AUCKLAND PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

Published by Authority.

VOL. I.] AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, NOV. 17, 1853. [No. 4.

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

Tuesday, 18th October, 1853.

The Provincial Council of Auckland met pursuant to Proclamation of 6th September, 1853.

Present — James T. Boylan, Thomas Houghton Bartley, Robert Mitchell, James O’Neill, James Derrom, Andrew O’Brien, Wm. Connell, William Field Porter, John Watson Bain, John Anderson Gilfillan, Allan O’Neill, Patrick Dignan, James Carlton Hill, Patrick Donovan, William Powditch, F. Charles Lewis, Joseph Breman, John Williamson, Joseph Newman, James Dilworth, William Innis Taylor, James Macky, James Busby, and George Clarke, Esquires.

His Honor Robert Henry Wynyard, C.B., the Superintendent, opened the Council with the following Address.

Gentlemen of the Provincial Council,

I cannot address you on this, the first occasion of the Meeting of the First Representative Council of the Province, without feelings that we are engaged in a proceeding of great interest in the history of New Zealand.

While the early settlers in a young colony are few in number, and fully occupied in providing for their own immediate wants, it is, no doubt, necessary that the parent state should take means for the enactment and administration of such laws as may be necessary for maintaining amongst them peace, order, and good government.

But this period in the existence of a British Dependency is, I believe, of but limited duration as soon as the Colonists have at least an equal interest in the country with the parent state, and when they comprise amongst themselves, men, having the leisure, intelligence, and public spirit necessary for the conduct of public affairs, then, I believe, that every argument is in favour of conferring upon the Colonists themselves, full powers of self-government, and that the introduction of the representative principle into the constitution of her dependencies, will not only give a powerful stimulus to their progress, but will have the effect of preserving to the Mother Country, unimpaired their loyalty and attachment.

The irregular manner in which these Islands were originally colonised, and the existence of a numerous native race, powerful and intelligent, but, for the most part, still unprepared for the exercise of political power, have rendered it a task of no ordinary difficulty to devise a Constitution, based upon the representative principle, suited to the peculiar condition and circumstances of New Zealand. But however difficult the task, the Colonists can scarcely fail to recognize in the recent Act for granting a Representative Constitution to the Colony of New Zealand, an earnest desire on the part of the Imperial Government to accomplish that object in a just and liberal spirit.

Extending from the North Cape to Mokou, a distance of nearly 300 miles, with an extreme breadth of about 150 miles, the newly-created Province of Auckland is in the direct line of steam communication about to be established with Great Britain, and will shortly become the nearest, instead of the most distant of her Australasian possessions; with an extensive sea-board, indented into numerous safe and commodious harbours, with its surface generally available for cultivation, having a healthy climate and fertile soil, abundantly watered, rich in valuable timber, and not without indications of mineral wealth. I believe it would be difficult to find any equal portion of the earth’s surface, which comprises so