THE Otago Witness
Dunbdin, Saturday, October 26, 1861.
The Thirteenth Session of the Provincial Council was opened on Wednesday last, in the usual manner. There were a considerable number of spectators, amongst whom were many strangers. Five bills were laid upon the table, and were read a first time. The first, a Bill to provide for the establishment of a Water Police, explains itself. This body has, in fact, been already established, and the Bill merely makes legal certain details which are necessary for the efficient performance of its duties. It authorises the Superintendent to proclaim any vessel or hulk a prison, and empowers the person in charge employ seamen who may be in custody in the work of dis charging vessels, and to charge for the services rendered. This measure is, under present circumstances, a very necessary one, and whilst removing a difficulty in relieving the overcrowded state of the Dunedin gaol, will also save a considerable outlay to the community in building new prisons, which would otherwise be absolutely necessary, and yet would be very difficult to do within such a time as to be available during the present crisis. Two other measures, the Vagrant 'Bill and the Criminals Bill, have also reference to police matters. They are such law r s as would never have been proposed to be passed in our days of quiet simplicity. They are both exceedingly stringent, but are, we believe, absolutely necessary in the present state of the Province. They have been framed on the model of Melbourne Acts, where their working has been satisfactory. In fact, we may say that without some such stringent laws, however efficient our police force may be in other respects, it would be powerless to Restrain the lawless portion of the population which is flowing in upon us in consequence of the gold fields. A Bill to amend the Dunedin Roads and Streets Ordinance, 1855, was also introduced, and passed through its first stage. As its name implies, it is a measure of a local nature, although provision is^made for extending its operation to other towns within the Province.
It may be in the recollection of many of our readers that at the last session of the Provincial Council, the Town Board of Dunedin procured the introduction* of a Bill, giving to that body very exclusive and arbitrary powers to regulate and make streets &c*lt authorised the Board, to charge the proprietors of property within the town with the expense of making footpaths before their respective properties, and in cases where the Board had made cuttings or filled up hollows in levelling the streets, the effect of the law, had it passed, would have been that the owner of the adjoining property would have been put to the expense not only of making a footpath, but of filling up the road to its proper level before the footpath could be constructed. In some parts of the town such a law would have amounted to confiscating the property, as the expense of doing the work would have equalled the value of the sections. The measure now introduced into the Council, throws the burden of making the streets their full width upon the Board, or rather the general rates levied on the town property ; at the same time it gives the Board full power to cut away mounds and fill up hollows close to the adjoining properties, and places upon the owner the expense of building retaining walls, or taking such other steps to protect his property from injury as may be necessary. The expense of making the footway 10 feet wide is to be borne 'by the owner of the property, or by the tenant, if he has a lease with a term of. three years unexpircd at the time of making the footpath. These are the main features of the Bill, and in our opinion it is sufficiently hard upon the proprietors of town land, and may be made extremely vexatious, unless the law be judiciously enforced. Applied to the occupied and valuable business portion of the town, few persous will complain of its operation, but if it were attempted to be enforced in some of the back streets in the bush the complaints would be both loud and just.
A Loan Bill, to raise £50,000, needs no comment. Many of the public may think the amount small ; it is less than the Provincial Government desired, but it is the full extent which the Governor will sanction. As the last Loan Ordinance was disallowed by the Governor, His Honor the Superintendent has taken the precaution to ascertain the exact terms upon which a new Ordinance will be allowed, so that we may not run the risk of the extreme inconvenience which would arise from another disallowance after the Appropriation Act had been passed and contracts taken for public works.
A Bill to constitute the Tuapeka Gold Field an Electoral District of the Province of Otago, and apportioning to it two meinbcrs after the Electoral Roll of 1862 hai been completed, is the only alteration in the electoral districts proposed by the Government. ,
The Provincial Council are again afforded the opportunity of trying thsir hands at a licensing ordinance. The repeated failures in the attempt to legislate upon this subject, and, the remarkable changes in the resolutions of the Council from one extreme to another; from free trade in grog to aomething little short of the Maine liquor law, make U3 almost doubt of there being any {satisfactory solution of the difficulty. We do not at present propose to discuss the merit 3of the Bill, but only to give our readers a sketch ofjts main features. It proposes to make the dealing in spirits in.any quantity illegal without a license. It dees not alter the exiating'law so far as it relies to publicans' licenses. It adds three forms of license— a wholesale license, costing £10; a bottle license, costing £20, and a wins and beer license, costing, £80. The propriety of granting the two last mentioned licenses has so often been discussed, that the nature of them will be quite familiar j the public of Otsgo. The third form of
license is a comparative novelty. It is for wine and beer only, and may be granted by the Superintendent at any period of the year. By the existing law there is only one period of the year when licenses can be granted, and consequently the increased demand for hotel accommodation since the diggings commenced cannot be supplied hy licensed houses, and, as every person knows, the law is broken right and left. It is this pressing difficulty which has caused the Government to introduce this measure at a time when they would have preferred avoiding discussing a question bn which such a diversity of opinion prevails. The wine and beer license will enable those persons who keep private hotels, and object to the license under the present law because of the supposed necessity of keeping a tap, to comply with the law and at the same time to avoid keeping a public-house. What the fate of the Bill will be it is difficult to guess. It is the only measure on which we anticipate much discussion, but the change in the affairs of the Province may induce some of the members of the Council to modify their views, and pass the Bill without much opposition. In that event, we anticipate the duration of the session will not be great. The Estimates have not yet been laid on the table ; but the Appropriation Bill and a Harbour Endowment Bill ai'e, we understand, the only other business to be brought forward by the Government.
The present stirring times must be terribly trying to the staid inhabitants of old Otago. The day was when our heavily moving police constables, in order to dispel the ennui which beset them, were obliged to use diligent search after any stray cow that some canny townsman had allowed, defiant of the law, to crop the exuberant pasture which covered our future roads ; or, to evidence that they were worthy of the consideration of the Provincial Council, they had stealthily to flatten their noses against some window pane where grog was wont to be slyly sold, and when assailed, to call loudly in the Queen's name for the aid of Her Majesty's lo}*al subjects All this is but a vision of the night, the fancy of a disordered brain. Detectives now pass noiselessly among the crowd, and learn the secrets which the cautious plotter confides to bis associate in crime with bated breath ; and in the gloom of night is seen the gaunt spectre of the passing policeman, stern, silent, and impassive, who with ready carbine instinctively convinces you that at a moment's notice he could drill a hole in your jacket that would puzzle a, professor of the art of tailoring to mend. It is no use fighting against fate ; we cannot resume our Arcadian simplicity ; greatness is foi ced upon us, and we must adapt ourselves to the times.
We had scarcely arrived at this conclusion, after chewing the cud of reflection for more than a weary hour, when our privacy was invaded by'an old settler who had known Otago in its palmiest days — those blessed times when the arrival of a boat at the jetty with passengers threw the whole town into convulsions, and the knowledge that there was £1000 for appropriation by the Provincial Council at its next sitting was pregnant with deadly strifes. To him the passing scene was one of darkness that might be felt — of danger without parallel. The calm self-assured air of tho lately arrived digger told of premeditated plunder ; and the crowd around a successful miner, who had deposited his " pile" in safety warned him of the absolute necessity of swearing in multitudes of special Constables to save the city from utter destruction. Most earnest was his persuasion that we should aid the discontented immigrant, brooding over evil in the recesses of a gloomy mind, in his return to the golden regions across the ocean which he had left ; and wild were his anathemas at a Government who appeared to smile at his anguish of heart. There is something peculiarly attractive in the earnest outpouring of the enthusiast. We were on the point of rushing to a Justice of the Peace hard bye, to be specially sworn in, when our friend leaving us, in order to attend a customer? made way for another — the companion of many a jovial hour in the merry old days of the " Royal." His countenance was radiant with smiles, and sunshine hovered around all his thoughts; he was quite eloquent about tho price of "frontages," and described in glowing language the miles of wharves, and the piles of warehouses, rivalling Babel in their aspiring height; to him each digger told of additions to the Customs' I {even ue, and of another customer at his counter. If he had any fears they were that his credit was at the ebb, and his store somewhat empty ; he, too, with a passing shade over his genial countenance, launched a gentle Maranatha, mild as the summer's breeze, at the Government, if they, as reported, shrunk from exercising their borrowing powers to the very utmost, and swam not on the rising tide to prosperity which bided no man's time. He, too, went and left us to our meditations.
We were sorely tried by these conflicting views, but amazed at the wonderful union of discordant voices in abusing the powers that be. We became passive under the opposing impulses, and mentally obeying a law of mechanics, we helieved that by taking the diagonal between the impelling powers we should arrive at the solid conclusion that there is no room for apprehension, and no ground for wild and heedless speculation. If the Government would but listen to us, but we feir they are such incapables as to be deaf to the voice of reason, they would, in imitation of our advisers, bring their best wares into the market at once— nt)t silently, as if they feared they would be overwhelmed by competing customers, but by making it known to all and singular, as the lawyers delight to say, that there is open in the north for sale some of the finest land the whole of New Zealand can boast of, and sections on the Lake Waihola and mouth of the Molyneux, and that there only needs a host of those stalwart men we see in our streets to become purchasers to convert the country into a garden, the sheepfolds into the dwellings of man.
Vie consider it a duty we owe to the public that they should he told that the land in question, if not now bought from the Government, will most probably have to be bought second-hand from others, at a price four times as much as would now be paid for it. Let every man who can command a few pounds compete for the block?, put in his application, like others, for the whole Mock, bid manfully for what he wants, and if the bidders arc shy and the sale docs not go oft", take up what he fancies early next morning at upset price If, after this warning, the land passes into the hands of private speculators, let not the public blame us. It has all the requisite advantages of a good investment, situated in a fine climate, close vicinity to a port, and with a soil particularly adapted to sheep farming, in case agricultural pursuits be not to the taste.
If Government delay the sales because applicants are few, they will he doing an injury to the revenue and to the intending purchaser : at the same time we would caution them to be wide awake that there be no understanding by which the pick of the land shall go off at the upset price; no conibinatian between intending purchasers to defraud the State of the fair market value of the northern land, which is at least fatir or five times more than the upset price; and if there be the slightest indication of such a combination, the middle men with small capital will step in and spoil the sport, or the Government so throw the blocks into the market as to present difficulties in the way of large purchases by single individuals^ who bny to sell again.
We feel that we are infected with the prevailing influenza, for we close with an .intention shortly to return to the subject, with an admonition to the Government to take heart against combinations of men whose opposition is the offspring of disappointed covetousness, and whose patriotism is evanescent as the shade, and runs steadily in the groove of their own interest. Against these, and they are not unknown, we bid the Government to take a decided stand, assured of the support of the true-hearted in the hour of need ; above all, let them give every facility to those fine fellows we see roaming in our streets to become part of us, by placing within their reach an abundance of land at a reasonable rate, the description of which should be made known not only by advertisements hid in the publicprints, but by public placards, indicating the nature of the land, the locality, and the terms, so that the wayfaring man may read as he runs. We hope the Government will take this mild admonition in good part ; though we were their staunch adherents hut lately, ?:'e confess, and we cannot account for it, that since we ceased to tender for printing, our first love has somewhat waxed faint.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 517, 26 October 1861, Page 5
Word Count
2,622THE Otago Witness Otago Witness, Issue 517, 26 October 1861, Page 5
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