The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3465, 31 March 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 1874

A controversy is going on in the Northern journals, in which the Middle Island is deeply interested. The ‘ New Zealand Herald ’ is advocating the doctrine of making the land of the Middle Island Colonial, instead of Provincial property, under the pretence that there was no permanent adjustment by the General Assembly in 1856, but only a resolution in accordance with the policy of the day, which may at any time be revised, as future policy may require. The ‘ Herald,’ assuming this wavering policy to be justifiable, proceeds to defend the version of its doctrines, as stated by the ‘Lyttelton Times,’ that that arrangement has enriched the Middle Island, but has reduced the Province of Auckland to such a condi-

tion “ that her local institutions are perishing from atrophy; and that in contrast with those fed by land revenue in, the South, they are becoming a by-word.” Without at present commenting upon the nonsense of assuming causes because certain effects manifest themselves which may be the results of very different agencies, as seventeen years have passed away since the compact complained of was entered into, a few words as to its origin are advisable, in order that the present generation of colonists may be able intelligently to form an opinion upon the justice of the claim set up in the North. Most of our readers will have heard of the New Zealand Company and its doings: how it proposed to colonise New Zealand before it became a British Colony; how it professed to have purchased large tracts of land from the Natives ; how it sold land it had never purchased ; how it pretended to have purchased over a million of acres, possession of which it claimed

after the Colony had become a British Colony ; how it brought its affairs before the Imperial Parliament; how it tried to induce the Home Government to override the Treaty of Waitangi; how, at length, after various discreditable transactions in mal-appropriation of money voted to it, it was wound up with a charge in its favor of “ the sum of L 268,370 15s, secured upon allfuture sales of the demesne lands of the Crown throughout New Zealand.” Since the word “all” included the Province of Auckland, to which the operations of the New Zealand Company had never extended, the people of that Province, very naturally and properly, objected to being included in so wily an arrangement. They remonstrated and petitioned, and the Committee of the House of Representatives, to whom the investigation of the subject was remitted, reported that:—

Excepting as to jealousy, repugnance, and hostility, the Company never had any relations with the land or the people on the north side of the line, any more than if that portion of New Zealand had been a distant Colony or a part of New South Wales. Swain son remarks :

It cannot, therefore, be a matter ef surprise the extension of this ch&rge to the nortnern district of New Zealand, widely separated as it is from the field of the New Zealand Company’s operations, and which has net at any time any .benefit from-that body, pr any advantage from any of their proceedings,

should have been made the subject of urgent add repeated remonstrances by the colonists of the north. The second Committee of the House of Representatives, to whom this particular brauchof' the subject was submitted for inquiry, reported their opinion that the Province of Auckland ought, in justice, to be immediately relieved'from bearing any portion of the debt. And, with respect to the debt generally, resolutions were agreed to by both Houses, to the effect that the charges on the land-fund of the Colony is an oppressive burden on its resources; that it appeared to have been created by Parliament in ignorance of the real facts, and to have been obtained by the New Zealand Company by means of the suppression of material circumstances ; and that the Colony is entitled to obtain from Parliament a reconsideration of the case. Ultimately, as relief from this burden could not be obtained through the interference of the Imperial Parliament, the Colonial Legislature authorized a compromise, and it was agreed that the Colony > should pay the company .£200,000 in full of all demands, and the Parliament of Great Biitain authorised and guaranteed a loan for payment of the debt. Having thus the control of the matter placed in their hands, the Colonial Legislature relieved Auckland from liability, and the Provinces of Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago—the last two scarcely settledundertook the payment of the interest and principal, on condition of having the proceeds of their own land fund guaranteed to them. The ‘Herald’ pretends this arrangement was arrived at under duress, and would not have

been sanctioned bad not the Southern members threatened to vote in favor of tbe removal of the seat of Government .from Auckland, unless it was agreed to. In our opinion the people of that Province thought they had made a capital bargain at the time, and had neither the knowledge of the resources of the Middle Island, nor the foresight, had they had the knowledge, to perceive that in seventeen years they would have reason to envy those Provinces that had taken off their hands a burden that we freely confess was unjust. Such appears to us a fair and impartial statement of the case as regards Auckland. At the time it was considered an equitable compact, and we think it was so. At the time it seemed to be Auckland’s advantage to have nothing to do with Middle Island land, and bad the affairs .of that Province been well administered it might have proved so. It has turned out otherwise, but that is no reason why the arrangements should be disturbed. The “seat of Government” had nothing to do with the matter, and is altogether an afterthought—an attempt to justify a contemplated wrong.