Correspondence.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XIV, Issue 105, 29 March 1856, Page 2

Correspondence.

To the Editor of tiie 'Nelson Examiner.' REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS. Sir — Can you inform the people in the Wairau where they can get their children's births registered, for I am unable to find any one who will perform the oiEce? 1 called, on the 6th of this month, on Mr. Hodgson, the deputy -registrar in Nelson, to register a grandchild of mine, born on the 20th Fcbrua.-y last, and Mr. Hodgson told me that I should have to go to Mr. Vickerman, in the Wairau, who was the regittrar

of the Wairau district, and register the child there ; und also Limb I should Imve 10 go ui^acli', or a near relation, to sign the resistor book.

On returning home, I we it nine miles out of my road, which, with nine miles back, made eighteen miles out of my way, to call at Mr. Vick^rman's ; but, sad to say, to no purpose. On applying to Mr. Vickennan, I wa3 told he had no authority to register births, as ho was only appointed to register marriages. Now, what are we Wairau people to do? I know others in the same position as myself. After taking every step in our power to get our children registered, and incurring a considerable amount of trouble, are we to be fined because the children are not registered, through the defective arrangements of the Government.

Yours, &c, Geo. M'Rae. Biarich, March 20, 1856.

To THE EDITOIt OF THE 'NELSON EXAMINER.' " Sir Humphrey, shooting in the dark, Make 3 answer quite beside the mark." — Cowper.

Sir — T had no idea, when attempting to mislead the humble elapses last week, under the signature ot "A Farmer," that my twaddle would have borne such unmistakable proof of having been manufactured by yourself. 1 wish, that in addressing the "poor imbeciles," I had added my name, and thus have saved myself the trouble of tnis letter, and you the imputation of having concocted " A Farmer's " nonsense as well as your own.

1 need no excuse, however, for having written anonymously a mere plain letter of quiet reasoning, for hv're the arguments are to be regarded rather than the writer. When adopting the Billingsgatian style of reasoning, one is fairly expected to give his name, as the invective is the life of the letter, and the weight of the vituperation depends entirely on the quarter whence it comes.

I cannot admit the charge of undervaluing the intelligence of the working classes on account of having published a letter presenting a common-sense view of the operation of the Road Bill, and quietly appealing to the understanding in settling a disputed question. Whether he, for one, is fairly open to such an accusation who has been actively engaged in getting up and obtaining signatures to petitions, against a measure before the Council, founded on such a partial and onesided view that it is extremely difficult to trace anything like the true features of the bill in the picture' drawn by the petitioners, is a question I will not now discuss.

Mr. Saunders denies that the Provincial Council is a fair sample, a part and parcel of the community, an epitome of the wishes a>id interests of the people. This is correct in theory at least, and it is a fair presumption that an intelligent people, with the fullest powers of doing so, will make theory and practice in this respect correspond. Indeed, a people with half the intellgenoe Mr. Saunders contends for as the possession of even its humble classes, will surely not suffer for a moment a mock representative to trifle with them by making a pretence of watching their interests while only occupied in securing his own or that of his class. A much less degree of intelligence than that which both Mr. Saunders and myself attribute to the bulk of the community, would constitute and preserve the Provincial Council what I have represented it.

Mr. Saunders has searched in vain for a single particle of good argument or sound sense in "A Farmer's " letter. Mr. Saunders deals too largely in this I-am-wise-and-you-are-fooliih mode of logic, while his own arguments may be frequently reduced to the compendious formula, " It i», because it is ; therefore it is. Q.E.D." Captain Marryat, I think, in some tale of his, makes a nautical logician defend his position with a firstly, a secondly, and a thirdly. The two first are, when stated, cool and reasonably enough, but the " thirdly and lastly " consists of " I'll see you d d first." Now Mr. Saunders' Ist, 2nd, and 3rd, are all too much characterized by the spirit of jolly defiance exhibited only in the thirdly of tue sailor. Lord Peter, in the " Tale of a Tub," resorts to a similarly comprehensive kind of proof, when asserting that what appeared to all beholders a mere loaf of bread was in reality a most undeniable leg of mutton.

Mr. Saunders asserts that the absentee proprietor of an uncultivated fifty-acre section, and the man who has just commenced cultivating another section of similar siza and capabilities, being taxed at the same amount, i 3 contrary to the spirit of the amended Road Bdl. By the supposition, the cultivation has commenced merely ; the hard-working man has just entered on his enterprise of cultivation, and, of course, is to be taxed for the current year with the absentee and other proprietors of wild land around him, and not with the occupier of the flourishing farm. In after years, a3 the wild section becomes a productive farm, and able to bear a tax — when it has become a road-wearing farm, and a tax can be more rightfully enforced — then the occupier begins more fully to share in a burden of his own creation, leaving other industrious settlers, commencing cultivation, to the comparative exemption which he formerly enjoyed.

The next sentence is most perplexing. It goes to prove that, starting with £6 as a tax for fifty acres, a farm on which 10,000 to 15,000 days' labour has been expended (and there are several such here) would, had our Country Roads Ordinance been in operation from the period of commencing cultivation iv this settlement, be now subject to an annual tax of from £1,200 to £1,800 a year. This may safely be allowed to refute itself. Having now noticed all the argumentative part of Mr. Saunders' long letter, I will merely observe that his remarks are of an all-silencing, if not of an allconvincing kind, and I should, on this occasion, have treated his letter as quite unanswerable, had I not been compelled to notice it for the reason mentioned above — that of releasing you from the intolerable burden of the twaddle of Your obedient servant, J. W. Baenicoat.

TO THE EdITOB OF THE 'NELSON EXAMINEE.'

Sir — Mr. Saunders omitted to say in his last letter to yourself, why Millers, to whom good roads are perhaps of greater consequence than to any other class of people in the province, should be exempted, or almost exempted, from assibting in the making and repairing them. Perhaps he had the modesty to suppose that his epistle was long enough as it was, and that it would be better to give that interesting information in a future Examiner. Your's &c., A Rogue in G-eain.