THE NELSON EXAMINER. Wednesday, June 23, 1858.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 50, 23 June 1858, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Wednesday, June 23, 1858.

Journals become mure ueceaaar) »•» men ht-ruuir im.rr e qu.t »nd iniliviiiiiuli^m .imcv to tie teareit It would be 10 umUrrattheir .mp.irlßiire to suppose itiut they nerve unly to nerur. liberty: tl.ej in iuuuim civilisation I>K I'OCUUKVI LLII, Of Deiii'-cracy in America, vol. Y.,p.i3u - In one of our late numbers we noticed a subject" which was then exciting public attention in Wellington to the exclusion of all others. We allude to the abstraction of £'5,000 from the Treasurer's account with the Union Bank, and its transference to an account opened at the Oriental Bank', by the Acting Treasurer, Mr. William Fox. The members of Dr. Featherston's Executive, Messrs. Fox, Fitzherbert, and Brandon, have felt the subject of sufficient importance to call for a public explanation ; in which they jointly assume the responsibility of this act, and justify it as called for under the circumstances. We will shortly give the substance of this manifesto. They first state that it is by no means clear who ought to hold the powers of Superintendent. They speak of three opinions. One, that Dr. Featherston's powers ceased from the date of his resignation on April sih; the second, that they continued until that resignation was accepted, on the 23rd, which acceptance became known in Wellington on May 20th ; the third, that he continues Superintendent until his successor is elected. On this last supposition we shall only observe that it is at variance with all precedent in similar cases. A public officer wishes to resign his office ; his resignation is accepted ; and from the time he is made aware of this, he is clearly fiinctus ojfficio, more especially when the Legislature has already provided for such I a contingency. They do not seem to rely much, however, upon this view of the case ; but proceed to observe, that supposing either of the two former opinions to be correct, a further question arises whether Mr. Ludlam, the Speaker of the Council, or Mr. Fitzherbert, the Deputy appointed by Dr. Featherston after he had sent in his resignation, but before he had received notice of its acceptance, is the Deputy Superintendent. Here, again, it seems to us that the question could only arise in one of those cases ; for if Dr. Featherston vacated office on sending in his resignation, his power of appointing a deputy ceased with his tenure of office. We think on the whole that the second supposition is most likely to be the correct one ; and that the Superintendent's acts would be valid, provided they were in themselves legal, up to the date of his becoming aware that his resignation was accepted. His right, however, to appoint a deputy is denied, except in case of illness or absence from the province ; and this is our impression also. But they assert that all parties are agreed that "no one but an actual Superintendent can issue warrants for the expenditure of the public money." This admission seems fatal to their case ; since to justify the withdrawal of from the Provincial Treasury at the Union Bank, they assume that the Bank and its legal adviser would pay over those funds to their opponents, after allowing that those very opponents concur with them in thinking such payment illegal. This however, has not yet got to the end of its wanderings. After being paid in at the Oriental Bank to the credit of William Fox, acting Treasurer, it is the next clay transferred to the account of " The Land Fund, W. Fitzherbert." We here meet with another admission, namely, that the office of Receiver of Land Revenue was a sinecure, and that practically Mr. Fitzherbert, the Receiver, never received it at all. " When, however, the present crisis occurred, it became necessary to look at the Receivership of the Land Fund as a reality, and not a mere form." Fie, fie, gentlemen ! this is not the spirit in which public affairs should be handled. It Mr. Fitzherbert received a salary for a mere form, what becomes of all the public virtue which brought you into office ; or why should your duties become realities only when you are on the verge of dissolution 1 The pretence that the General Government might call upon the Receiver for moneys which had already been legally expended under previous arrangements, is weak in the extreme, and shows too clearly the real animus of the transaction which renders such a subterfuge necessary. It appears further that the public works are carried on by these gentlemen on their own responsibility, they finding the funds; the whole of these very questionable proceedings being evidently under the influence of one ruling ides, namely, that the management of the public affairs shall not, if possible, be allowed to fall for one hour into the hands of the opposite party ; that, to attain this end, all means are good ; and that they will not be over scrupulous in the use of them. Eventually we believe that this pertinacious and limpetlike adherence to office will prove to be bad policy ; aud that while they characterize their adversaries, en masse, as a pack of imbeciles, and sneer at the judgment of those who fleeted (hem, they may be producing an impression that it is possible to be too clever j and that a little common sense, honesty, and fair dealing may perchance be found sufficient, without those talents of which they, in almost direct

terms, assume themselves to possess the monopoly. We had written these observations before the last arrivals from Wellington, which brought us Judge Gresson's decision on the -[uestions in dispute, confirming our previous impressions. The Judge has taken the common sense view of the case, and decided in favour of Mr. Ludlam's pretensions. Dr. Featherston's party in consequence resigned office at once, tincl further appear to have seen their error in the matter of the also, having repaid the money into the Provincial chest, Mr. Ludlam, in announcing this to the Council, also informed them that he did not intend to take any further legal proceedings in the case. Some of the more violent partisans grumble at this, thinking he has let his adversaries off too easily ; but he has taken the right course, and the most politic also. Furiously as party strife now rages there, surely before long the electors must see how prejudicial all this is to their real interests, and come to the resolution of insisting that those who aspire to govern others, shall first show that they are able to govern themselves. Politics after all are something more than mere personal abuse, or even than a desperate struggle for the loaves and fishes of office ; and those who reduce the contest to such paltry dimensions, unconsciously at the same time dwarf themselves in proportion. The men who for some years past have administered affairs at Wellington, have given proof of ability in debate and decision in action ; they but share the fate of all other public men, and having floated long on the full tide of popular favour, now find that it ebbs as well as flows : nay, they have themselves carefully provided that it should be so, by their own indiscriminate censures of the Government which preceded them. In the cold shades of opposition they never calculated upon basking I in the warm sunshine of place, and are ready now to deuounce as absurd, exaggerated, and ridiculous, the ideas which their own brains engendered, and their own care fostered and brought to maturity. They have raised a desire for change; they in turn must now give way to satisfy it ; they have excited hopes, they have raised expectations of greater benefits than either they or their probahle successors \\ ill be able to realize ; and they are now paying the late but inevitable penalty, We would offer for the consideration of both parties the following remarks of a great man, who lived in times when society was being shaken to its very depths, and who witnessed, on a great scale, all those changes which we are now representing in miniature : — He that go.th about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never wdnt attentive and favourable hearers ; because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of Government is subject, but the secret lets and hindrances, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider. And because such as openly repro\ c supposed disorders of Btate are taken for principal friends to the common benefit of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind ; under this fair and plausible colour, whatsoever they utter passes for good and current. That which wauteth in the weight of their speech is supplied by the aptness of men's minds to accept and believe it. Whereas, on the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to strive with a number of heavy prejudices, deeply rooted in the hearts of men, who think that therein we serve the time, and speak in favour of the present state, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment ; but also to bear such exceptions as minds, so averted beforehand, usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them. We are requested to notice the following additional subscriptions to the Indian Relief Fund, aud to state that the subscription will be closed at the end of the present month, aud the amount remitted to the Committee in London :—: — James B. Wemy3s, Esq. ... £5 0 0 O. Curtis, Esq 110 J. W. Harnicoat, Eaq. ... 330 T. M. Humphries, Esq., Wairau 5 0 0 The schooner Henry, with mails from the other Southern Provinces, arrived on Monday, from Wellington. Some of the intelligence thus brought will be found in another column. By way of Hawke Bay, we have received an account of the proceedings of the General Assembly to the 11th May, being about a week Jater than the news previously received. These proceedings will be published in our next. Our expectation of receiving the English mail by the steamer from Wellington has been disappointed, for although the Tasmanian Maid met the mail schooner Jeannie Dove going into Wellington, she did not wait ?or the mail. It is greatly to be regretted that while the Province of Wellington can afford to pay a handsome subsidy to a couple of schooners for conveying the English mail from Melbourne to Wellington, we must trust to chance vessels for bringing it to Nelson, thus allowing our letters sometimes to lie for a fortnight or more in Wellington, when for a little extra expense arrangements might be^ made for our steamer to meet lhe arrival of the mail at Wellington, and bring it on at once. In the meantime, however, we must wait patiently for the next arrival from Wellington to bring us the news.