FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 1862.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 48, 10 January 1862, Page 2

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 1862.

The Auckland JNewZealander is "halfangry, but more amused, at the tone which soma I portion of the Otago Press has lately taken •with regard to the question of the Separation of the Northern and Middle Islands." At the risk of.incieasing that curious compound of feeling, 'which we thought was peculiar to the members of the ape tribe, who grin most when they are angry, we will reply to the remarks put forward by our contemporary. First, we may say that evidently "the portion of the Press" he refers to is ourselves. His reason for using the ambiguous expression is clearly to cover the misrepresentation and torturingto whiohhehas deemed it necessary to subject the expressions of opinion, which have called forth his mixed feelings of amusement and anger. We are able to see through all the obscurity that it is against ourselves his remarks are directed, and certainly we do not shrink from the responsibility. On the contrary, we give him the full benefit of publicity ; his article appears at length in another column, a course which is more in accordance with journalistic etiquette than that of attacking without quoting, which our contemporary adopts. The attack on the climate of Otago is beneath notice, seeing it is either made in ignorance or in wilful; disregard of truth. It is true that it is colder than in Victoria, and that a great deal of rain falls during the year, but it is not so cbld as'in many parts of England, nor so rainy as in Scotland.* The difference in

* By the metereological report of Dr. Thompson, surgeon to the 58th regiment, published with the statistics of the New Zealand. Government for 1860, and extending over a/period of three years, it apwars that the climate of Auckland is not .much to be Preferred to Otago. At Auckland the mean annual Wrature was'W whilst at Otago it was 50, The rainfall in the first was 45* inches, whilst in the totter it was only 30 inches. The average number of days in the year on which rain fell was in Auckland 160 in Otago 130. The average temperature p London is 50,-in Edinburgh 47. fthe average rainfall in

the seasons is less strongly marked than in Is Australia. There is uot the slightest pretence la for supposing, as our contemporary asserts, be that in another three months the severity of di the weather will preclude any further profit- Ts We working of the gold fields till the en- T suing summer. The roads will not even be « impassable: there is a firm in town willing to ft contract for the conveyance of a daily mail to K and from the diggings for twelve months in si coaches which will also be available for pas- c < sengcr purposes. An extra flannel or two, h and° a stronger and thicker tent will place tl the miners in a position to disregard the occa- z< sional severity of the winter storms, especially as plenty of fuel in the shape of coal will be available to them. This is -not a new v plan, that of decrying the climate of places n to prevent settlement in them. British 0 Columbia which is now described as a delight--fnl climate, was for a very long period r ] tied up in the hands of the Hudson's Bay ( Compan}', which allowed the report to become |: current, that the climate was so rigorous as t to be unfitted even for the lengthened resi- J dence of the hardy trappers, who alone, formed its population. The Californian journals i when Eraser's River first broke out, like the ' Auckland print, eagerly seized on the climate as an excuse to discourage people from making their homes in the new gold country. They quoted old Gazetteers, and referred to ex- ~ periences of dreadful sufferings in the Arctic , regions, but the remonstrances fell on deaf , ears. They spoke to men who would have { ventured to the North Pole itself •in j search of gold—they went, and they found the climate a very pleasant one: ( not colder than many of the spots among , the high ranges of Northern California, i Our contemporary deals in so many asser- ' tions that many of them we can only briefly . allude to. The reference to Sir George Grey and his policy savours of want of can- j dour. Our author does not attempt to deny i that the effect of preventing direct purchases J of land f-om the Natives must be to sap the ■ foundation of Provincial Government, nor , does he say that Sir George Grey is without : any such design, but he attempts to ground a , contradiction to it, on a long rigmarole parallel of an alleged falsity in a totally distinct particular.. To aid him in his purpose he starts with a direct untruth —that one of the arguments in favour of Separation was "the disinclination of the authorities to send down a larger number of troops than the detacllment'lately forwarded." We have not space, nor is it worth the (rouble, lo employ roundabout terms in characterising this statement as utterly devoid of truth. No argument of the kind was ever attempted in any Otago journal, nor has ever any complaint b^en made of tho reluctance of the authorities to send the soldiery down. Quite the contrary,, it was thought the Government was only too ready to get rid of them, for the purpose of endeavouring to fasten on Otago the cost of the extra Colonial pay. On the other points on which it is said we are misinformed, something more is necessary than our contemporary's assertions. Tt will be no proof, because Sir George Grey finds himself obliged to resume the war, that he was not prepared to make most inglorious sacrifices to secure peace. Indeed, if hostilities have to be recommenced, many persons who believe in the maxim, "To preserve peace, arm for war," will consider them to have been brought about by the dragging-through-the-mud°process employed by his Excellency the Governor-General. " To promise all kinds of reform, and to negotiate for this or that extra immunity or privilege, whilst unqualified al-l«-"-iai)!-e'was not yf.t offered, and whilst the^ slaughtered lives and wasted homesteads of the Tarannki colonists were yet uii:!l<ned or unnoinpensated for—sounded more like the trcities of peace entered into between independent nations, than the terms dictated to rebels in arms against their lawful sovereign. Our contemporary takes exception to the demand for separation, on tfie plea that it ■'smacks" more of expediency than of principle. Wo cannot allow that it is wanting in the latter, but most assuredly it is founded on the former. Principles of honour do not admit of trinin" with, nor of submission to degrees "of comparison, and we are sure the most ardent separationist would not countenance any departure from all that principle or honour'demands. Whatever claims the Northern Island has. they can be settled by arbitration, and the South will shrink from the slightest repudiation. But in respect to expedient v, most certainly it is from the knowledge of the benefits that are to follow from the separation, that separation is demanded. Our contemporary should have a little more knowledge of every day life than to attempt a bread and butter, school miss romantic expression of horror at the adoption of the dictates of expediency. What on earth does he consider the South can possibly desire a separation for, but becansc that it is to its inteicst to have it. If it be true, as he says, thnt Otago did not desire a separation before the gold discoveries, that is no reason why it should not desire one now. It is the force of circumstances only that can lead to the division or dismemberment of countries; sometimes it is done in peace, more often in bloodshed. Our contemporary has read history to little purpose if he does not know that vastness of dimensions has in almost every case been the cause of the downfall of empires. Nations have fallen to pieces of their own unwieldiness, territorial extent is no test of strength; on the contrary, it is often a cause of weakness. England herself offers the exam pit that compactness is not irreconcilable with power. When countries are too extensive, or when they contain within them divided nationalities or a community with divided interests, there is a constant tending' towards separation going on, which sooner or later must successfully assert itself. This has been the case with the Americas. Better had it been to have allowed the Separation which no human power could stay, to have ensued bloodlessly. Separation must take place, unless one is rejoined to the other as a subjugated conquered State, and then the successful of to-day may be the defeated of tomorrow. How does our contemporary account for the dismemberment of the old Roman and Grecian Empires ? How does he reconcile the falling to peices of the mighty possessions that owned Charles V. as their monarch ? How does he explain the separation of the American colonies from England ? How does he account for the constant dismemberment of the Australiau Colonies ? Let him accept the solution: they have all arisen directly or indirectly from a division of interests ; whether the antagonism is based on opposite pursuits, or on local, geographical or religious considerations, a diversity of interests leads to but one result; a constant fretting of the ties that uncongenial^' associate them together. Otago then need not be ashamed, if it only it now finds that its interests are so widely dissimilar to those of the North that it desires a separation. Our contemporary aptly finishes his task—after cowardly assailing the province, then whiningly complaining that on the ground of expediency it should leave the North "to national bankruptcy and decay," it winds up with an appeal to the South that it is for its interest to continue with the North. The Colony will be weakened by the separation : Otago is only enjoying temporary prosperity, its gold produce will not last, it will spend it like a spend rift in the first novelty of its possession, and its neighbours, Canterbury and Nelson, will not be able to confederate with it! these are its arguments ; most of them require no reply nor will our limit? permit such. Otogo can laugh at the prophecies of its evanescent prosperity and of its misuse of that prosperity; it knows that separation is for its interest; no difficulty can arise in arranging the relative Mojmo^f^i^vajjjni^Pjjjyince^flneSliadleJ

Island, and the Colon}' of Southern New Zealand cannot be weaker or more insignificant because it is unburdened with the debts, the difficulties, or the follies of the Northern Tsland. One word more and we have finished. The Neii) ZealaruUr itself exposes ]the necessity of separation in giving tone to the feclirn's with which Otago is regarded by the Northern Island, the organ of which it constitutes itself. The non-separatiomsts may congratulate themselves on the champion they have selected. The New Zealundr.r has served the cause of separation in its intemperate zeal.

K3T The sale of Block V, Oamaru District, willtake place on Monday the 27th instant and not on the lTttfDecember, as erroneously adveroised in another part of our present issue. An error occurred in the report in our yesterday's issue, of the meeting of the Young Metis Christian Association. It was stated that the price of land offered by Mr. Morris, and occupied by the Association, was 66 feet and 40 feet deep. The proper dimensions arc 50 feet frontage by 66 feet depth. We observe that the Bank of New South Wales has removed to those extensive stone premises recently occupied as a store by Mr. Kilgour. We are informed that the road to the diggings is in a dreadful state, in consequence of the late rains, and that the bridges over the creek at the AVaitahumi and at the mouth of Gabriel s Gully are hroken down, and almost impassable, burely, with the large revenue which is derived from the gold-fields, something should be done at once to improve the roads. We are. glad to observe that the Dunedin Cricket Club, which has for a long time lain dormant at length shows signs of resuscitation, and that a meeting of its members, and gentlemen wishing to join, is advertised to take place in the Athenaeum* on the evening of the 15th inst. The music Hall in Princes-street, in which the San Francisco Minstrels have lately been perforinin«- will be opened in the course of next week, under the managership of Mrs.W. H. Foley, who proposes giving a series of dramatic entertainments. As the present company will shortly receive some accession in the way of additional talent from the neighbouring colonies, a pleasant evening's entertainment may be anticipated. An inquest was held on Wednesday at the Police Station, West Taicri, before H. Howarth, Esq , Coroner, on the body of the man who was drowned there while bathing on the 31st wit. The mates of the deceased having left the place since that time there was no evidence to show what the name of the deceased was, and a verdict of accidental death was returned on the evidence ot the ferryman and others who witnessed the occurrence. The third session cf the Otago Rural Deanery Board was held in the Resident Magistrate's Office (kindly offered by J. H. Harris, Esq., R.M.) on Wednesday. Present, the Lord Bishop of Christchnrch, the Rev. E. G. Edwards A. C. Strode, R. B. Mnrtin, W. C. Young, and J. Dewe Esqrs Statements of the accounts of the Board and of the Cemetery for the past year were read, and showed that the funds were in a most prosperous condition ; a large balance of the Clergy s stipend fund remaining in hand after the maximum salary had been paid to each of the Clergymen, and the cemetery fund also shown a balance in hand. The Bishop after giving an accountof his recent visit to the Gold-fields, Invercargill, and the Southern Districts, stated, that he had great pleasure in informing them that he hadi secured the services of two additional Clergmen for this Province, and that they were at presenon their way out from England. One he proposed to station at Oamaru and the other at Popotunoa. The Board then adjourned after transacting a little general business. When we, a short time ago, announced that a - poition of the Town Common had been'set apart as a Manure depot, we were under the agreeable impression that the martyrdom of those unfortunate people, who were daily summoned for a nuisance which they had no moans of removing, was at an end ; but alas, in thus rashly coming to a conclusion, we forgot the existence of the circumlocution -office, which, as usual, has stepped in and put everything into " confusion worse confounded." The Crown Commissioner having, on the application of the Town Board, reserved the only available piece of ground in the neighbourhood for the purpose, which, by the bye, is in the middle of a swamp, applied to the Town Board to make an approach to it. But, as the dignity of the Board had been rather hurt by the Government having- appointed an In pector of Nuisances, without consulting them, and then requesting them to contribute towards his pay, which they' resolved they had no power to do, they refused to make the Road to the depot, although they are aware that it was utterly useless withont it—appointed a Committee to confer with the Government on the subject, and adjourned for a week ; during which time people continue to be exposed to severe penalties for not doing what every one admits it is impossible for them to do. Fortunately the Magistrate understands the state of the cas!\" and for the meantime, adjourns all informations.

The papers speak of a very .severe gale at Adelaide. This is borne out by the following extract from a private letter received in Dunedin : — (Extract from Adelaide letter of Dec. 11) " Since yesterday we have had a most awful gale, accompanied with rain, wind, hail, &c., and it is raining like a deluge still, and must inflict great injury on the ripe crops. Wheat and flour are rising in value here, and nothing can be done in either until we see the full effects of this storm. Several vessels have been wrecked on the coast, and I fear we shall hear of more yet.T