DUNEDIN. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) August 21st. 1865.

North Otago Times, Volume IV, Issue 79, 24 August 1865, Page 3

DUNEDIN. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) August 21st. 1865.

After the electioneering excitement of the last few weeks, the past week has appeared very uneventful. To mercantile men it has of course been a. busy one, with a mail outwards on Friday to prepare for, and a mail delivered on Saturday to keep up the excitement, to say nothing of a meeting of creditors, in which all our principal houses are concerned. It is a case, howevtr, which is expected to turn out a surplus, a. very unusual case indeed as times go. But for that part of the public which has no interest in these things, the week has been decidedly a dull one, nnd the arrival of the English Mail only three days behind time was a. welcome event. There are signs of life, though behind the scenes, in the Government offices. Our new Superinendent seems desirous to make up for the inaction of the late interregnum, when no business of importance could be entered upon. The public has been calling out that a good road ouj;ht to be found from our own goldfields to those of the "West Coast. The special benefit Otago is to reap from it, is not apparent to men of an enquiring stamp of mind, but it is no doubt thought, that if a good road existed, some of our miners who have run away and some of those who are just now following them, would come back by it to their old haunts instead of running off to Melbourne or elsewhere, as so many did in the days of the Picton rush, and subsequent disappointment. If Otago, however, should not find the investment specially profitable to herself, the road if made must be valuable, and, if we had a central Govei nment to design such things, would probably have been set about ere this. Mr Pyke lias received a commission to organize a party to explore the country at the head of Lake Wanaka, and is about to start for the Dunstan for """lie purpose. It is probable that he will head the party ■u'ihself. Other pi ejects too are in hand to allay the grievances of our mining population, or rather of the traders who live amongst them, (for I do not believe the genuine miner cai es a doit for agricultural land), as to the sale of land in the neighborhood of existing goldfields. It is in contemplation, in order to facilitate sale, to have the backs at present open within the goldfields under the operation of the Goldfields Act. This will remove difficulties whlolj. exist under the Waste Lands Act. Mr Henry Clapcott, so lately a candidate for the Superintendency, lias resigned his seat in the Provincial Council. Two versions of his reasons ato afloat, the one being the commou one of private affairs, tho other, that the unfortunate gentleman has suffered so severely under the chaffing he has received in the matter of the late election that he has thrown up politics in disgust. No doubt the true reasons include a little of each of these. Mr Clapcott was a fortnight ago very freely spoken of as the Provincial Secretary — designate on what grounds I was rot able to discover. I believe the rumour was a mere canard. The Supreme Court has been holding a sitting in Insolvency during the week. The business transacted •was not of any general interest, with exception of a decision by Mr Justice Chapman (the Court has usually been presided over by Mr Justice Richmond), that there was nothing in the act which enabled him even at the instance of the creditors themselves to give an insolvent his fuiniture. It is probable, however, that in practice, a method of carrying out this very usual arrangement will be found. The new lessees of the Princess Theatre are succeeding in making the house popular, Miss Matthews is of course a host in herself, and Mr J. L. Hall is becoming a great favorite. As the winter gives way to spring, there is every prospect of the house filling very differently to what it has done for twelve months past. I see you hailed the *' New Provinces Act Limitation Act" as likely to confer a boon on your distiict. I had hoped tho same of it, but the unfortunate Bill is already defunct, having been slain by Mr James Macandrew, the new member for Bruce, at the head of a troop of thirty members of the_ House of Representatives, only twentytwo mustering in its defence. It may be that tli6 BUI attempted a good thing in a bad way, and that the new Bill which Mr Macandrew has given notice of will contain provisions calculated to secure justice to outlying districts. If not, our Representatives are bad interpenters of the signs of the times. Whatever other provinces may need, we want in Otago a thoroughly new system of administration, rendering such places as Oamaru more independent of the Provincial Government.