NEW ZEALAND COMPANY, [From the Wellington lndependent.]

New Zealander, Volume 1, Issue 43, 28 March 1846, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND COMPANY, [From the Wellington lndependent.]

The procedure of the New Zealand Company in establishing a series of isolated settements, so divided by geographical position as to form, practically independent communities, is not more at variance with sound policy than it is w itli all the principles of colonisation which the Directors of that Company profess. The essential element of the Wnkefield principle was concentration j this was the main object of requiring a price for land instead of as previously giving it away j and to the disregatd of this point, the ill success of former colonies was mainly attributed. If, therefore, any thing could surprise us in the conduct of a money seeking corporation, it would be that the leaders should deliberately embrace a plan denounced by the very theory whose adoption formed their main claim to public suppoi t. For never, we believe, has the most reckless and improvident Government so provided for the djspersion of the settlers as has been done by these very men who proclaim that in colonisation dispersion is synonymous with ruin. The past history of their proceedings proves the truth of what we have thus stated. They sent out between 4,000 and 5,000 individuals to be scattered over a district extending from Wellington to Wanganui, a distance of 112 miles. That they should not have known the decree of dispersion which this would naturally have involved, is impossible; and yet, instead of attempting to remedy this evil, either by the abandonmentof a poi lion of their plan, or by directing fresh emigrants to this settlement, by whom the gaps between existing settlers might be filled up, they clung tenaciously to all the defects of thei r scheme, and proposed and founded the settlement of New Plymouth. In this settlement, comprising 60,000 acres, about 250 families were settled, —and the Company, having thus adequately provided for the dispersion of these settlers, planned and commenced the settlement of Ne.son. To what extent the emigrants at Nelson have been injured by the mode of colonisation pursued in their case, may be learned from the letter of Mr. Bell, to which we have before referred. The Company having there succeeded in scattering about 750 families over a district extending sixty miles in one direction, and thirty in another, has commenced the attempt to form the settlement of Otago, to be succeeded by another in fhe Wairarapa. In fact, the plan of the Company is to tempt emigrants to encounter the inevitable evils of dispersion by offering town land and a lottery, in order that they may effect sales at higher prices than their land would otherwise command, and may entrap as purchasers those who do not intend to employ the land which they acquire. That they have no motive beyond this is evident, fvom the contemptuous neglect with which they treat every settlement after it can no longer be made to afford tins bait, and from their utter disregard of those implied obligations, which, among gentlemen, are always regarded as more binding than such as can be enforced in a court of law. And these are the men whose claim to be employed as the instruments of systematic colonisation in New Zealand, has been admitted by the Home Government! But the New Zealand Company do not merely actively promote the dispeision of the settleis whom they introduce into this colony, but by their negative influence they oppose an insurmountable obstacle in the way of all attempts to lernedy the evils which they thus occasion. Between Wellington and Wanganui there are hundreds of thousands of acres of land, available both for agriculture and pasture. These might be purchased from the natives at certainly a fifth part of the price which the New Zealand Company requires for itself, —at the highest, that is, at 2s. per acre. And now that the English Government is at length aware of the necessity of having such a force in New Zealand as may restore that salutary awe of the power of the Biitish Crown, which the Local Government had well nigh destroyed, and that this force is wielded by a vigorous hand —every person who thus acquires land might feel secure in its possession No part of New Zealand presents a greater combinationof advantages than may be found united in this district —but excepting as an obstacle to communicate, it might for any influence it can tear upon colonisation, as well be blotted out of the map of New Zealand. The natives are willing to sell —there would be many persons eager to purchase —the land is fertile, easily accessible, and well placed for communication with the existing settlements. But between the purchasers and the settlers —between the land and tlie set- | tiers, stands the New Zealand Company —claim- j ing a barren titfe—a power to obstruct and impede —a right to restrain emigration and to perpetuate the consequences of their blunders, until such time as the land included within their limits may rise to a price sufficient to tempt their cupidity, or to support their extravagance. How these claims may affect the interests of the settleis, whose money they have received upon the faith of representations falsified by their own

measures, appears to be the least matter in their thoughts. This conduct, on the part of these colonizers, as they term themselves, would be sufficiently blameworthy, if their claims had been derived from their own expenditure. But when we remember that these claims, so injurious to this settlement, havejbeen in a great degree acquired by means of the employment of money which we furnished, and which the Directors were pledged to devote to our exclusive benefit, the injury becomes deeply aggravated. The Compaii), as we have shewn, have a claim to 200,000 acres by virtue of the expenditure of our funds, and they so use this claim as that neither we nor any one else can derive any benefit from the land over which it extends, although upon every principle of justice, it ought to be considered as possessed in trust for us. A more flagrant case of wrong cannot easily be selected fiom the annals of colonizing Companies or Government. But we believe that the period of delusion is drawing near to its termination. Hitherto every charge upon the Company or its Agents, has been met with a sneer as the motives of the individual by whom it has been made, or has been diverted by some attack upon the Local Government. This policy, the paltriest and meanest trick of effete diplomacy— -the common resource of those who have neither confidence in their own powers j nor reliance upon the integrity of their own intentions—cannot, we trust and believe, be repeated. In this respect, at least, a new era is commenced. Secure of justice from the Government, we have leisure to turn our e)esto the Company, to demand the fulfilment of their pledges, and to call them to account for the violation of their principles. And unless they abandon their past policy, and enter upon a career of utility, they may be assured that a more unanimous voice of condemnation will rise from every settlement, directed against them, than has yet been excited by any act of the Local Government. They will be struck down in the moment of their triumph ; and the blow will come from those, who in spite of warning, and almost of proof, have clung to the belief in their sincerity, hoping against hope, that they would yet fulfil the expectations they had raised j but who when roused to a full perception of the tt nth, will be fou d at least as powerful to destroy as they have been to uphold. For their sake, as well as for our own, we trust the Company will so act, as to avoid this consummation.