The New-Zealander. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1848.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 176, 5 February 1848, Page 2

The New-Zealander. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1848.

Be just and fear not: Lpt all tlie ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

THE GOVERNOR AND THE SO VTHERN CROSS. The battle fought during the last six months, between the Governor and the Proprietors of the Southern Cross t has, notwithstanding the insignificance of the interests really at stake, been watched with keen curiosity by the mass of the inhabitants of this district. The metal of the combatants, their perfect knowledge of one another, the distant anticipation of the contest on both sides, and the activity and privacy of the consequent preparations, are, probably, amongst the leading causes of this general interest. Far different, however, are the feelings with which the conflict has been regarded, by the intelligent Settlers of long standing in the Colony. In the minds of these men, who were able to read the passing events by the light of former and very sad experience, the feeling of curiosity was merged in those of terror and despair. They knew well that the objects really aimed at were of contemptible magnitude, and that they concerned only the belligerent parties themselves. They feared — not the petty dispute itself, but the mode of carrying it on — not the issue of the contest as to the ultimate disposal of the miserable stake, but the tactics of the parties who fought for it. The Editors of the Cross hold a Crown grant for a large tract of land, the validity of which is impugned by the Governor, who considers himself to be bound by a sense of duty to the Company's Settlers as well as the great majority of the inhabitants of this district, to direct an enquiry into the case. This is the point really at issue between the parties— a mixed question of law and public policy, by no means complicated in its nature. The validity of the grant in question, and that of others issued to claimants, in excess of the highest amount of land justified by the law, are plainly matters for the consideration of the Supreme Court, and, as it is to be presumed that nothing happening outside the doors of that Court could affect the course of justice within them, it would seem that preliminary hearings of those cases, before the Editors of Newspapers could answer no purpose really useful to the claimants who institute them. But, these violent and shuffling discussions .are not merely useless as far as the Supreme Court is concerned, but- plainly calculated to bring upon, the claimants the condemnation of their fellow Settlers, who cannot look with indifference upon attempts to over-awe the judgment-seat, and who must be disgusted bv the shameless efforts which are being made to hide certain blemishes and circumstances of suspicion connected with some of the cases. Even the very existence of these discussions, however fairly and temperately managed, involves a violation of the courtesy due to the Judges of the land, which is invariably resented by British communities, who number, not merely the independence of these public functionaries, but their dignity, amongst their own rights, claims, and privileges. Now, if these remarks are justly applicable to preliminary adjudications of points of law by disinterested Editors, what is to be thought of the case of Editorial land-claimants, coolly deciding upon the validity of their own titles, in the columns of their own Newspaper ? A protracted reign of anarchy, may have reconciled the inhabitants of the Province of New Ulster to such a phenomenon, but there can be no doubt that, ir. any other part of the British empire, it would be viewed with indignation or laughter, according to the character of the observer. The policy of the Governor in re-opening the consideration of these claims, is, indeed, a legitimate subject of public discussion, the expediency of engaging in which, is a matter for the determination of the claimants themselves. But, the extreme caution with which this subject should be approached, will be easily conceived by those who consider that every discussion of t e policy in question, by the parties immediately concerned, must, in some degree or other, presuppose a defect in the titles and that every *, the slightest movement in the direction of violence or intimidation, would be naturally presumed by the public to proceed from a distinct consciousness of a total absence of right, and of all just grounds of claim, But, while rash and violent denunciations of the Governor's policy in reopening these claims must be mischievous in every way, a fair and dispassionate discussion of it, however useless towards the deciion ot the legal questions in the Supreme Court, could not fail to be of incalculable benefit to the claimants, in the event of their being ultimately thrown upon the favor of the Crown. JNor are the holders of the excessive grants without a set-off against the Governor's arguments in support of his policy. In the original issue of these grants, a great amount of injustice was undoubtedly inflicted upon the Company's settlers, and tle purchasers at Crown sales in this district. But, upon the other hand, the re-opening of its owu grants by the Crown, is, under any circumstances, to a certain ex c it, essentially unpopular, and

this unpopularity would, in the cases whic we are considering, be greatly aggravated by the whole history of the claims and the claimants; If the original purchases from the Natives, before the proclamation of her Majesty's sovereignty in these islands, were made in the teeth of one of the best-established principles of British Colonization, yet was the usage sustained by the claimants from the Local Government, after its recognition of their equitable rights, sufficient to erase from the minds of the great body of the Settlers in this district, all memory of the irregularity of these purchases, and all sense of their effects upon themselves. The delays which occurred in the adjustment of their claims the difficulties which they experienced in proving them, the expenses of witnesses, the fees of the Commissionen' Courts, their long and desperate struggle with the Government, and their final triumph, will supply materials for an interesting chapter in the history of this Province. The rivalry of the settlements, and the influence of the Company, would indeed have probably deprived the holders of the disputed grants of that sympathy from the Southern Settlers, which the extenuating circumstances just mentioned, would otherwise have naturally attracted to them. But, in this district, had it not been for the turbulent interposition of the Southern Cross, the whole current of public opinion would have flowed in one undivided stream with the cause of the claimants, and wafted it in triumph to the foot of the throne. In this or some similar way, would the real friends of the claimants have advised them to conduct their opposition to the Governor's policy, in re-opening the consideration of the excessive grants. But, as the question is one of property, and almost entirely of a private nature, we freely own that we have no right to obtrude our advice upon the claimants, either in the appointment of their advocates, or sketching the plan of their operations. They have named the Proprietors of the Southern Cross as their champions, and it is not to this selection, or to any lair and prudent pursuit of their real interests that we object, but to the particular tactics employed by their chosen advocates, which, keeping almost quite clear of the question really at issue, seem, to us at least, to threaten the prosperity, and even the existence of the settlement, Spurning the idea of submitting his Excellency's proceed, ings upon the excessive grants, in any fair and dispassionate way, to the tribunal of public opinion, and laughing to scorn at the notion of permitting the legal question to approach the Supreme Court— the writers in the Cross openly demand the disgrace of a Governor, who, besides remedying (with one exception^) all the grievances ot which the Settlers complained at the date of his accession to the Government, has, in a period of two years, increased the population of this district by a third part, taken measures for doubling or evm trebling it at no distant date, and by filling the pockets of the Settlers, placed them in a position for carrying on the business of real Colonization, in which the Settlers of no other Colony were perhaps ever placed. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the recall of Captain Grey, or his appointment to another Government, would satisfy them. Significant hints are being thrown out from time to time, in the columns of the Cross, of an intention to renew the agitation for the abolition of the Customs's-dnties, and the establishment of free trade in land — measures which involve the dismantling of the Local Government, the perpetual irritation of the Settlers by the imposition of a Property and Income tax, the sacrifice of the demesne lands of the Crown, the stoppage of Emigration by the destruction of the Lind-fund, an endless succession of land-claims, continued quarrels with the Natives/ and an ultimate war of extermination between the two races. We may be told by the thoughtless and the lazy, that schemes of this nature, which involve the ruin of the Province, could not be even entertained by men who are deeply interested in the question concerning the excessive grants, who have stakes in the settlement, and who are not without a certain amount of weight and influence amongst their fellowSettlers. Our answer is brief and decisive. Notwithstanding these guarantees for their political behaviour, they have before done all those things, with the intention of doing which again, we now charge them. They hunted the first Governor of this Colony to his grave, and chased the second like a wild beast from its shores. And, what is very worthy of remark, it would seem that their good will to a Governor is more fatal than their hatred : for, who would not prefer the fortunes of Mr. Shortland, to those of Captain Fitzroy, That at no very distant date the Customs-duties were abolished, and free trade in land established by the direct agency of the Proprietors of the Cross, and that notwithstanding the vigorous gover n- j ment of Captain Grey, the Colony has not yet recovered from the effects of those measures, are all matters of history,. But, if some obstinate sceptics are not to be satisfied as to the present danger of the Colony, without the production of farther evidence, it is to be found in the constitution and temper of the Editor of the Cross. Unwilling to enact any part in the building up of a political edifice, he is, \n this Colony at least without an equal in the work of destruction. And, such is the temper of the

little man, that the slightest affront put upon him by the Local Government, or the slightest injury sustained at its hands, is sure to produce in him not an amount of resentment bearing any reasonable proportion to the magnitude of the offence offered, or the injurysustained, but a firm determination to wage war to the knife, and to pull down the whole political and social edifice of the settlemeo about the ears of the Government and the Settlers, or to perish in the attempt. Some easy-going persons, men of substance and property too, are, even now, of opinion that the present wealth and prosperity of this district, form an insurmouutable barrier against the inroads of agitation, and we confess that, until lately, we have ourselves been under the influence of this pleasing delusion. But, the habitual readers of the Cross, and the attentive observers of all fhe movements of its Proprietors, and of the influence which their tried craft and subtlety have produced upon the public mind, must acknowledge thai ail hopes of public repose, founded upon the real or supposed impossibility of successful agitation, are utterly vain. Public intervention is now— not an impertinent interference with the affairs of those who have committed their mlerests to the management of the Cross — but a solemn dity which every man owes to himself, to his adopted country, and even to the rio tims of the advocacy of the Cross,

By the schooner Deborah which arrived yesterday, we have received Sydney papers to the l>th ultimo, but their domestic contents are not important. Earl Grey r s new constitution, modelled on a plan similar (o our own, seems to be viewed with general dissatisfaction. A preliminary meeting was held on the sth January, and a committee appointed to prepare remonstrances to the Home Government, to be submitted to a general public meeting appointed for the 17th. The payment of arrears of quit rents was threatened to be enforced with indiscriminate rigour in all parts of the colony, pursuant to positive instructions from England. The ship Medway > 653 tons, Captain Coombes, arrived at Sydney on the 1 6th ult.» with British intelligence to the 22nd September, being two days older than the latest recently received by us, andconsequently adding nothing new.

Programme. — On Thursday, Feb. 10th, at 4 o clock, on the space of ground opposite the Council Chamber, the Band of (he 58th Regiment will perform the following pieces of music :-— Overture— Op., " Eliza c Claudio 11 . ..... Mercadante, Cay: — Op. •• Donna Del Lago" Rostini. Waltz— lhe " Hyacinth" Keonig. Quadrille—" The Royal Irish" Jullien. Air and Chorus— Op. " Preciota" Weber». Galop—." Prince Alberti" Labitsky,