DESPATCHES.

New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 54, 23 February 1842, Page 2

DESPATCHES.

The following are c'opies of the despatches relative to the Municipal Corporation and District Police Bills, and the storing of grain in siloes. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS BILL, AND COMMISSIONERS OF POLICE AND PUBLIC WORKS BILL. Despatch from the Right Honorable Lord John Russell to His Excellency Governor Sir George Gipps, approving t/w Municipal Corporations Bill, and the Commissioners of Police and Public Works BUI, as originally laid bejore the Council, and recommending that they be again introduced into the Council. Downing-street, 21st July, 1841. Sib,—l have had under my consideration your Despatches, Nos, 120 and 121, of the 26th of August last, enclosing copies of two bills which you had introduced into the Legislative Council of New South Wales; tne one to provide for the establishment and regulation of Municipal Corporations within the territory of New South Wales; the other to authorize trie election ol Commissioners of highways and other public -4

works,in the Colony of New South Wales; both which bills had withdrawn in consequence of the difficulties raised to the qualification of the Emancipist portion of the com- . muniiy to vote and to hold offices under the provisions of such enactments. I regard those bills as judicious and well considered measures, and 1 regret the defeat of them. The course of events during the late session rendered il impossible for me to propose to Parliament any measure for the improvement of the Government of New South Wales, either in its Municipal or Legislat.ve Institutions. I inclose an Act which was passed towards the close of the Session, to provide for the Government of New South Wales, under the present form, for another year. Without the express authority of Parliament, there is certainly not inherent in the Crown or Local Government the power necessary 'for creating Municipal Institutions for such purposes as those which you contemplated. Doubts appear to have been raised by some persons in the Colony as to the competency even of the Local Legislature, as now constituted, to enact such a law. It appears to me that there can be no sufficient ground for such an opinion. Parliament has confided to the Legislature of New South "Wales powers of Legislation as ample as are enjoyed by the Legislative body of any other Britsh colony. In all other ..colonies these powers have been understood to be sufficiently ample to justify the creation of Municipal Corporation*. Of this, very recent examples may be found in Canada, Jamaica, Guiana, South Australia, and in every other of the Colonial Dependencies of this country. The competency of those LocalLegtslalures to make sufh enactments has not been doubled by the legal advisers of the Crown, either at home or abroad, or by the British courts of justice, or by any other person for whose opinion, on such subjects, peculiar authority is to be claimed, I would, therefore, wish that you would resume the subject, and induce the Legislative Assembly to euact the Municipal and the Police Bills, in ths form in which they were originally introduced ; adding a Schedule to the Municipal Corporations Brll, which should specify the towns in I whicnsuch Corporations would be established. I trust that the wish to create individuous distinctions be- - tween one class of the local society and auother, will yield to argument, or at ail events to time. The danger which a few years ago might be apprehended from the preponderance of an Emancipist interest, if it may be so termed, even if it were real then, will soon become entirely visionary. Nothing can now give a separate importance to that class but the attempt to proscribe them. # When you again introduce the Bills, I wish you to allow them to be formally rejected, rather than mutilate or withdraw them. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient humble servant, J. RUSSELL. Ajovernor Sir Georoe Gibps &c. &c, &c. ' GOVERNMENT PURCHASE OF LAND. Despatch from the Right Honourable Lord John -Rns*ell, to His Excellency Governor Sir George Gipps, deprecating Government purchases of Wheat, and suggesting the m« pediency of disposing of that now stored in the Government i>iloes. Downing-street, 24th June, 1841. S.n, I have received your despatch, No. 182, of the 30th of November la>t, reporting a further purchase of wheat ou accounl of the Government of New South Wales. On the laie occasion, when the proceedings of the colonial authorities were sanctioned by Her Majesty's government, the colony was suffering under ihe pressure of actual want', and the measure then adopted, was not the purchase of corn, but such a guarantee on the part of the Government to importer as would secure them from loss on the corn ordered by them from India.'South America, and other distant quarters; wtiereas, your more recent measure has been to purchase corn in a season of great plenty, in order to store it against any season of scarcity which might hereafter occuj. That proceeding, is, therefore, open to the interference oS a governmtnt with the corn trade. Her Majesty's Government feel convinced that the measure which has now been adopted by you, instead of lelieving future scarcities, will, by intro<Juc ig uncertainties .into all the operations of the corn trade, have a strong tepjlency to* paralise that trade, and to discourage the growtlr>,oi corn, and the importation of it from other places , besiowwhich, government undertakings of this nature are peculiarly liable to lead to waste, miscalculation, and mismanagement. Her Majesty's government see no sufficient reasons for making New South Wales an exception to these general rules: Unless you are prepared to state reasons of such urgency and importance as to induce you to take upoa yourself the responsibility of delaying the execution of my present instructions, you will on the receipt of this Despatch, therefore, cause the whole of the corn in store to be sold by public auction, and replace the sum realised by the sale, in the Commissariat or Colonial Chest, according as it may have been advanced from the one,or the other. 1 have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient humble servant, J. RUSSELL. Governor Sir George Gipps, &c. &c. &c.