The Lyttelton Times. SATURDAY, July 26, 1851.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 29, 26 July 1851, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. SATURDAY, July 26, 1851.

It would be very pleasant if we could always speak of Sir George Grey's conduct towards this Settlement in the same terms. If in criticising his Excellency's public acts we exhibit a strange inconsistency, the reason must be sought not in the critic but in the subject.

His Excellency has thought proper, speaking ex cathedra, from the chair of the General Legislative Council of the Colony, with all the weight which must ever attach to the sentiments of highest authority in the country, to make a set oration condemnatory of the whole scheme upon which this settlement is founded ; and that upon such an occasion and in such a manner as to awake feelings of jealousy and hostility between one settlement and another.

There is surely something fatal in the^air of these Islands which necessitates the hostility of Government to those who labour for their progress and colonization. The childish jealousy and insolent hostility of the first government of New Zealand towards the adventurous colonists of Cook's Straits is a matter of history.% It would seem as if the mental diseases of Govern- * ments, like those of individuals, were herec*-

itary. The Canterbury Association was/founded three years ago. * Its plan of colonization was approved by her Majesty's Ministers — was sanctioned by the Charter of the Crown —was confirmed by Act of Parliament. Under such repeated and solemn guarantees of the approval-of their government, a body

of settlers landed upon these shores, to find, as their forerunners found before them, their plans, principles and conduct, singled out as' a^ subject for the public and deliberate censure of the local government of the colony. The speech of Sir George Grey suggests enquiries which must be answered. When, three years ago, His Excellency was advised, by the Home Government, of the proposed cc}f>py, and was instructed to aid in its fo"U*?M.ion, did he, or did he not, enter a protest against it, recording those objections which, he has now uttered ? If he did not, he Is a party to this settlement and to the principles upon which it was established. If he did, in the name of all public faith, we demand the production of those dispatches. They were never published in England. We learn now for the first time tl>3 hostility of the Government to our Settlement.

The occasion upon which His Excellency has thought proper to make this dangerous exhibition is an undefined fear which has seized him, that the Canterbury.. Association contemplate absorbing Nelson, or part of its proper district, into the block at] present in their trust. We know of but one foundation for this absurd idea. The colonists, since they arrived in this country, have represented that great advantages would be gained by increasing the block so as to include all the plains of the district. They found that the Canterbury block Was part of a plain lying in the vast segment of a circle between the sea and a range of mountains, entirely cut off from all other settlements by natural boundaries, and formed, as it were by nature, to consist of one district within itself. They found that the whole of this vast plain possesed, no harbour, except those in their own settlement, which must thus probably become the snipping ports for all its produce. When they were engaged in recommending some alterations in the pasturage laws of their own block, they added incidentally^ representation of the improprietyof allowing different portions of the same natural district to be managed under two different systems ; and they recommended that the block should be extended so as to include the whole plain. It is utterly untrue that it was ever contemplated to annex any part of this Island in which any other settlement had any real interest. Had such an attempt been made,we should be the first to join the settlers at Nelson in a just and indignant remonstrance.

Had Sir Geoi'ge Grey confined his remarks to the danger he contemplated, with the intention of warding off from an older settlement an act of aggression, His Excellency would only have performed his duty towards those under his Government. But his speech at once tends to excite the most dangerous feeling of rivalry and jealousy between neighbouring settlements, to kindle a feeling of discontent amongst the labouring classes in this place, and to instil into their minds a dislike to the system under which they have been assisted at vast cost to establish themselves in this country. Ttto most noble objects—worthy of the dignity of a Governor and the sagacity of a statesman, at least of the sagacity of "a great public officer of England's Empire," who could assign as a reason for his refusal to introduce free legislative institutions into New Zealand, two years and a half ago, the commotions then taking place in France .and in Germany !!

■■■ There is one general and absurd fallacy which runs through the whole of this strange production. Sir George Grey speaks as if all this vast and almost uninhabited district were the property of the few squatters who have settled in it; as if it were to be peopled from the neighbouring settlements ; as if the foundations of new

settlements from England were undesirable and unnecessary. We will not be betrayed into one word of hostility towards our neighbours at Nelson for the part they have taken against us. We know that they differ from us in opinions as one honest man may differ from another, with mutual respect on both sides, we shall simply beg them not to take our characters or opinions from a source which they have themselves learned to distrust in their own affairs; but to join with us in reprobating the disgraceful manner in which this attack has been made upon a young settlement. To the poor who are the object:j*of His Excellency's solicitude we say nothing. They will soon find for themselves npon what terms they can acquire property in the Canterbury Settlement, and they will take their own experience rather than the Governor's theoretical protection.