WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9180, 9 October 1888, Page 5

WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES

[by telegraph.—own correspondent.] Wellington, Monday. MINISTERIAL MOVEMENTS. The only Ministers now in Wellington are the Premier and Minister of Education. As previously stated, the Minisber of Lands lefb for the Marlborough Goldfields on Saturday nighb in the s.s. Penguin. The Nabive Minisber, the Hon. Mr. Mitchelson, left this morning by bhe early brain, en roube for Napier. He was accompanied by Mr. Lewis, Under-Secretary of Native Affairs, and Mr. Buller, of the Land Purchase Department. The party will stop ab Awapuroa, having bo meet certain natives of the settlement near the township. The Native Minister will return to Wellington on Wednesday or Thursday night. MR. VESEY STEWART. This notable gentleman is in Wellington, having come •to New Zealand by the Tongariro, which arrived here at eleven o'clock on Saturday nighb. He had an interview with Sir H. Atkinson this morning. .Ib is rumoured bhab he had some importanb proposal to submit to the Government in connection with immigration and land settlement. DETECTIVE WALKER. It was reported that there was to be an inquiry into the conduct of this officer in connection with the disappearance of Gasparini, his prisoner. I now hear that both Walker and his prisoner were altogether beyond the jurisdiction of any New Zealand authority when the latter disappeared, and as no complaint has been mode of Walker's conduct, who followed precisely the instructions given to him, no action will be taken that is likely bo affect Walker himself. Ib was alleged that Walker was to be transferred to Dunedin ; bub no order has been received to that effect, although Detective Brown has gone to Auckland. The absence of the Minister of Justice in Melbourne may account for the order of transfer being in abeyance. Beyond receiving Detective Walker's statement of bhe circumstances attending Gasparini's escape no inquiry will be instituted. Even this statement would nob be necessary, bub for the controversy which has been raised by the French Consuls in Wellington and Sydney. In consequence of the imputation cast upon some of the authorities here, a detailed account of the whole transaction (with correspondence and documentary evidence) will be transmitted by His Excellency for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In this light Detective Walker's evidence as to the instructions he received from the Consul when embarking with his prisoner in the steamer for Sydney may be of the first importance. NATIVE LANDS ACT. Ib is stated that the amendments, alterations, and verbal corrections that were made in this measure when passing through Parliament, last session have produced a veritable hotch-potch. The Post has the following in a sub-leader on the subject this evening : —" The new Native Land Acts are greatly exercising tho minds of all who have bo construe or administer bhein. Whether they were badly drawn in the first instance, whether their originally fair proportions were marred during their passage through the Legislature, we are not prepared to say, bub they are certainly proving a source of much present vexation, and thereby to lay a foundation for much future litigation. Their provisions are in some cases incomprehensible, their machinery is generally unnecessarily complex, and in some respects unworkable. The lawyers who have been called on to advise and act under them are loud in their complaints, and ib has already become painfully evident that the Acts will utterly fail to accomplish the objects they were passed to attain. They afford neither the relief nor the facilities they were designed to give, and it is already evident that they will have to be amended beyond recognition next session. Such ab least is bhe opinion of capable experts." [BY TELEGKAI'H.—TRESS ASSOCIATION.] Wellington, Monday. At bhe Magistrate's Court, James White, charged with horse-stealing and resisting the police, was committed for trial on each charge. White is the man whom the arresting constable shot in the wrist before he was arrested.