The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-24 00:00:00

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AUSTRALIA.

following is believed to constitute the Ministerial
list :

LIVERPOOL, SATURDAY.

Colonial Secretary—W. Nicholson.
Treasurer—Good nun.
Attorney-General—Chapman.
Solicitor-General—llolesworth (4)•
Trade and Customs—M'Culloch.
Crown Lands and Survey—Dr. Greeves (or
Millar) and Captain Clarke.
Public. Works—Millar (or Dr. Greeves) and Cap-
tain Pasley.

The Lightning has arrived at Liverpool, with
advices from Melbourne to the 28th of December.
She brings 12,000 ounces of gold dust.
The Gipsy Bride hence had arrived out on the
26th of December.

The Schoenberg is reported to have been wrecked
off Cape Oc\vv. Passengers and crew Bayed.

The Red Jacket has arrived out.
The political advices are unimportant. .
The Legislative Council of New South Wales had
been prorogued.
The demand for money. was not active, and but
few transactions had taken place. In consequence
of large speCulations in breadstuff's, tobacco, spirits,
wine, arc., there'was considerably more animation
throughout the various markets.

" The policy of this Ministry will probably be to
pass au electoral act, and._an .act against bribery,'
and then dissolve and issue the new writs as soon
as possible. Measures of any importance, especially
such as involve the expel:it:lnure of money, ought to
he left to the more perfectly representative Legis-
lature. A portion of the ?resent Council was elected
when the population of tle colony was under 80,000;
another portion when it was about 150,000 ; the
memberS for the diggings alone represent the new
state of things. The population must now be at
least 320,000.
" I hope you will not wittier the above to be
too large a dose of local philitics. Our colonial
vanity makes ns believe thst•details connected with
our inauguration of a new colonial system ought to.
t
interest- the metropolis of arly half a hundred _
colonies and dependencies.
" I ought to add that t erpretation put by
the law officers of the Crown in Sydney upon
clauses of the New South Wales Constitution, ex-
actly similar to those upon which I have commented,
coincides with that of our ' Opposition,' and not
with that. of the late law officers of the Crown.

The grain and flour markets quiet ; the price of
flour was 30/. for firsts, 2W. for seconds.

In Hobart Town the decline hi breadstuffs was
progressing. Price of gold, 31. 14g. 6d.
The ship Blackwall for Lyndon, has 88,000
ounces of gold on freight. She left on the 13th of
December.

The Red Jacket, for Liverpool, was intended to
leave on the 18th of January.
Through the courtesy of Messrs. Baines and Co.
we have received our correspondent's letter via
Cork :

" Melbourne, Dec. 25.
"Having heard that in consequence of some
damage which th. Lightning had sustained at sea
a survey had been held upon her, and that she
might be detained for some days, I wrote by the
Blackwell, advertised to sail on the 22d inst. ; but,
as the Lightning will sail to-morrow morning, and,
as the Blaekwall is still in port, I shall rewrite an
account of recent events, and my letter by the
Blackwell may, probably, be put into the fire.
"By the James Baines (25th of November) and
the Emma (10th of December) I have already put
you in possession of the leading events connected
with the throes and travail of what the official
members call responsible Government. The Con-
stitutional Act passed hero is now, as you know,
the schedule of au act of Pazliatnent, and therefore
is ' parcel thereof,' and to be ' read therewith.' By
the sth section of the act the Governor is directed
to proclaim it within one month after a copy shall
have been received- in the colony, and it is to take
effect from the day of such proclamation.' But
the last section of the schedule bill enacts that the
foregoing provisions of this act shall have no force
or effect until (among other things) the entire
management of the waste lands of the Crown and
the proceeds thereof shall he vested in the Legis-
lature of the said colony.' This section is recited
in the preamble of the act of Parliament, and an
interpretation clause' in the act explains the word
Legislature' to mean the new Legislature called
into existence by the new act. This Legislature
cannot have its birth until the present Council
shall have passed an electoral act.
" The present or rather late officers of the Go-
vernment—for we have an interregnum—chose to
act upon the first section, and to hold that the new
constitution came into force and effect on the 23d
of November ; but the representative members
considered that the affirmative word of the fifth
section were merely directory, and they were en-
tirely overridden by the negative words of the last
section, which were enactire and imperative, and
that the full-blown constitution could not come
into operation until such a legislature was in exist-
ouzo as to satisfy the interpretation clause of the
new act, the only body that could take the entire
control and management of the waste lands of the
Crown and the proceeds thereof.'
"Entertaining those views, after the official gen-
tlemen had gone through a sort of pantomime of
resigning their offices and receiving new commis-
sions, being sworn in anew on the 30th of Novem-
ber, the representative members met together and
framed a set of resolutions, a copy of which I have
already sent you, together with the Governor's
minute. The3,l3 resolutions were mover, on the 4th
of December by Dr. Greeves, one of the city mem-
bers, were debated two days, but were lost, the
Government having a majority of one.
" This may be deemed the commencement of an
organised opposition.
"Or. the 18th, in pursuance of a previous notice,
Mr. William Nicholson, member for the metropoli-
tan county of North Bourke, moved a resolution
in favour of the ballot. This motion was not made
in concert with the representative members gene-
rally, and there was no need whatever for treating
it as a question to try the stren,gth of the Govern-
ment ; but Mr. Haines, the Chief Secretary, an-
nounced that the members of the Government were
unanimously opposed to it, and anti-ballot was un-
d.-;rstood to be a Government principle. The sub-
ject was debated on two consecutive evenings, and
was carried by a majority of 33 to 25—a very large
majority, when it is considered that the Govern-
ment has the power of appointing. 22 members of
the 'Tonic, of whom 11 may be officials, and it has
actually exercised that power to the extent of ap-
pointing 18, though some of their nominees voted
for the ballot.

" The supply of gold keeps up, and, as quartz-
crushing machinery improves, the quantity is likely
rather to increase than diminish. The following
statement of the receipts by escort and exports is
from Mr. Kahn's weekly account, and is complete
up to last Saturday :
" The escorts have brought from

Oz 4.
Ballarat, including Geelong 20,211
MouritAlexanderandßendigo 15.466
The Ovens 9.943
Fiety Creek
Maryborough
M'lvor 954
633
Avoca

-- Ozq.
Amount this week
Gold shipped in 1855
Par Rajah of Sarawak to Ca:cutta
Ajax to London
Steamers to Sydney

2,534,233
Or, 105 tons, 11 cwt. 3 qrs. 111 b. 1 oz. at 8Q5..E10,136,932
" Exchange on London.—Draughts against gold
purchased at 2 per cent. discount.
" Frei lit.-4;d. per oz., delivered at the bullion-
office, Bank of England, Lnadon.'

"On the 31st of last month there was a very
destructive fire at Ballarat. It originated in an
inn, which it destroyed, with the Adelphi and se-
veral other buildings, mostly of wood. Unfortu-
nately, several lives were lost, You have most
likely had pArticulars from the newspapers.
" On the 16th and 17th instant, a calamity not
less destructive of life and property occurred in a
heavy flood, of which the following is the news-
paper account :

" On the evening of the former day, and again on
the latter, a thunderstorm was followed by a tremendous
shower of hailstones as large as.marbles, and by a deluge
of rain. The gullies were soon flooded by torrents, and
the ordinary channels proved quite insufficient to carry
off the water ; houses and stores were carried away ;
the deep shaft., sank with much tail and at great ex-
pense, were filled to the brim and had their works un
dermined, and piles of washing stuff were swept away.
The destruction of property consequent on this !hod is
estimated at 120,0001. By this visitation, too, there
was a lamentable loss of life, six persons having been
drowned on the evening of the 16th. The severity of
this calamity, it is stated, would have been mnch dimi-
nished had proper precautions been taken to provide for
the unimpeded flow of the water by its natural channels.
The necessity of the erection of Ballarat into a Munici-
pality is obvious from these two events. Measures
might then be taken for raitigating.the effect of such
ocenrrfnce.; if they -nOttld at, -e'griaTnieasure pre-

"On Thursday, the 20th, Mr. Haines announced
to the house that he and his colleagues had tendered
their resignations, and that they only held office
until their successors could be appointed ; and on
the following day Mr. William Nicholson, the
mover of the ballot resolution, was 'sent for.' The
morning papers found no difficulty in making a
programme of a Ministry founded on fact, or rather
On the position occupied by certain names in the
public mind.
"The work which Mr. Nicholson has to perform
is one of considerable difficulty. In the first place,
not one of the mon he must take have had any ex-
pectation of being suddenly called upon to make a
Ministry. Their opposition has not been conducted
liko that of men who, being for a time, by a turn
of the wheel of fortune, out, have ever present to
their minds the probability or possibility of being
again in. Again, only one on the opposition side
has had experience in office of a Ministerial charac-
ter—namely, Mr. Chapman. But then, on the
other hand, the experience of the official party is
not great, except that of Mr. Stawell, the Attor-
ney-General, and some of them have turned out
failures. Some of the Opposition, however, hav-
ing b,en accustomed to wield very extensive affairs
of business, will soon find that affairs of State are
not more difficult. Another difficulty is that Mr.
O'Shanassy, Dr. Greevcs, and Mr. Fawkner, who
have acted witk the representative members, voted
against the ballot. They are said to be greatly
mortified by the result, and with the exception,
perhaps, of Dr. Grooves, will do all they can to
damage Mr. Nicholson's Administration.
" And now let me introduce you to a peculiar
phase of social and political life in our colonies.
Mr. Nicholson is, perhaps, the very best man in
that house to command respect for his administra-
tion. His integrity is spotless ;he is endowed with
common sense in no ordinary degree, and he has
that. administrative capacity which the architects
of a commercial fortune cannot be destitute of.
He has an appropriate command of good mother
English, uttered with a not unpleasing Cumber-
land accent. Although he commenced life as a
grocer, it would be very difficult to select from
the 66 members of the House a man so well en-
titled to the confidence of the House and the coun-
try—and he has it.

"If the Ministerial defeat had taken place on
the resolutions, the member sent for would most
likely have been O'Shanassy, and he, like Nichol-
son, is a colonial phenomenon of not 'lnfrequent
occurrence. He is a man of considerable ability,
good power of speaking, and untiring industry.
He is in easy circumstances—the results of a small
shop, between a slop-shop and a millinery shop, in
Melbourne. This he keeps up still, managed, I
believe, by some of his family ; whereas, Mr. Ni-
cholson has exchanged the shop for the counting-
house and the craft of the merchant. Now, what
I wish to point out is that these men are estimated
for their personal qualifications, and none but a
few boobies ever think of the shop, except as a
source of credit.

" Nothing has been finally announced as to the
formation of the Ministry, but it was understood
this afternoon that all Mr. Nicholsou's difficulties
had vanished into thin air, and that to-morrow he
will be prepared to submit his list to Sir Charles
Elotham, who has been very ill for some days, but
is now better. The Government have had seven
public officers in the house—namely,
the Chief
Secretary, the Treasurer, the Attorney-General,
the (Solicitor-General, the Chief Commissioner of
Trade and Customs, the Commissioner of Crown
Lands and Surveyor-General, and the Commis-
4oner of Public Works. Of these Captain Clarke
(formerly Denison's private secretary), Surveyor-
General, and also Commissioner of Crown Lands,
is, it is reported, willing to retain his office of Sur-
veyor-General, and to leave his Parliamentary
functions to the Commitsioners of Crown Lands.
The Colonial Engineer and Commissioner of Public
Works, Captain ka#loy, will do the like ; and the

A;, orS
4y.
' --
, its

LONDON, MON DAY EVENING, MARCH 424 1856.

place, three of the workmen proceeded to the spot
for the purpa e of reprimiug it, and while doing
so the powder ignited and caused the accident.
Exchange at Gibraltar for bills on London at 90
days was at 50i to ; Paris, sf. 38c. ; Ma►rseilles,
sf. 39c. ; Spanish pillared dollars, 8 per cent. pre-
mium.

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