THE The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO. SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1876.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4488, 1 April 1876, Page 2

THE The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO. SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1876.

We should think Sir George Grey ■will be rery glad -when the struggle between the jeneral Government and the provinces is fairly over, for upon him falls the aeaviest burden of the present anomalous | position. Superintendent without power, md si member of the Assembly with i character to lose, he is compelled to watch with the keenest scrutiny, every Btep taken by the General Government and every proposal emanating from them. With the warning ,befoie him o£ the. manner in whicli/che liability for advances has been shifted from the General to the Provincial Governments pasj, he appears determined not 'to be cai-ght napping. No one can blame Sir George for an attitude which must be exceedingly disagreeable to himself, and wnich is only assumed for the def enceof the province. At the'same time it-will be a matter of :-egret that the necessity should exisi,, and delays be caused by "the determination of the General Government to slight the Superintendent whenever they can on the one hand, and to force upon him the responsibility of putting the province into an unfair position on the other. The correspondence we published yesterday illustrates the difficulty. In the first place, the Mayor of Grahams town informs Sir George Grey that the General Government would agree to the balance rff6in^Cn^^vr-t9ovtn%»JPl\mP™F^J^So- - spent in further sinking only, if Tie approves. The Superintendent naturally writes to the Colonial Secretary and asks him if this is correct. It would have been simple and easy to say yes or no, but a note from His Honor seems to act on the Ministry like a red rag on a bull. For Dr. Pollen at once flares up, evades the real question aid avoids a real answer by reproaching the Superintendent with " doubting the statement made by Mr. Macdonald." The childishnesE of this is apparent. What ground hac 1 Sir George Grey to believe that Mr. Macdonald spoke by authority or that he hac rot misunderstood the views of the Minis try ? Clearly none, because we find, sooi after, that when Sir George did ap prove the proposed alteration- of th< expenditure, Dr. Pollen at . orici turned round and asked for a defi nite proposal. Mr. Macdonald's let ter inferred that this definite proposal had already been :nade, and would b< sanctioned by Ministers if only the Super intendent approved it; As the mattej •stood at the end of fie correspondent the Superintendent had approved th( diversion. Mr. Macdonald said it hac j been approved also by t':e ColonialSecre ! tary, but instead of a frank acceptanci of the Superintendent's approval, the Colonial Secretary writes, "I.have no received any proposal from your Honor nor have I made any to you which re quired your approval." This, too, it face of Mr. Macdonald's letter, thai "the Colonial Secretary told me this morning that if your Honor approved of the measure, the Gene ral Government, if referred to, woulc offer no objection." We have no doub whatever that Mr. Macdonald wrote whai was exactly correct, and the Colonia' Secretary admitted this when writing tc the Superintendent: "Your Honor ap pears to throw doubt upon the statemeni made to you by Mr. Macdonald," a charg< which no impartial man could have made against His Honor's letter and a tacit ad mission, at the same time, that Mr. Mac donald had exactly expressed the view: of the Government, which were" after wards so coolly disavowed. We believe the affair has since beer settled, and so far the result of the correspondence is satisfactory. At the sami time, it is not pleasing to find Minister taking advantage of their temporary posi tion to harrass the Superintendent, in th< vain attempt to worry him into submis sion to their views and support of thei policy. He is evidently not to be movet from his course, but has opened up nev and interesting ground in the course o this correspondence. Referring to the long pending " claims" of the province on thi General Government, he calls tht Colonial Secretary's notice incidentally to his letters upon them, reminding bin also that he has neglected to reply to thesi various letters, and that great incon venience had thus been caused. He fur ther maintains that the Governor anc Executive have no right to deal with sucr matters privately—that they are Acts oi Appropriation which they take upon them selves to pass, and that no such Acts an ever passed except in open Council. " Thi is the invariable practice in all parts oi the Empire," says Sir George, "andlholt that the Governor and the Ministry an wrong in deviating from it." If thei will take upon themselves the appropri ation of the public money instead o leaving the Assembly to appropriate it let them do so, but let them do it as thi Assembly would and as they do it inevei Grown Colonies, in open Council. Dr. Pollen's reply is prompt and to thi! effect, " Your Honor has made a euriou: mistake. It is the Governor alone an< not the Governor in Council with whon the appropriation rests. The Act give; him this power, the Superintendents beinj the oaly persons whom the Act require him to consult." Sir Gecrge Grey'ac cepts the position at once, andexpresseshi readiness to communicate with the Go vernor if His Excellency desires him t> do «o. Hβ irill be glad to give the advia

•i£ a3ked,.t>ut stipulates ttafc it should be open Council, whenever .the -appropriation o£ money,; and not its mere 'administration, is in question. The reply io this. we.have -not yet heard, but the position is curious." . It is rumoured that on the strength of it and of other similar admissions on the part of the Ministry, I Sir George Grey has determined-to; seek" relief from further harrassing controversies by communicating in future direct the. Governor as Superintendent-of _theProvince. It is also rumoured that Tie has asked for a Eoyal Commission from England to enquire into the disputes between the Provincial and General Governments, and to report on the adminis-j tration of affairs during the last five years—an administration in which people in England are now very largely interested as well as the people of this colony. Every honest man.in Auckland who. desires a settlement of our vesatioxis disputes, and who wishes to see justice done to Auckland, will hear of thi3 appeal to the Throne with pleasure and intense satisfaction. If supported by petition from the people there can be no doubt it would be at once granted ; but; in any case, it must have great weight with the Imperial Government in the present confused condition of our political affairs. .'. . . ;.'.'.'

Some years ago the late Mr. Wynn caused to be put on the Provincial Estimates a sum of £1500, to be expended for the erection ashore, near the harbour of Auckland, "of a;suitable residence for the Commodore upon the station." The result o£ that motion was the building known as "Admiralty House," overlooking what remains of the Wynyard Pier. In the course of time the building rather fell into decay, but recent instructions given by the Admiralty in respect of the future' dis : positions of the British Navy have retrieved its prospects, and it may yet be .applied to its original purpose—namely, for the residence of the naval officer commanding " the station." At all events, whether this should be so or not, it is acarcelj too much, toeipect that a building which has been raised by public money for a particularpurposeshouldbe accessible to those for whom it was intended. It is, however, a fact that not long since a naral officer thought he would not inappropriately occupy Admiralty " House' by giving a ball in honour of his friends upon re-visiting this place. An entertainment of this kind,, upon-however small a scalo represents a good deal of expenditure of money by bath giver and receiver. There is perhaps a hundred pounds expended by the host, and the guests put not a little money in circulation. If the Commodore of the station gave such an entertainment it might, perhaps, .cost five times as much for all parties. All kinds o£ trades, it may be said, profit by.the expenditure. One would fancy that- some local body would have an interest in seeing that the road to and from the house would be in such a state that the ladies -would not .risk life and limb, or being shut out from their dance because a few yards of the way is in the condition of an impassable: quagmire. This is precisely what has happened. There is, between Admiralty House, the Wynyard Pier, and the new railway, a patch of road in the state we have described. Neither the Harbour Board nor the General Government will own any obligation in respect to it. Whenever a shower of rain comes, this piece of ground is jl mud hole. It is nobody's land, and though it forms a part of a most valuable property, no one considers himself bound to make this it annoyed that his lady friends should be draggled with.Official Bay mud. But he did something more. He informed his friends that it would be more convenient to live on board his vessel than to have to travel the Queen's wharf, Queen-street, Shortland-street and Eden Crescent, to reach, after an up-and-down hill circuit, the shelter of Admiralty House. We are informed that a sum of 40s would fill thi3 hole up with scoriastones. Will nobody do this ? What public body is so churlish as to "refuse such an expenditure for so 'obvious an advantage as the residence of a naval officer implies. Here comes in the 1 question •' cui hono. The answer is not very clear, but there is known to be such a thing as hospitable intentions, and we should not like to think Auckland is behind the rest of the world in respect to these, which have no place in the region where good intentions are often fouud. The General Government is at Wellington ; the Har- ■ bour Board and the City Council are on the spot. They might iind the means of adjusting between them an expenditure of say 40s. . Any one of them might find abundant thanks and some profit in expending the whole sum upon so obvious and useful a repair of a road. It is, however, to be considered that tho authorities are very pragmatical and precise in public expenditure. They woull not waste 40 . shillings of the public money for any consideration ; and just now they.are engaged in immense public works for water carrying' and portage. Their wisdom is shewn to be justified in the fact, that after an expenditure of hundreds of thousands of pounds, they are so careful of the public money that they would not spend another doight except iu case of necessity. This, we suppose, will be their defence.

The manner in which the land is being taken up at Ohinemuri under the agricultural leases permitted on the goldfield is very gratifying! and shews what would be done in that district if the best of the land were made available for settlement. The situation, as it stands, is rather absurd. Care was taken to run the goldfields line so that the goldfield should have none of the good land. The goldfieMs line, instead of running straight from point to point, runs out and in so as to exclude from the goldfield all the good land, and leave in the goldfield only the hills! The flat country is preserved sacred from European intrusion, but, under certain conditions, men are allowed to take up land on the hills for agricultural purposes. A great deal of work has been done in this ■way, but the absurdity of the position is this, that while the men are ploughing and fencing in the rough ground on the hills, thousands of acres of fertile land on the flat are lying' before their eyes which no one can touch. The Thames Evening Star, in commenting on this anomaly, says : "If any proof were wanting of the advisability of throwing open land for settlement in this district, or of the desire of the people to obtain land and to make the best of it, such proof might be found in the readiness with which agricultural leases were taken up at Ohinemuri, and the amount of work done in improvements during the few months which have elapsed since the selections were made. As we have before stated, nearly five thousand acres of land have been taken up, and already the amount of work done in building, fencing, and other improvements is more than the regulations require for the first year of occupation. Some of the holders have put steck on their land, and others have put a portion of their ground under crop, so that in a few months' time the products of these farms will find their way to a market here. We are confident that if more land were rendered available; a great deal of capital that is now lying idle would be put to use, and the district would reap the benefit at once—the colony ultimately." "':•'"