NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 39, 21 October 1871, Page 15

NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY.

Within a circular ribbon, and on a ground diapree in antique escocheon, bearing azure between four estoils of eight points in cross argent, a book open fesswise of the same, edged and indexed proper. Motto, on an escroll argent, fimbricated gules surmounting the ground diapree, and passing behind the escocheon, the words—“ Sapere Aude.” What, in the name of common sense, is all this about, will be the impatient exclamation of every reader. We answer, it is £l the blazon of the seal of the New Zealand University.” Let us, in the spirit of the motto, daringly trying to be wise through reading the printed papers relative to its establishment presented to both Houses of the General Assembly 1 by command of his Excellency, express our opinion freely on the past history and future prospects of this University. It will be in the recollection of our readers that a bill was passed last session for the establishment of a University for the colony of New Zealand, and that its passage through the House of Representatives was much impeded by Messrs Stafford, Rolleston, Tancred, Carleton, and others. Their chief objection was that the colony was not ripe for even one University ; that, to use the words of Mr Stafford, “ all that the colony can safely do is to establish a Council with an office,” and that no attempt should be made “to localise this body, either at Dunedin or elsewhere.” After some rather acrimonious debates, this peripatetic council party was defeated, and the bill passed in its present shape. The Government, possibly from a desire to conciliate the gentlemen just named, and to secure their co-operation in this great national undertaking, gave them a seat at the Council. Thus, those who expressed themselves so strongly to the effect that a University should not yet he established, were actually called upon to be its first governors ; but we think the Government can scarcely congratulate themselves on the result of their choice. From all that we can glean from these papers, we infer that this party is in the ascendant. We admit now with them that a University, according to their ideal, is premature. Such a University, we agree with them, should have no seat ; but we go farther, it should have no existence.

We desire to speak with all due respect of this august Council, with its Chancellor, its Vice-Chanceller, and its great seal. Nay, as to the latter, we make the same promise as the Antiquary made about Hector’s seal, “ We 1 will rein in our satire, and, if possible, speak no more of it.” From the papers before us the Council does not seem to have been very anxious to carry out the spirit of the Act. The question whether the University should or should not have a seat, having been fully discussed in Parliament, and decided, it was not competent for the Council to reconsider it. The act under which the University is constituted provides that itshall have a local habitation as well as a name. “ Its obvious intention,” as the Colonial Secretary clearly points out in his letter to the Chancellor, “ is that the University shall be founded at some given place; if amalgamated with the University of Otago, then at Dunedin ; otherwise at such place within the colony as the Governor, with the advice of his Executive Council, may direct.” We submit, therefore, that the decision arrived at by the Council in Dunedin that it should have no seat is ultra vires, and that the great seal should not be lugged about from port to port, and exposed to profane gaze in every place where this new school of peripatetic philosophers may happen to make a temporary sojourn. The learned Chancellor, in a letter dated July 6th, which must be surely misprinted, as it is very ungrammatically expressed, seems to admit that the Council exceeded its powers in entertaining the question. “ It is no part of its functions to take action in the matter,” are his remarkable words ; but there is such a confusion of thought, resulting in ambiguity of expression in the whole letter, that these words may mean —not that itwas not competent for the Council to decide the question, but that it was not necessary for it to communicate its decision to the Govern-

ment. We observe that Mr Gisborne attaches the former meaning to it in his letter of the 15 th July, and points out with an admirable precision how this resolution has defeated the intention of the Legislature, and has occasioned considerable embarassment to the Government, inasmuch as if Ministers are not also to break the law, they must advise his Excellency to establish the University at a particular place. The Governor’s proclamation will therefore be an open affront to the University Council, which, by a formal resolution has declared that “ the establishment of the University at any particular place is not desirable at present.” The seal of the Colony will be attached to a proclamation setting forth the illegality of another bearing the seal of the University. The learned Chancellor of the University cannot believe so firmly in the maxim cedunt anna togae, as to think it “ desirable” to defy the “ Com-mander-in-Chief in and over her Majesty’s Colony of New Zealand.” Nor will it he an edifying spectacle to see the two seals thus lying side by side. Even the unlearned know the result of forces “ equal and contrary,” and some modern Oldbuck may punningly repeat the quotation of his sarcastic prototype —

Sternunt se somno diversce in litore phonos. The Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor have been in Wellington now for a number of weeks attending meetings of the Council, for it may not be generally known that Wellington is for the present not only the seat of Government but the seat of a University. Their proceedings are not yet published, but we hope to learn that the first resolution agreed upon was to repeal that passed at Dunedin, which the Attorney-General has, we infer from a paragraph in one of the letters, pronounced irregular and incompetent, if not illegal. We regret to say that we learn further from these papers, that this learned body has entirely misapprehended, in other directions, the meaning of the act. It has established scholarships, and actually advertised them at great expense without first getting the approval of the Governor in Council, required by the twelfth section of the act. Mr Gisborne, in his letter of the loth July, puts the case very clearly :—“ The whole question of these scholarships is at present beset with complications. They have been publicly offered before they have been legally established, and before any colleges have been affiliated to the University.” These learned gentlemen seem to have also peculiar notions on the subject of appropriating the funds placed by the Government, rather hastily we think, at their disposal. They seem to think that it is a matter of inferior importance. They cannot see that if statutes and regulations, “ approved by the Governor in Council,” are required for matters of mere routine, a fortiori they must be required for the appropriation of money. Then, again, we see a letter from the Chancellor, in which he gravely states that he is “ instructed by the Council to press upon the Government the necessity” of conveying to the University the reserves set apart under the University Endowment Act. In other words, the learned Chancellor asks the Colonial Secretary to violate the provisions of the very act to which he refers ! Mr Gisborne’s reply to this letter is curt and perspicuous—“ I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 27th of June, upon the subject of the lands set apart as endowments for the New Zealand University, and requesting that those lands may, in order to their more effective and immediate utilisation for the purposes for which they are reserved, be conveyed to the University. In reply, I have the honor to refer you to the University Endowment Act, 1868, from the seventh and eighth sections of which you will perceive that the reserves already or hereafter to be made for the endowment of the New Zealand University are to remain vested in the Crown, and subject to the management and administration of the Governor in Council. The act also provides how the proceeds of such lands shall be dealt with.” We never read such a history of blundering as these papers disclose. It is a very “ comedy of errors.” The seal; —but no ! We must really keep our promise with regard to it, and we must reserve our remarks on other points for another opportunity.