The New-Zealander. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1847.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 110, 19 June 1847, Page 2

The New-Zealander. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 18 47.

lie just and fear not : Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

"The first line that Sir Patrick red, A loud lauch lauched he : The next line that Sir Patrick red, The teir blinded his ee."-~Scots Ballad. "When the instructions, accompanying the New Zealand Charter, were first put into our hands ; when we saw how quietly Captain Giey was ordered to take from the Maories ihe greater portion of their lands, register, nud appropriate them to the use of Her Mnjesty the Queen, we were unable to restrain our mirth ; we took the whole to be a random shot, fired by Ministers in the exultation of their fresh accession to power ; as an amusing piece of nonsense, to be thought better of before the departure of another mail. But, upon alter consideration, the conclusion was painfully forced upon us that the present policy of the British Government has been delibernte'y weighed and resolved upon ; that those instructions are \o be carried out, sooner or la'er; that nothing but inability will excuse Captain Grey from compliance with them, in their fullest sehse. For they are not a mere crotchet of the moment ; a hasty effervescence of doctrinaire ideas, lutaretobe traced back to the proceedings of the Parliamentary Committee on New Zealand in 1845. There is the germ, of which these present iact ructions are merely the develupement ; there are to be found the early opinions of Lord llowick, the chairman, now reproduced as the settled and mature convictions of Earl Grey. It would have needed little foresight, after having read the resolutions adopted by that Committee, to predict the abandonment of the Treaty of Waitangi, as soon as the framer of them should find himse'.f possessed of power to set it a^ide. And this, with the first opportunity, has accordingly been done. But how to reconcile this abandonment with national honesty, or the faith and honor of the Ciown, is a d.(&culty yet to be overcome. Turn and twist it as they may, the agreement is still there, not to be avoided by any process of special pleading. Treaty or no treaty— we care not for verbal distinctions— it is a compact, by which we have taken good care to profit ; doubly binding upon us, who have been hitherto undeniably the gainers. Sovereignty over the couutry was obtained under colour of that compact ; quiet occupation lor the sellers, dwellers in the land on surfrini C, was long time secured under the provisions of that compact: aud now, because we either are the strongest, or suppose ourselves to be so, we throw it up, without shame or bush, as originally *'an j ii.judicious proceeding." To.impuie to gentlemen, Ministers of Her Majesty, a wilful breach of taith, would be lidiculcms; but in what shape they have presented the question to their minds, by what art of gramarie they can have reconciled thembelves io this most unjust and ill-judged^ proceeding, we are at a loss to conceive. They iip jear not to have looked the matter straight in the face ; for the despatch to Captain Grey misses the real point at issue, which is, not what Dr. Arnold mi»y have thought about international law, not whether the Maories have a natural right to their lands, but whether the Queen has promised that they should retain them. Mie has not only promised, but she | has confirmed that promise, through the mouth of Lord Stanley, and of Lord John llussell, now again a minister, himself. The dhhone&ty of rescinding that thrice pledged word, is too glaring, and every man of good principle must J«el it bitterly. The perils, too, and anxieties entailed upon the colony are not of the smallest ; and it is small consolation to be told that the proceedings from which they spring are according to Vattel; quite iv order, and upon the best authority. But such personal considerations we set as feathers in the scale against the assured loss of our moral influence, and the lowering of our character in the eyes of the Aborigines. The [ measure is more than a mistake, and ought, ior the credit of our country, to be buried in oblivion.

We have copied from the Sydney Morning Herald, of Way 27th, the memoiable discussion in Council, relative to the withdrawal of troops from New South Wales, and their transfer to New Zealand. The liberal party there has, at last, put forth undisguisedly the cloven loot. That the hoof was there, although for some while decently withdrawn beneath the skills of the senatorial robe, has been long well enough known ; yet it was hardly to be expected that it should have been so soon thrust forward, with brazen eftiontery, into the sight of our eyrs, For the first time in that assembly, the open note of rebellion has been sounded ; the confident expectation declared, and dwelt upon with all the unction of desire, that the Lion and Unicorn must shortly give place to the Emu and Kangaroo.

It is a lesson for us, who are presently to be entrusted with the liberty of self-government, not to be thrown away. To note the desperate rancour, the shameless and unshrinking selfishness manifested by one party in that assembly ; the bullying, demagogue tone so offensive to any man of feeling, or of taste ; to mark, and ourselves to avoid, wiih sensitive dread, any future risk of the like reproach. Let us learn Jrom this, that free institutions are the Amreeta cup of nations— the greatest of all blt-ssings, or the greatest of all curses, according to the race on which it is Cvmfeired. But, for this outburst of disaffection, there must have been surely cause supplied ; some flagrant infringement of their rights and liberties, some intolerable oppression, some provocation that might excuse, though never so little, such a roar of virulent and evil- boding passion ! Cause sufficient ? It was cause sufficient — for them. Their pockets were touched ; and instantly there arose a cry, of mixed lamentation and defiance, that would have melted the hetrt and cowed the courage of Herod in Jewry. Rachel weeping for her children. And yet, the children were such very little ones. What are their grievances, after all ? The loss of a little expenditure in the country fiom the military chest, and fear of having to bear the expense of a few additional men to their police. The ties of affection to the mother country, gratitude for benefits conferred, loyally and allegiance, the old English pride that gloried in its country's name, all thrown, up, all as chaff in the wind, against a modicum of lucre ! Were it anything worth keeping, we could pardon them; we do not wish to affect such Fabricim nicety of virtue ; but to bewail the price of a few pounds of beef, to part fiom a source of profit so trifling wiih throes and threats, it is too paltry. If any thing can be more contemptible than the feeling itself, it is the shamelessness of its open avowal. Is it to be believed that men, living secure as in Westminster or Paul's, with no cuise of fear, save only the spirit of insubordination bred and loitered by themselves, would first begrudge to brethren succour for their urgent need; would stint the force requited to put an end to what, if much prolonged, must eventually become a war of muidsr and mutual extermination ; that they should then — because the Queen, in her provident and impartial care, orders the nearest available force to our relief—break forth into jealous invectives, and suffer the word " Rebellion" to escape their lips. In the name of Humanity, who are these men, and of what mettle are they made? Bland, with his puffy importance andhi s bluster, talking " —as familiarly of roaring lions, As maids of thirteen do of puppy dogs ;" Wentworth, with his sinister visage and grat ing voice, his ready and unhesitating perversion of every case to serve his turn ; Lowe, with the tongue of the old seipent, unscrupulous as the rest, but many times more dangerous : we could paint them all, find would, but that the tiuth of the pictures might be doubted among those that have not yet seen the originals. It is curious to see how in the eagerness of their wrath, they bore testimony to what at another time they would have sturdily disallowed; to the natural advantages of these Islands over New South Wales itself. So long as ii be their object to make themselves out the victims of injustice and neglect, to shew their own forlorn condition — poor illused wretches, that number their herds by thousands as we do here by tens -> so long- as that be their cue, they are profuse in panegyric, which the modosty of a New Zealand colonist (and that, too, not proverbial) would scarcely have al'owed him to indulge in. What will the proprietors of Kawau say to Mr. Murray's lildorado visions of mineral treasire3,to be had for the tiouble of carrying away ? "In New Zealand, the land was i ich in minerals ; large blocks of copper ore, so large that the colonists could not remove or break them up, existed on the surface of the l<mii and yi't this land was to be sold low, while the land of Mew South Wales, barren and worthless as most of it was, was to be kept up to o£l an acre." A s-cond Sinbad, catching signt of a new Valley of Diamonds. What will our farmers say to Mr. Wentworth's enthusiastic admiration of their lands, (he telling us in the same breath, that "if there ever was a colony which ought not to be encouraged by Government," it was this), when he tells them that " It was notorious that the soil and climate of New Zealand were eminently fitted for agriculture, and that there, and there alone, perhaps, in all these colonies was a dense population likely to spring up. But when tbey saw the principle and policy of an Act of Parliament abandoned in respect ol ! one colony where it might apply, and conj tinued in a country of drought and sterility like New South Wales, where that principle nevir could operate beneficially, there could be no doubt that the preference was both un just and unfair." *' Flatttring busses," indeed, as those bestowed on FalsiafFby Mistress Dorothy Tearsheet ; and as little worth. But when the member of council goes on to tell us that the best thing the people of New South

Wales could do, would be to pack up their kits, and come over here in a body ; we might, perhaps, be allowed to hint, that some among the number would hardly find a welcome. To conclude— we trust that these reproaches, will not seem addressed to the people of New South Wales ; that they may rut glance, like Walter Ty reel's arrow, and strike those at whom ihey were never aimed ; for there aremen to be found there, and plenty of them— friends, too, of our own — who would adorn; ar.d do honour to any country which it might-, be their pleasure to adopt. It is to one peculiar class that we have; spoken ; to men who, by the prominent part, they take in all discussion, by clamorous; tongue and insolence of assertion, have succeeded sometimes in overbearing the milder: and more retiring pait of the community:' men who have sunk all reverence for authority,, all chivalry of feeling, all neighbourly kindness in the worship of those Dioscuri of theColonies — Mammon, and Self.

Auckland Savings Bank.— Messrs. Dilworth and Macdougall, the accountant and trustee in rotation, will attend this evening from 7 to 8 o'clock, at Mr. Montefiore's store,, to receive deposits; and Dr. Campbell and the Colonial Secretary will be in attendance on Monday next, 21st inst., from 12 to L o'clock, forenoon.