South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Wednesday 5 June 1850, page 3


ANTI DRAY-TAX LEAGUE.

Yesterday a deputation from the Yatala Division of the above League waited upon the Governor to present the memorial which has already appeared in our columns. His Excellency received the deputation

to the following effect, viz. : that to appeal to him in his official capacity as Governor to repeal or suspend an Act of the Legislative Council, were such appeals attended to, would have the effect of placing the colonists in a position which would be worse than Russian serfdom, and would establish a power more despotic than the rule of th« 'furnish Sultan or the Bey of Tunis; If he were to regard and act upon the appeals from sections of he community, he should have requests that the police should be disbanded, and that every civil and other establishment should be broken up. His Excellency reminded tho deputation that the Act originated with the colonists themselves. Tho Agricultural Society, and large workers of land, admitted that it was necessary to the prosperity of the colony to have good roads, but it was impossible to make them with the ordinary sources of revenue, although the colony was in the most flourishing state. The gonoral revenue for 1850 would allow £30,000, and 1851, £40,000 ; but that was insufficient, and if the colonists wero averse to paying the tax, the roads must remain as they aro. His Excellency also reminded them that the Bill had boen two or three months under discussion, and if its provision's were faulty, that was the time to make their objections. His Excellency remarked that he preferred the turnpike system, but the Council over-ruled his viewi thinking that tho expense of collecting counterbalanced its other advantages. With regard to the memorial that the colonists were not represented, his Excellency contended that they were, inasmuch as no opposition hadpieretofore been manifested against any of tho Act* made by the Colonial Council. He also told tho memorialists that the League mistook its strength, and said that the number in favour of tho law was the largest, and he had no doubt that, although thcro was a seeming difference between Englishmen in the colony and the mother country, yet that they would maintain the same character that their fathers and brothers at home had obtained, and rally, round in support of the laws, and not oppose them by physical interference ; for if physical force were resorted to, at was intimated in the report of a recent meeting, he could assure the deputation that the blood would be upon their own heads. Mr Wells, for the deputation, in answer to his Excellency, replied that they honestly thought the Act an imposition, and had appealed' to his Excellency for redress. They did not recognise the Council at all, as they did not think they were represented in that body, which was composed of mere official nominees, ho called his Excellency's attention to the oppressive manner in which the Act operated upon the farmer, who had to pay both laud and dray-tax, and said, if any property were seized upon for payment of the tax, that they were determined to resort to physical force, tho consequences of which it would|be impossible to foresee; and with respect to his Excellency's assertion that the majority of the colonists were in favour of the law, he thought he had been deceived upon that point, and had imbibed that impressiom merely because tbe town proprietors had remained neutral. The deputation, said Mr Wells, were not ao insane as to think that they could do without taxation, but they object to taxes being imposed upon them without fair and full representation. After a few other remarks the deputation tirreed.

The argument in th* demurrer in the ease of Stephens c. Allen, for libel, appointed for yesterday, was not entered into, as his Honor pronounced the plea of the defendant unsustainable. The trial, however, is postponed till after next sitting!, on account of the plaintiff a* ill-health. A little girl, eight years old, having suffered for a long time from dease fibrous, growths in the upper ami lower jaws, an operation, by a removal of a portion of the lower jaw, was performed by Dr Bayer, assisted by Drs Woodforde and Crowper, yesterday morning, under the influence of chloroform, and every hope in en] tertained of a cure being ultimately effected;