VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 140, 2 October 1847, Page 4

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

The Ilobart Town City Commissioners and the Governoi seem to be at open issue — mutual statements, replies, and rejoinders having passed or no very amicable tendency. In a rather elaborate lepoit of the 7»b September, the Commissioners charge their failure upon the Government—lst, from the Government having caused the pabsing of an imperfect act ; 2nd, from the Governor declining to avail himself of the services of the Legislature, by which the imperfections implied could have been amended ; 3rd, by refusing all aid as a substitute for assessment in gratuitous convict labour. They add that first the Governor had told them they possessed no I legal pou pis, and must cease to act in any manner as Commissioners; next, that his Excellency had urged their so ceasing against them as a serious offence ; and yrt afterward charged as a deieliction from duty their tot having retired from their assumed office long before ! They hold that they would not be justified in handing over the stores in their possession as requested to the Director of Public Works—but that they are bound in duty to their fellow citizens, to retain them until in a condition again to apply them to the impiovement of the city, or to hand them over to the expected municipality. A large numbet of the piincipal colonists have petitioned Sir W Denison, against the application of convict labour to the growth of wheat, b.uley, hops, potatoes, and other produce; a» also, the depasturing of sheep upon Crown lands, lo the manifest detriment of the farmer and grazier, and praying that the whole of the probationary convict labour may be employed solely upon public works' long neglected under an improved system of discipline. To this the Governor has replied, promising that the convicts shall be chiefly employed on the public wards upon a system of task work, and that at penal stations where farm labour cannot be dispensed with, the produce of such labour shall not come into competition with the colonial growers. A rumour was in circulation, though upon no certain grounds, that the Colonial Secretary and Comptroller General of Convicts were both to be displaced. Sir W. Denison is said to have finally resolved upon removing the aborigines altogether from Flinders Island. This is warmly objected to by many — although from the paucity of those people, and their broken down condition, without much reason that we can see for appre hensions of future violence on their part.