FRENCH SETTLEMENT OF AKAROA, NEW ZEALAND.

Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 46, 20 June 1844, Page 4

FRENCH SETTLEMENT OF AKAROA, NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Colonial Magazine.) The Journal des Debate ot' the 9ih September, contains a long account fioin the French settlement of Akaroa, in the middle Island of the New Zealand group ; it bears date the 22nd February. As this paper is the ministerial print of the Guizot administration, the account may be almost considered as official

It appears that the French who are settled at this place have made a protest against the British Flag, which wag hoisted there oo the 9ib February, by Lieutenant Shortland, the English acting governor, who most properly insisted that no vessel should fish for whales within three miles of the shore. This is necsssary for the protection of the animal; the female, or cow whale as it is called, coming at a certain season, into the shallows near (he shore for depositing its young, the shores of New Zealand should be considered and treated as the preserves, or as the exclusive property of the British crown.

Nothing is more remarkable than the ueglect with which this important trade is treated by our own ship owners ; French, Bremen, and American fishing vessels are allowed to kill the mother and calf close to the shores of our rising colonies. Mr. James Arnold, member of Congress for the Massachassets, lately presented a paper to that assembly, of which,the following is aD extract: — The United States empoly 650 ships, of 193,000 tons, giving employment to 16,000 people. Of this number of ships, 365 were engaged in fishing for the sperm whale, and 290 : for the common whale. The eapital employed in this quantity of shipping and its outfit, was reckoned to amount to 20,120,000 dollars • whereof 10,610,000 dollars were required for outfit alone. In the white whale fishery, the duration of an ordinary voyage was abont three years, whilst in the cutumon whale fishery.it only lasted about twenty months. Tbe quantity of sperm oil obtained from the first of these fisheries amounted to 5.018,076 gallons, in the year 1841, which at 95 cents per gallon, would produce 5,767,172 dollars ; 6,531,462 gallons of train oil£were besides obtained, which at 33£ cents, would produce 2,177,154 dollars; besides 414,697 dollars for 2,073.460 lbs. of whalebone. The general produce of these figures would give 7,359,022‘d011ar5, whereof the crew and officers received about 30 per cent, or 2,207,706 dollats for their wages. In looking at the articles res quired for the outfit of these ships, it will be seen that 2,752 707 dollars are required for agricultural produce and wood ; 724,000 dollars for pure American productions; 2,304,300 dollars for articles which Atnericicau generally produce, but of which some proportion occasionally comes from Europe; 1,964,720 dollars for articles of which tbe greater part comes from abroad, though some of them are produced in America, such as copper plates, nails, sail cloth, oakum, molasses and sugar; 645,560 dollars for articles which may be required to be purchased on the voyage ; and 2,377,928 dollars for every other shipping requisite. If it be remembered that the abovementiooed produce was brought into the Unfed States by 222 ships, and that In the year 1840, 223 ships similarly manned delis vered the same quantity of sperm aud whale oil, it will appear that 7,000,000 dollars capital, employed in this fishery, must have produced, after deducting expences of officers and crews, a profit of 5,150,000 dollars. In these calculations, tbe wear and tear of ships and implements are not tvken into account; nevertheless, it is qoite clear, that even making the most liberal allowances for these circumstances, tbe capital employed in this trade in America must produce splendid results.”

. Such is the American account of this immense marine trade. It would be gratifying to have a similar statistical return of that of France and me Hanse Towns. It was reserved for our whig colonial ministers, one after the other, not merely to neglect, but to refuse this natural business of our country, for a length of time no persuasion could induce them to act upon the proclamation of the illustrious Cook, and it was uot until the New Zealand Association had merged into tbe present New Zealand Company, and it bad sent out its preliminary expedition, in May, 1839, that the ministers were awakened, accordiug to their own statement forced to act. Tbe late Captain Hobson, R.N., was sent to New Zealand nominally as lieutenant Governor, but really in no capacity which can be described; instead of proclaiming tbe Sovereignty of New Zealand, he saluted the flag of a tribe or family, as if it was the flag of an independent state, leaving the colonists who had gone to the whaling grounds in Cook’s Siraits’ to get on as they could under lynch law. or any thing else which might arrive. Colonel Wakefield, the Company’s Agent, with great tact and great loys alty, with a small committee of Colonists availed themselves of Governor Hobson’s lasches, and treated vrith tbe uative chiefs to adopt British law as the law of New Zealand. This raised Lord Nornianby’s governor’s ire, there was no proclamation against lynch law, but British law, according to that gentleman’s doctrine, could only be exercised by demagogues, who, to his understanding in so doing, were guiltv of treason. This was sufficient, and tbe proclamation of British sovereignty over these magnificent islands was thus forced from the nondescript governor, and only seven days previous to the arrival of the French ship of war, IS Aube, which had been despatched, as M. Gnizot lately told the French chamber, for the same purpose. The brave settlers, who had thus obliged Lord Normanby and Captain Hobson to take sovereign possession of the islands of New Zealand, were, dnring the life of the latter, checked and thwarted in every way that can be imagined ; and this is one of tbe legacies left by the whigs to be repaired by the present administration. Lord Staiiley has shown his intention by sending out as the governor, the experienced and able Captain Fitzroy,

The French minister (particularly in the article in the Journal des Debats, an extract from which forms the commencement of this), has shown his knowledge of the immense value of this fishery, and disappointed in the possession of New Zealand, he falls back upon the Marquesas and the Sandwich islands. In this’there is none of LordNormauby’s

excuse of being forced ; but a wise statesman forsees the importance of what was so miserably neglected by tbe delitanti writer of romances. It is with no small pleasure that we lock forward to seeing a marine population panted in Cook’s Siraits, which shah not merely embrace this fishery, almost absorbed by the United States, but which will be as important to the Britain of the sooth, in forming British sailors, as the collieries have been to the Britain of the north, in rendering onr country the mistress of the seas.

The statement in the Journal des Dehtds, has not merely ran the round of most of tbe French journals, bat has been followed by a leading article in the Constitutionel of tbe 12th September, giving very erroneous statements as to the date of sovereign possession, but calling on the United States to join France in maintaining the power of fibbing in die shallows within three miles of the shores of New Zealand. To permit this, would be acting on she old adage, of “ cutting open the goose for the golden egfs hot. at any we feel it our doty «0 call the attention of onr board of trade, and tbat of our colonial minister, to the uproar which onr neighbours are making on the s bject, and to depi ecate blame attaching to those nowin power, when, in point ot fact, it rested with Lord Normanby, when at the Colonial Office.

* The money voted in the Colonial Budget for New Zealand, had nothing to do with the Company’s settlements; it was to support the Government settlement at Auckland, some hundred miles to the north of the northern island, to which the central settlements in Cook’s Ssrait, were made to conlribule.