The Anglo-Maori Warder. TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1848.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 9, 20 June 1848, Page 2

The Anglo-Maori Warder. TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1848.

By the arrival of the Elora we have been placed in possession of important, although as yet incomplete news from England, as far as the 10th February. The debate on the New Zealand Government Bill had been resumed on the 9th, Mr. Labouchere moving that the order of the day for going into committee be read. So far as can be seen from the proceedings of a single night, neither party seem to have materially changed their views upon the subject. With regard to the Bill itself, little was said, the discussion taming upon tf!e affairs of New Zealand generally ; more especially upon the Bishop's protest, and Lord Grey's meditated infraction of the treaty of Waitangi. Mr. Gladstone spoke strongly against the suspension of the constitution, insisting that it ought rather to have been altogether repealed. He said that it was that it had never found its way into actual life, being known to the people of New Zealand only as a matter of speculative discussion; and that the suspension was an inconvenient mode of fettering the future judgment of the House. He thought that the task ought rather to be undertaken anew, when the additional experience acquired by the house might enable it to devise something more accurately suitable to our wants. And it then appeared from the explanations of Mr. Labouchere and the At-torney-General that the provisions of the Bill had been partially misunderstood; all that it did was to fix five years as the maximum period during which the constitution might be suspended -, while the Governor had discretionary power to revive it in the southern provinces, although not in the northern, at any time within that period. This is certainly not what was here understood from Lord Grey's despatch, iu which his objection to the partial introduction of it seems intimated plainly enough. The Earl of Lincoln denied flatly that the clauses referred to would confer any such powers on the Governor; he said that they enabled him to provide a substitute for the constitution, and a most sorry substitute it was; but the Attorney-General, who had been aware of the intention of the wording, declared that such was really the ease. Whether the seeming inconsistency of the two documents will be explained away remains yet to be seen. The true meaning of Lord Grey's instructions with regard to the native lands was discussed. And we were pleased that a man of Mr. Gladstone's acuteness and ability should have understood them as they were understood out here. He pressed the Ministry hard, at the same time saying that he should be but too happy to rind that the meaning was not such as he attributed, and was answered with a cloud of words, which, so far as we can understand them, leave the matter much as it was before. In few words, the home Government promise the most literal fulfilment of every engagement that had been entered into with the natives, reserving to themselves the right of interpreting these engagements in their own peculiar way, sinking altogether the meaning which had been attached to them by the other party concerned. The Bishop's friends stood up for him manfully. Themain point insisted on, wasthis,that he had been unjustly censured by Earl Grey, seeing that the protest had been never published to the natives. Sir E. Buxton added, that the Bishop's views as to the native claims were by no means singular. Letters had been received from the Missionaries connected with the Wesleyau body speaking in as strong language as could be used of the charter; but the expressions were so strong that the Secretary of the Wesleyan body had requested him not to read them to the House. Upon the whole, the debate was of an unsatisfactory character. We have looked iu vain for any symptoms of alteration in the views of Ministers concerning the most serious question that can affect the colony, and still find nothing but the same studied ambiguity that has mystified us so long before, the same vague promises of good faith, which look as if they were intended to the ear alone.