NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Wednesday, May 13, 1857.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1229, 13 May 1857, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Wednesday, May 13, 1857.

Anotheb Session of the Provincial Council is to be held forthwith. From the notice which appears in to-day’s paper it will be seen that the Council is summoned to meet for the despatch of business on the 2nd of next month The sudden announcement of another session previous to the dissolution of the present Council has created a very general feeling of surprise, andadesireto know what pressingpub. lie necessity has prompted this step. The pfin. cipal reason which we have heard assigned is that four of the Acts passed during the last ses. sion, namely, the Scrip Extension Act, the Hutt Settlers’Compensation Act, the Additional Loan Act for £25,000, and the Passenger Regain, tion Act have been disallowed by the Governor The two first Acts, we believe, have been dis. allowed on technical grounds, the Loan Act has been disallowed, we understand, because one of its chief objects was to provide sufficient funds for the erection of a lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour, and it is alleged that the Provincial Council has exceeded its powers in passing this Act, because the Constitution Act expressly prohibits any Provincial Council from making any law for “ the erection and maintenance of beacons and lighthouses on the coast.” On the other hand it is alleged that an arrangement had been made with the General Government by which the Light House to be erected at Pencarrow Head was to be regarded as a Harbour Light, the cost of which was to be defrayed by the Provincial Government. In the mean time the loan sanctioned by the Act, it is said, has been nego. tiated and part of the money has been advanced to the Provincial Government, and the I.ight-house, it is currently reported, has been ordered from England. The provisions of the Passenger Act have been so well described in an article from the Southern Cross, reprinted by us in last Wednesday's Spectator, as almost to preclude the necessity of our saying anything on the subject further th an to express our surprise that such an Act could have been passed in an Assembly elected under Representative Institutions, or that any set of men calling themselves the friends and leaders of the people, could have brought such an arbitrary and tyrannical Act forward. For the real object of its enactment, it is notorious, was to provide in the most summary way for the recovery by the Provincial Government of the promissory notes of the immigrants brought out under their arrangements. But there is no reason why the Provincial Government should be placed in a different position from any other creditor, or why they should not, like other creditors, avail themselves of the ordinary operation of the law, without resorting to more stringent enactments. Certainly the men who profess to be tho champions of free institutions should be tho last to assume, or even to advocate tho assumption of, such arbitrary powers. And we cannot help contrasting our free government in this respect with what his opponents have been pleased to call tho arbitrary Government of Sir George Grey. On the first discovery of gold in New South Wales, an attempt was made to procure tho enactment by the Council of some regulations to prevent debtors from suddenly and clandestinely leaving the colony, but the. proposal was resisted by Sir George Grey.as interfering with the liberty of the. subject,, while it was maintained. t;hat the ordß nary operation o£ the laws, offered a sufficient protection to. creditors. This Pas. sengor Act, too, has been carried out in such a manner as to create very general dis,satisfaction, so much so that a doputa.tioni from the Chamber of Commerce had been appointed to. wait on tho Superintendent on the subject on his return from Ahuriri, when any further action wo3 .rendered unnecessary by tho news of tho disallowance of the Act. From what, has been said, there seems hardly sufficient reason,—except so far as tho Loan Act is concerned, to keep faith with the public creditor,—to call tho Council together W

shortly before its dissolution, except an attempt is to be made to extract out of these elements some political capital to be made available at the ensuing elections—to get up some electioneering cry with which to go to the electors- to talk of independence and ultra-provincialism,—and to prove to the settlers of Wanganui and Ahuriri the great advantage of not being allowed to manage on the spot their own local affairs. Whatever is to be done, however, there seems to be no reasonable ground for supposing that the Session can be otherwise than a very short one.