AUCKLAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4174, 5 July 1875, Page 5

AUCKLAND.

(from ouk own correspondent.)

Do you remember the feeling in. Otago. some years ago against Mr Stafford, as the enemy of the Province, and of all its leading patriotic men. If so, you will understand the feeling growing here against Dr Pollen. It io the Doctor's misfortune to come in at the heel of the hunt. He has the unpleasant business of settling with all of us, asking us to cash up and do other disagreeable things. It must be said, too, that he is not careful to do that in the least disagreeable way. One of the first attempts has been to make us pay for losses incurred ova railway, in the management of which the. Province has not the least voice. No claim was made till last month, and then the claim. wa3 dated from Ist January of last year, absorbing all the. capitation allowance. A telegraphic controversy ensned and winds up by Sir Gtorge Grey insistiug on the opinion of the Crown Law Officers being taken, or he will resort to a fiiindly action to test the law. The law seems clearly agiinst Dr Pollen, for the 4th and sth subsections of clause 12, Immigration and Public .Works Act of 1871, provided that deficiencies of this kind shall be made good from land revenue, and. when that is insufficient, by direct taxation. If the General Government is tolevy directtaxationforsucha purpose they will find themselves with no easy task in hand. The sudden production of this claim, after letting it lie perfectly dormant Bince January, 1574. has produced deep irritation against the General Government, but especially against Dr Pollen as an Auckland man. It is believed here to be deliberately done iv ordfir to crush the Proviuce and make people jump at any change. If so, it is a great mistake, for it has merely disgusted them with the prospect of being at the.mercy of a Government caring so little for the welfare and consulting so little the convenience of a large portion of the people. J Sir George Grey is at the Thames, and having a busy time of it there. I dare not tell you half the scandals afloat in connection with the Native land purchasing and tbej opening of the Ohiuemuri and Tairua gold** fields. The. delays in the latter are now said and believed to have been merely, to give private and influential parties the opportunity of securing all valuable timber and water rights from the Maoris before the public could step in. The Superintendent is besieged to open the country for settlement, and deputations are waiting on him in every direction. He tells them very frankly how the case stands, and the difficulties in his way. One of the most important is that he has never keen snpplied with a copy of the agreement made by Mr Mackay with the natives. For two months he has been endeavouring to got it, but the latest difficulty was insuperable. Mr Mackay had been called away suddenly by his father's death in Nelson, and' {he agreement was locked up in his private box. Sir1 Donald M'Loan telegraphed then to Sir George Grey, who is very indignant that Mr Mackay was not asked at the same time to authorise the box being opened by his friends or some other person properly qualified to do so. The document— so important and essentially public—had no business in any private box bo long after it was executed, and it was grotesquely wrong to allow the settlement of the country to be retarded, and hundreds to be kept waiting at great expense and loss of time, for such a reason.

The Ohinemuri miners' right investigation is being conducted with closed doors by the General Government through Major Ktddel, the Warden of Coromandel. The Tairua prospectors' job involves another enquiry, and there are jobs innumerable to be investigated in connection with the Land Purchase Department. I am, of course, not speaking for myself or of my own knowledge in thus writing, but am telling you what every man here says more or less loudly, and believes more or less firmly. If the scandals prove true, don't say we are worse than other people. Recollect how, long and how often the autocratic power of the Lind Purchase and Native Department generally has been denounced in this Province ; and that it is you in the South, ami you alone, who have kept it going, lest in disturbing those who pnlkd the wires, you should produce the Native troubles to which these scandals more than anything else, and the whole system of land.monopoly tend.

There is very little speculation as to the turn events may take when the Assembly meets. It is quite certain that the Auckland members—if there be any — who m;iy go against Sir George Grey will meet with little sympathy unless some great change in public opinion take place. The ability, independence, and broad sympathies of Sir Goorge have attached to him universal support, while every one feels that if he cannot help the Province out of ita difficulty no one else can. But beyond this none can pretend to judge. Rumours of all kinds are afloat !as to combinations for purposes of the most contradictory • character. No doubt Sir George Grey is in communication with other members iv other Provinces, but the problems to be solved, the allocation of the loans, the Native question, the land revenues appropriation, and finally, the Provincial question, are not likely to be settled by correspondence. The need of retrenchment in General Government expenditure is likely also to be an ugly question. The probabilities are that the Assembly will meet without any definite party beiDg formed to deal with either of tbo intricate questions I have referred <o, and that separation—sol long talked of, so much dreaded, and so hardly fought against — will yet be the loudest cry of all. If the knots can't be united, the people here, at all events, will be ready enough to cut them, for the present position is unbearable. The loans would be a great difficulty, but the payment of interest locally by local direct taxation would be a greater. I heard a very fair calculation yesterday of the probable amount such taxation would yield. Taking the sum raised in England by a penny in the pound on income, and allowing that a Colonial population would yield in the same proportion, the result was £150,000 for a shilling income tax for the Colony. This would give about £30,000 for the Auckland Province, only I should scarcely like to be one of the collectors. I

The City Council have been interviewing Mr Turner—a mturalised American, though a born Aucklander—on the subject of street tramways. They are very successful in San Francisco, the conditions of success being apparently light rails, light carriages, power of making constant stoppages at the shortest notice, length of line not less than five miles, and cheap passenger fares. These conditions have been successfully combined in San Francisco, and the result is the success j have mentioned. Mr Turner is a lawyer— Judge Turner, as all lawyers are called in the States—and is a son of the well known Benjamin K. Turner, one of the oldest of New Zealand settlers, and for some time elected aa head man to keep order in the old days at the Bay of Islands. He has cr>me to see his father, now very old and ill, and if

j the advantages held out by these street railways can be realised, we shall have good reason to be thankful in out hilly city for his visit. H'-s stittd to the ('otinoil that the hills of Sin Francisco were higher; bor, then, he lias ben If'iig in America, arid it is hard .for an Am triciin to admit that any hills, or anything else, are higher or better than those in Jii-t mvn country. To the inexperienced mind. the. idea of a railway up such hills as we Inve setms hard of acceptance, font all the more grat'ful ought we to, be if ih cm bo done. Mr Turner is willing to get it Hone by G'ulifornians up to the work and with mtney at command, or will leave the people here, to get up a Company themselves. In the latter ease, he will help them all he can before returning to San Francisco. The subject is exciting a good deal of interest here.

I. am happy to be able to announce a marked improvement in mining mutters. The telegraph will no doubt have told yon of tha .various finds at the Thames, Tairua, and Onromandel, which have put new heart into shareholders and new faith in the future of tho gold fields.

The Hanhaus are about to start a newspaper at Te Kuiti. The editor is to be Tuhi, formerly editor of the Hokioi. and said to be an able man in his way. There is nothing else in the, way of news from the King country, nor any sign of the long talked-of meeting of Tawhiao with the Governor, which Sir Donald arranged in February last. Tawhiao is said to have lost much influence, and to have atoned for it by an increasing taste for rum. Rewi has been in Alexandra for the first time since the war. If he says peace and friendship, peace and friendship it will and must be, despite auy thing Tawhiao, Mannhiri, or Te Kooti may say. But it is hard to get at facts iv these Native affairs, and I have given up the attempt long ago.