THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, November 5, 1842.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 35, 5 November 1842, Page 138

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, November 5, 1842.

Lrs journaux devienncnt plus necessaires a mesure que les hommes sout plus igaux, et 1' individuslisme plus it crnindre. Cc serait diminuer leur importance que de croire qu' il* ne servent qu' a garantir la liberty : its maintiennent la civilisation. De TocauEviLLß. De la Democratic en Amerique^tome 4, p. 220. Journals become more necessary as men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared, It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve «nty to secure liberty : they maintain civilization. De TocauETiLLE. Of Democracy in America, vol. 4, p. 220. It is about ten months since the first immigrant ships for Nelson arrived in New Zealand. They found on their arrival the most careful arrangements made for collecting whatever duties they could by any construction be made liable to pay to the Government. They arrived at Nelson, and found no .provision made for settling any claims between individual and individual, but only such as could ensure the satisfaction of all claims of the Government against individuals. In no instance has the Government allowed difficulties of communication, or expense of officers, or any other excuse, to interfere with the collection, or forwarding to the public coffers, whatever rates, or taxes, or customs, the law would allow to be collected. On the other side, What has been returned to us,? Who can answer? The constables, who are supposed to watch over and maintain the peace in this place, have they yet been paid anything ? Tradesmen, who have supplied materials, or contracted for and performed work for the Government, which of them has received payment ? A gaol has been built and paid for, and now is About half the size which is required. A court-house has been purchased, and the bills drawn to pay for it have been dishonoured. The trade of the place, which helps so largely to support the Government, has, up to this time, never been protected by even the most limited provision for the recovery of debts. The Post-office fails not to absorb its sixpences and its shillings in due order, but where is the responsible Postmaster, who is bound to look to the accommodation of the public in return for these payments ? An honorary Postmaster, receiving nothing, and full of other Government duties, can only perform this duty properly by a more injurious neglect of others more important. Up to this time, the Government has been to us a mere colonial sharper ; drawing money wherever money was to be drawn, and paying no one: selling various commodities, receiving the money in advance, and never delivering them. Considering the mixed materials of which a new settlement in a country full of whaling stations, and not many days' voyage from penal settlements, must be composed, we are a very orderly community. Left to ourselves, allowed to expend such money as was necessary in the arrangements for the administering of justice and the preservation of the peace, we

should have been taxed to about half the amount, and should have provided ourselves with an efficient executive in every department, except the military and naval. The balance of the account then goes to — prevention from invasion. A large item jt is, but of course well worth. It is to be remembered, that all the European powers are most anxious to possess Nelson. France, chiefly, on account of its name, that they may conquer the English admiral through his godchild. The Dutch, because several of their principal merchants are recommended change of air and exercise by their physicians, and look to find both most effectually in these antipodean mountains. The rest of the nations, because they are firmly convinced that, like other jewels in crowns, it would-be very expensive, and of 1 not the slightest use. America, too, having exhausted the " far west," and having no more Government land for sale, looks longingly hitberward. Under, these circumstances, it it decidedly to be recommended that we da not proclaim our independence.

of Great Britain, but instead, as a milder measure, and on the whole somewhat more feasible, it would be well perhaps to remind our rulers that however out of use, however apparently chimerical such an idea may be yet that it is our firm belief that there is such a thing as justice ; that it was intended in those first days when chaos vanished at God's word, that justness should be a condition of man's healthy existence, of his real well-being. That, though without the slightest intention of making any futile attempts to enforce the right, yet we believe 4 that the right and the just will not, cannot be outraged with impunity. That as certainly as by the rotation of the earth night follows day and day night, so quite as certainly, as unavoidably, will punishment follow injustice. In this instance, the punishment may be, -that instead of a prosperous, rapidly-rising settlement, full of healthy love for the mother country, there will be either a failing and, because weakly, an expensive child to nurse and rear, or if strong enough to fight through these unnatural difficulties of childhood, there will be a power with a sting in it, the more dangerous for its external and nominal relationship. Already the views entertained by the settlers in New Zealand as to colonial government are vastly altered from what they were on leaving England. ' Accounts of colonial misgovernments, read of once in seditious columns, and looked upon as malcontent fictions, are beginning to appear very like realities. Those grumbling colonies that used to give so much trouble may, after all, have had some cause. The following letter to Lord Stanley, from some of the Auckland settlers, will, illustrate the state of feeling as to the advantages derivable from a colony's connexion with Great Britain ; — " May it please your Lordship — We have the honour to inform your lordship that it is the intention of many of the settlers of New Zealand to emigrate to some one of the islands in the Pacific, for the purpose of forming a permanent settlement. " They are compelled to adopt this step on account of the ruin in which the colony is involved through the impolitic and mischievous acts of the Local Government, the particulars of which your lordship must be well aware of, from the numerous complaints already transmitted to your lordship. Until the establishment of British authority, their circumstances were highly prosperous in. New Zealand, and they must still confess that the country in itself is admirably adapted for the settlement of Europeans. " In thus removing themselves from New Zealand, the emigrants seek no compensation for loss sustained at the hands of the Local Government, nor any assistance from England to enable them to leave the scene of their present misfortunes, their object being merely by this intimation to obtain sanction, or at all events a pledge of non-interference, on the part of the British Government. — We have the honour to be, your lordship's most hutrible servants. " (Signed) S. M. D. Martin, W. E. Cormack, E. Chalmers, John Macdougall, members of the Emigration Committee." . " Only leave us alone." Is it not a disgrace to the administration of colonial affairs, that from quiet, peace-loving people, not without affection for their country too, such a prayer should come ? Will it ever be believed in Downing-street, and acted upon when believed, that the first step towards making a colony useful, a real advantage and strength to the mother country, is to make it healthy in itself, quite independently of its connexion with the mother country ? To be swaddled up like French infants, to be swathed like Egyptian mummies, may possibly suit those who have not attained the use of their limbs, or those who can never have it, but cannot fail to interfere with the healthy action of the not altogether impotent. Are, then, " imperial requirements " for ever to hang about our necks the yoke, the log that checks our progress ? Mr. Terry, in his work just published, says that the expenses of the Government of New Zealand must necessarily be very great. We beg to differ with him as to the " necessarily sjkthat they will be very great, there is littleaoubt, if, like other colonies, we We made the almshousei of the mother country, for superannuated servants or incapable donothings,

Buy and sell, the inhabitants of this jfcSrprld must, where barter has happily ceased ; but to buy, it is now as essential to sell, as it was in tbe days of barter to give a blanket for a ton of potatoes. If this doctrine has been preached with less effect than might have been desired to earlier settlers, it is consolatory to find that more recently arrived capitalists are practically impressed with it without need of preaching. The passengers, both of the Thomas Harrison and the Olympus, intend, we believe without exception, to proceed at once to their country land. That they will find their advantage hi so doing, there can be no doubt. Trade is a thing overdone here, as elsewhere ; let even those who have established themselves look to it, lest they be eventually forced into doing that, at a disadvantage, which they might have originally done with a certainty of success.

We have neither room nor time this week to give a detailed notice of the various questions between refractory and runaway sailors and the masters of vessels, which have occupied so much of the time of the Police Magistrate, but- we shall take an early opportunity of expressing our opinion on the necessity for some enactment on the subject by the Colonial Legislature.

The barque New Zealand arrived here on Thursday morning, with immigrants from Greenock. She left the Clyde on the 6th of July. We have not been on board, but understand that the immigrants are of a useful class. In this we are agreeably disappointed, as, from the accounts of distress among the manufacturing classes, we feared that the settlement would have been inundated by persons from this district whose education to a particular mechanical employment would have rendered them unfit for labours so much at variance with their fixed habits, as those essential to the success ,of first settlers. We understand that it was intended that some cabin passengers should have arrived by this vessel ; unfortunately, however, we believe on account of some fault in the arrangements which did not give time for their assembling and getting on board, she has arrived without any.

It cannot but he gratifying to all, that in every immigrant vessel which has arrived direct from England, there have been so few deaths. The Sir Charles Forbes lost two children and one adult, the Thomas Harrison two children (one an infant immediately after birth), the Olympus one infant prematurely born, and the New Zealand not one.

We are sorry to hear that some children have again been attacked with severe illness, in one instance ending in death, from eating the leaves or berries of the tutu. Considering the great quantity of this plant which grows in all the fern land, it would be perhaps impossible to secure ourselves absolutely from such accidents ; but if earlier settlers would make a point of warning the newly-arrived of the danger, it would at all events lessen the probability of their occurring for the future.