PORT PHILLIP.

New Zealander, Volume 1, Issue 34, 24 January 1846, Page 4

PORT PHILLIP.

On Friday, the 28th ultimo, a public meeting wa6 held at Melbourne for the purpose of taking into consideration the resolution adopted by the Legislative Council for the pioposed loan for emigration to this colony, conceiving that the locality of Port Philip with the Middle and Northern Cistricts, although at present an integral pait of the colony, too remote to be equallj benehited with the other Districts, to the extent i« would be called on to contribute towards the necessary funds required for the purpose of emigration. The meeting was numerously attended, and some very good points were urged by the speakers as grounds for a separation. It is a question heareafter to be decided, whether the benefits to lesult from a division will in any v\ ay realise the expectation! of the promoters of this movment, It reflects great credit upon the District to be the first so boldly to step forward and appoint a Colonial Agent from their own province to tepresent their rights and interests, consequently in some degree those of the colony at large, at the Colonial Office; this is a step which should Lave emanated fiom the elder poition of the colon)— ilbuch had b^en the case, facts which have only partially reached the British Senate would have been fully developed j surely there can be no pau ity of talent or pecuniary resourses in the Middle District that would forbid their adopting the same course as their Southern neighbours Previously to the meeting separating, several resolutions were adopted, expressive of their feeling* vt ith regard to such an act of injustice being forced on them as to encumber their province with a joint debt, of which the bern fils to be derived would be so inadequate, and urging such injustice as a ground that it would cieate a new and almost insuperable ob-sta-le to the separation of Port Phillip from the Middle District. Sepauation.— His Excellency Sir George Gipps has caused it to be intimated in the province that it if his intention to recommend to the home government, in the strongest possible terms, that as soon as the doubt which at piesent hangs over the colony in the emigration debenture, shall have been wiped aw ay, hew ill recommend to the home governmeut the separation, leriitorial and financial, of this province from New South Wales, and its erection into an independent colony. The surplus revenue of the present \ ear, it is expected, will be sufficient to ucomplish this purpose} we may therefore expect our freedom in a very little more than twelve months from this time. His Excellency accompanies his recomendation with the condition that bur legislature shall in the first instance be composed of cioWn nominees. This U a retiograde movement to which we should think the Btiiish Parliament will scarcely be disposed to aisent, seeing they are proposing to give a representative legislature to New Zealand, but an} thingis better than S}dney robber), and therefore, all hail— separation on any terms. — Melbourne Couher.