Political Extrarts.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 19, 31 August 1848, Page 2

Political Extrarts.

(From the Times. If anything should be required to reconcile us to the constitution we happen to enjoy. it is the difficulty of making another. Among all the colonies which we possess, or tld once possess, we cannot point to onu whose method of government reflect* any credit on the theoretical and creative powers ot the British Legislature. Whatever is at all satisfactory—and it is not easy to find a colonial constitution deserving of tlut praise—is the result of compromise and of time. We will not mention any names. It would be only ripping up old sores. So we will go at once to that promising colony which has already occupied the attention of the Commons two nights of this session, New Zealand, —what was it not to be ? There never wai so promising a scion of this noble stock. So like our own isles, io its size, Us climate, its Jtatility—-Us position just at our antipodes — and enterprising character of the natives, it wry Britannia of the Southern Hemisphere. 1 hencnme t£e glonous EutopiaofMr. Gibbon Wakefield, and the Westminster Kaviewr—a colony self supporting, yet"" auxiliary to the parent •t te, democratic! yet loyal ■, everything, yet eser/th-nr brides. It is fair to iulnit Out tl e modil tympany ne*L-r lvul the opporlimit) of hanging itself'. It was never allowed rone enocgh lor that We chtrtertd the libei'tne, and it was no longer free. What freedom remained was either too much or ten Jutlc, tor it did nobody .my gool. The -rc-hli'ii nticipitioos ami tho uie!ai?eholy results to which we refcr, the dawn aud the

unset of Youne New Zealand, are a rather long story. JTrey are assuming an almost mythical character. We *f this lower and degenerate age have ceased to inquire, Quantum distet ab Inacho Codrus. The treaty of IVaitangi is the terminus from which dates the his* torical period of New Zealand. The nature of the agreement then made, the parties, the territory embraced, and, more than all, the sense, " if any,'* in which it was accepted by the savages, are very fair matters of discussion. That, however, is not the immediate question before the Commons, though they very, very naturally slid into it on the first mention of New Zealand this session. The present question is a constitution—a genuine chip of the old block, a cradle for the young British lion nursing at the antipodes. Happily, this makes a story of itself, and can be considered without involving the political philosophy of Sir George Gipps, the diplomacy of Captain Hobson, the blunders of Captain Fitzroy, the discretion of Bp. Selwyn, or the policy of our present Ministers in their former term of power. The British population of New Zealand, amounting to that of a smallish metropolitan parish, wanted a constitution. When the Peel Ministry went out in 1846, its Colonial Secretary had recognised and vecorded the imperative necessity of giving free institutions to the colony. Lord Grey was nothing loath to act on this pledge, and, as the session was just closing, immediately brought in a bill intended to fulfil it. Perhaps it is unkind to criticise a constitution made on such short notice. The order was very pressing, and if the article did not fit when it came to be tried on, that is no more than what usually happens to coats, shoes, or any thing else made without a fair allowance of time. The formula was that of the British constitution, at least so it was supposed. There were municipalities, containing irayors, aldermen, common couueitmen, and everything commeitfaut. These had local duties, and also elected members for a colonial Parliament. 3?or simplicity's sake, boroughs and shires were all one, and there was no invidious distinction of town and country members. The chief point, however, was the political unit* the constituent. That is a question which has puzzled all political philosophers. " Take care of your pence, and your pounds will take care of themselves;" which means in this application, take care of your electors, and you may answer for your representatives. Lord Grey cut the knot on a very high {irinciple. He proposed to make New Zealand a great iterary commonwealth, consisting of the emeriti of the schools. Everybody was to be allowed a vote who could read and write EneHsh. As far as the English were concerned, this was universal suffrage, and as New Zealand bas not been able to escape that mixture of materials which obains so generally elsewhere, there was every probability of at least one point of the Charter being tried under the freest possible condition. Unfortunately, however, a rule, which ia one aspect was so nobly comprehensive, in another, was the , height of exclastveness. The test was something like j the dish which the fox set before the stork, and which he licked clean before his guest could moisten the , extremity of his bilL The natives were almost wholly excluded from this republic of letters. Many of them j can talk English, the English of the market, easily enough. Thanks, too, to the pious painß of the missionaries, many of them can read and write their own language. But their practical and their literary attainments, do not happen to coincide. Aboriginal New Zealand, therefore—that race with which we have had recently such severe collisions, which had been indoctrinated to our cost with European ideas of property, right, liberty and glory, which had shown itself bo jealous, so ready to take offence, and so difficult to be appeased—was almost utterly disfranchised by the new constitution. As soon therefore, as that article came to hand, and was tried on the growing limbs of the youthful colony, it was found a terrible misfit. It was to> long one way, too short another. While it pinched the poor honest natives, it hnng rather loose about the British ragamuffins. What was to be done ? Of all the miseries of human life a thorough bad fit is one of the most i 'curable. The contract uniforms of the militia it used to bs said, could be adapted to a lesser stature by an immersion, quantum suf. t in a tub of water. But what couU be done wiih a political garment which *as at the same time too little and 100 big ? It cou d only be returned to the maker. This is what Governor Grey did in this instance. He suspended the new constitution, and sent it back with a particular account of its shortcomings, ind extravagancies. ' We make no reflections. The mischance we are I relating, might have happened to any Cofoniai Sec re- j tary, to any colony, and any Governor for these fifty, I ay, for these three hundred years. Whether we shall ever govern our colonies better than on the wholesale cut*and»dned plan, we know not. But that is our ■present line. We make blunders and mend them. By dint of hard cobbling, we manage to keep things just tolerably straight, The cobble in the present instance is as fallows, and for a modest piece of cobbling, pretending to be nothing more, we don't think it very much amiss. The " constitution "is to be -suspended for five years, which means of conr e the same as the adjournment of a question to this day six months. It is useless to think of making ano'her constitution without a more deliberate measurement of the patty for uhom it is ordered ; and a second failure %vould be disgraceful indeed. So Governor Grey, who fit ems to be a remarkably sensible and trustworthy ran, is to be furnished fcith full powers of mending. * In fact, the constitution h put into his hands, or j rather hung up in his shop. Young New Zeelaud will \ rejoice in the contemplation of the garment in which its limbs will ultimately be arrayed. This pattern of universal suffrage, of a nation of ready Wiiterß, of learued corporations, and a doctrinaire legislature, is to be suspended like the golden fleece befoie a hosier's door. One day our aspiring an'ipodes will assume the lion's skin, with what propriety time alone can shuw. Meanwhile Governor Grey is to be at work "will* lm officiii goose and shears, from month to month tiying on the unlutky garment. He is to appoint ad interim qualifications, of a more vulgar and sublunary character, founded on £. a. d„ as well a<i leading, writing, and arithmetic. He is also to give certificates of character, not for domestic service, but for political suffrage. When he has pieced utd pruned for five years, or fifty, as the ra*e may happen to be, there will then we presume be a good examination of the colony as to its moral and Hteraiy attainments, The moral scrutiny will apply to the B-itish, the literary to the natives. Should Uiecilony, now m statu pupiltari, ■be found up lu the mark, ii s degree will be granted. It will proceed B. A., aud be invested, nor in the hood and goWD, but in the dignity of free institutions.

BELGIUM, March 26. £FROM OUR COR&SSPOMDBNT.] Ab 1 hastily informed you iu my la«t communication, the projected e*p ditioo of the 60* c lied Belgium legion in Belgium, had not that success which the promoters anticipated—l hftve gathered some details respecting j> which will probably be amusing to your readc-re. Ou Tuesday la>t the Commissioners of the French Provisional Government in the DepartemeHt du Kord, M. formerly Editor of the Journal de Chail'roy, in Belgium, and aitenvard* of a VtUeucivuDes paper,

arrived from Lille, quite unexpectedly it Guievrain, and exposed to the Belgian authorities the designs of the so-called Belgian legion. This step, you may well conceive, has produced the best impression in Belgium, and ii calculated far more than any of the official declarations of M. Lamartine, to quiet the public mind as to the final news of the Frpn> h Republic towards the neighboring country of Belgium. The Belgian authorities were alio aware of the intentions of the legion. A regiment of infantry, and a strong detachment of caralry were seut to Gv'evram, and were joined by about ten or twelve thousand armed peasants) who long before bad informed the Government of their intention to resist the invasion of the legion, j and who, about a fortnight ago, were to be seen patrolling through the 6elda. The chiefs of the legion had arranged that the trains should stop at Valenciennes, the last town on the French territory, from which they would enter Belgium on foot, by cross roads, intending to incite the fortress of Mons, and the ether garrisoned places on their route to the capital. Their hope was frustrated. The three first trains, containing about 1,200 or 1,500 men, instead of stopping at Va- ' lenciennes, proceeded directly into Guievrain, not* withstanding the cries and curses of tu« legion, A-* I soon as the trains came in view of the Belgian soldiery, 1 about a hundred people jumped from the waggons, the tiains running as slowly as possible to give them an opportunity of so doing. Some, however, broke their legs on tailing on the ground—the others made their way back in ell haste into France. It is supposed that amongst those who trie! that dangerous leap, were the chiefs of the movement, and those who, having previously had some little dispute with the law courts feared to meet on the Belgian territory, a too kind reception on the part of the gendarmerie, or to accept the gratuitous hospitality of the prisons. The train ran directly into the Guievrain station, around which the troops had formed a square, behind which the armed peasantry were stationed. They closed as soon at the trains had entered. The army of Republicans, half frozen, and hungered from having travelled all night, stepped from the trains, and were received by the gendarmes, who examined their pass*' ports one by one. This bluuder was not the only one committed by the originators of the movement Amongst the people who arrived by the traius were maoy Belgian workmen driven away from their business by their French competitors, and who declared that they had profited by he offer of the chiefs for returning gratuitously to their native country. Money, food, and gratuitous railway tickets, were supplied to them to enable tbem to reach their respective localities. About ninety Frenchmen and Germans were sent back to France by the waggons which had brought them. Those whose passports were not in due form, or who had none, were brought by the police force to the next town, where they remained in custody. Four of them had arms. In the waggons were found cartridges, pistols, sabres, incendiary proclamations, and a banner with the inscription—" Appel aux Beiges!" Yesterday, at noon, a second train arrived at Valenciennes, with about 800 men, commended by a M. Julius Fosses, who is well known to many of the English residents in Belgium. M. Fosses, who belongs to a very respectable family, and whose brother is a Major of cavalry in Belgium, was formerly a Lieutenant m the regiment des Guides in brussels, where he moved in the best society. Ruined by gambling, and the debts he had contracted, he was obliged to reare, in obedience to the military laws of thiscoumry. He tried to regain his broken fortune by speculating in railway shares, but had no luck, tie w-nt thence to Paris a few months ago, wheie, prob-ibly, he thought of trying his last chance in the ovcturu'ng of the existing state of things in his native cuuntry. M. Fosses had nothing very terrible aoout him, and is too great a lover of pleasure and of fashionable tollies to be a tincere republican. On 1 earning what had happt ned in the morning to the other trains, this new Coriulanus wavered, and declared that ha would await the following trains before entering Belgium. The greatest demoralization was visible amjogst his mea. o>her trains it is s?id are expected, on another line of railway via Lille, The same pre* cuti ntry medsu.es liaveb eu takes there. lu one of the last sittings of the Chamber of Representatives, the Minister of Finance proposed a project of law, allowing a supplementary credit of 8,5J7,39Gf., applicable to works to be executed at the railway. TLese works consist principally of station-buildings, end the establishment of a double line on several parti of the railways.— Morning Chronicle, March 28.

Thb Knight's Vekpla. « in Paris.—You would scarcely believe in sober England, what is going furward heie, (Paris.) The broken remnants of the Knight's i emplars have their head quaters in Paris. On bdturday last they assembled at the Font Neof in solemn celebration of the death of the Grand Master, 1 Jaques Moliy, 1314. The annual custom is to walk round the statute of Henri Quatre, which occupies the exact spot where stocd the funereal pyre, and then to the foundation in the Place du Daujmiu, where it is said the ashes of tbe hero were scattered to the winds. The Revolution has given them also a renewed hope and their assemblage was more numerous than it has been for many years. A friend of mine who watched the procession told me that it consisted of forty-eight persons, among whom were two individuals of the highest families in France; one belonged to tbe Royal House of Spain, besides a Greek boyard, aad three British noblemen. Their dress consists of a long black frock eoat£upon the lappets of which the sea rle cross is embroidered; this is concealed when the coa is buttoned, and thus escapes observation. Their or der still believe that the dying curse pronounced by Jaques Motay upon all kings and pontiffs is again at work, and that they shall exist through time andi change when these shall be no more,— Letter in the j Atlas,