The New-Zealander. SATURDAY,JANUARY 23,1847.

New Zealander, Volume 2, Issue 86, 23 January 1847, Page 2

The New-Zealander. SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1847.

J3e just and (ear not: Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, 'lhy God's, and Truth's, '

Ova Wellington papers are up to the 6th inst.j and it appears" from them, that the southern settlers are unanimous in Iheir approbation o f Captain Grey's government, and in their condemnation of the Company, and of the Proprietary Government, which, it has been for some time reported, is about to be established tinder that body in the Southern District. This last subject is discussed with a degree of earnestness, which would lead a stranger to suppose that it was one of late origin. In point of fact, however, as all persons concerned in New Zealand well know, the idea of a proprietary government under them in the whole Colony was never, for a moment, abandoned by the Company. At a time when Her Majesty's Government feared to undertake the colonization of New Zealand, on the ground that such a scheme, without much previous preparation, must be fraught with danger to "die Natives, the Company solicited them to assume the sovereignty of the country, and to confer upon themselves the proprietary government of it. Foiled in their direct attempt to accomplish their object, they applied themselves with great vigour and boldness to indirect methods. They commenced the colonization of the country without the sanction of the Crown, hoping that, by gathering a large body of settlers on the same spot, they would be able to fix the seat of Government, and, by governing the Local Government, compel the Minister to accede to their wishes. Disappointed if 1 this hope, they had recourse to a systematic plan of thwarting all the measures' of the Local Government, with the view of impressing upon the Imperial Government and the Biiiish public a belief, of the impossibility of governing the Colony, in any other way than through them. This plan, pursued with uniform vigour, has inflicted serious injury upon the Northern District of the Colony, j brought the Southern to the very verge of ruin, and, hitherto at least, has not procured either credit or profit to the Company. The southern settlers denounce a proprietary government, not only in itself, but, because they have no confidence in the body to j which the administration of it in their district would be committed. Their objections to this species of government are principally derived l from its working in the old American Colonies. In the present instance, however, these objections are not so forcible as those to which the form and nature of this kind of government are liable. The proprietary governments established in the first American plantations were always conferred on individuals, and most commonly on Court favorites. The intolerable abuses* uecessarily arising out of this circumstance, could not' occur in the lame form of government, administered by a powerful Company. We quite agree, however, with our southern contemporaries, in thinking that proprietary governments,ynderany supposable combination, of circumstances, are wholly misuited to the present times. A proof of the truth of this proposition, by a formal exami* nation of the genius and the machinery of these governments, would, at present, lead us altogether beyond our limits, and be at the same time wholly unnecessary. The most philosophical statesman of the present age has, in a well-considered document, given a decided opinion, together with the reasons upon which it was founded, as to the inapplicability of a proprietary government under the Company, to this whole Colony, or to any portion of it. "I do not (says Mr. Gladstone in his despatch to Captain Grey, dated March 18th, 1846,) lean to the idea, which the Com-

pany has heretofore been disposed to favour, of placing in its hands the general responsibilities of government, either with respect to the whole Colony, or to a portion of it. I have as yet learned nothing to convince me, that either commercial interests^ or public spiritswould enable such a body to surmount the difficulties, which Her Majesty's Government have found so serious in the administration of the affairs of this distant dependency of the Crown. I incline to think, that the Company, invested with such powers, would, if well advised, make a delegation of them as complete as possible to local persons or bodies, and 1 do not know why such delegation, if it be wise, may not as well and as soon be made by a department of the Queen's Government acting under habitual responsibility, while, as to the residue of the controlling authority,, which it may be requisite to retain within the limits of this country, although I think its,exercise may be no easy task for the immediate servants of the Crown, 1 doubt whether it would be found, when it had been form«lly intrusted to the New Zealand Company, either kss difficult or less invidious." We may, we believe, affirm with safe confidence, that, if Mr. Gladstone had continued to preside over the Colonial Office, no proprietary government would be 1 established in New Zealand, and, that the Company would be either abolislied, or employed by the Government as their colonising agent for the southern district. And it would seem from the correspondence contained in the Appendix to- the 20th Report of the Directors, that Mr. E G. Wakefield was nearly of the same:opinion. He has, indeed, as the last resource of his inventive genius, proposed a new, and, to say the least of it, a very extraordinary form of government (the details of which we intend to publish) to Mrr -Gladstone. But a mere glance at this notable scheme must lead the merest tyro in politics to conclude most certainly, that it could not be entertained for a moment by such a man as Mr. Gladstone, if the same conclusion could not be arrived at with equal certainty, from the circumstance of Mr. Wakefield himself having expressed a doubt as to its perfection. For, your consti-tion-makers are wonderfully given to maintaining their own schemes with unflinching assurance, and it is well known that Mr.' Wakefield could make new constitutions for all Her Majesty's Colonies in the course of a few evenings. This scheme is denounced in the southern settlements in as indignant a tone as that of a proprietary* government. Nor is the slightest countenance given by the southern settlers to the employment of the Company by the Government as their colonizing agent, and it seems to be highly probable, that a proposition to that effect from the Company would not be received with much favour by the late ministry. Upon the whole, then, it is nearly certain that, if Mr. Gladstone had continued in office, the Company would have been at this moment defunct, and that statesman would have had the merit of accomplishing this most desirable object, without a full knowledge of the feelings of their settlers towards that body. As to the details either of Mr. Gladstone's measure, or of that about to be submitted to Parliament by Earl Grey, no information has yet reached the Colony ; and, even with respect to the form of the government about to be established in this Colony under Earl Grey's Bill, the facts in our possession 6nly enable us to form a probable judgment. In a late number of the Nelson Examiner it is stated, (it would seem* upon mere hearsay,) that Mr. Buller's proposition of last yeary and the new scheme of Mr. Wakefield, which we have adverted to above, are to form the basis of the new constitution* We have lately confessed ourselves to be incredulous .enough not to believe a word of this report, and we will now give the reason of our incredulity. On the 6th of August, in { the House of Commons, Earl 'Grey, in reply to a question from Lord Lyttleton, said, 'that the measure which he found in the Colonial Office would require some alteration and some extension, but that he was quite ready to admit that in the main features of that measure he altogether concurred." Now", as Mr. Builer's proposition of last year, and Mr. Wakefield's new scheme, would, if introduced at all into the new measure, undoubtedly have formed main features of it, we think that we are fully warranted in concluding that, as they certainly formed no part of Mr. Gladstone's measure; i they could not have been embodied in Earl Grey's Bill. There are stil!, tten, strong^ grounds for believing that the' Colony will be divided into two parts', whose institutions, (to use the words pf Mr. Gladstone,) will not be absolutely co-ordinate and independent one of the other, but so arranged, that the Executive attached to one of them shall be in some sense the head Of tlte other.' That the representative principle will be liberally introduced into the institutions of both divisions of the Colony, is already well known. In thi3, which.we believe to be the real state of things, the principal question which arises, relates to the seat of the controlling Executive Gdyerrfment— a question of much more moment than, at first sight, it seems to be, and which, with reference to the claims of Auckland, has been discussed in our last number. ' Earl Grey, however, has said, that Mr. Gladstone's measure would require some alteration

and some extension, and the new ministry is under obligations to the Company and Mr. Buller. Under these circumstances, we are fully convinced, that, if Earl Grey's Bill had been submitted to Parliament at the close of •the last session-, and if it had been an enacting bill, it would have contained some subordinate provisions recommended by the Company. ! But, if "either no bill, or only an»enabling one, was submitted to Parliament at the close of the last session, then, before any legislation upon the Government of this Colony can have taken place, Earl Grey will have in his possession such information- from the Governor -and from the Company's- settlements, as will effectually prevent the introduction- of any of the Utopian notions of Mr. Wakefield into the bill. So that, after all, there seem to be good grounds for believing, that the utmost favour, which the Company can. receive at the hands of the new ministry, is the being employed as the' agent of the government in colonizing the Southern District. Even this indulgence will not be very acceptable to the southern settlers, wlio now for a long time have been contrasting the wise administration of Captain Grey with the continued blundering of the Company and their Colonial Agents. They importunately demand that Captain Grey should be appointed as their permanent Governor, and we have great pleasure- in 1 acknowledging that, in this and in all their late proceedings, our southern friends have demonstrated' to the world their good sense, and their ability to distinguish between good and bad government.