge the public mind of that signal pollution. It is further- reported* that "Captain Hobson has some hand in itj" but the Wellington paper is silent on the subject, and we can give no credit to the rumour, as it would be oDviousfy- so injurious to place the settkrs near Auckland, which has no landfund of its own, and, while the present extra- j vagant expenditure lasts, is not likely to have. Some part of the middle, or Southern. Island, as it is usually called, will therefore be the site of Nelson, unless in the event of concessions on the part of the Governor, which we cannot anticipate. We may now expect information of the preliminary expedition every day, as tfjftre is no doubt oi the arrival of the Wbitby and Will Watch early in September. — New Zealand Journal. Parliament has been engaged with Sir Robert Peel's great measure for the modification of the corn-laws: it was submitted to the House of Commons on Wednesday, and the debate upon it was resumed and earned on at great length on Monday, and is still going on. It is an alteration of the existing law only in the most restricted sense of the term ; a change, not at i all of principle, but only of details. It does not attempt to obviate the fundamental objections of the Anti-Corn Law party, but only removes defects admitted on all sides; reducing the nominal protection in the less operative parts of the scale, and smoothing the gradations of the slide where they ware abrupt. The colonies nave fo far an interest in the matter, that a new sliding scale of duties is to be given to colonial ■wheat.— Colonial Gazette.