THE NEW ZEALAND JOB. {From the Bristol Journal)

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 231, 16 August 1848, Page 3

THE NEW ZEALAND JOB. {From the Bristol Journal )

We all remember Lord Thurlow's description of a corporation—that it had " neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to be damned"— a description totally iuapplicahle to the New Zealand Company. But, although we never suspected the New Zealand Company of being actuafd by any such motives, we now find, fiom a peiusal of the pamphlets they have dispersed with a view to sell their lands, or lather their land orders— for it does not appear that the Bettlers who paid them their money in 1839, have got anything else in exchange than those pieces of paper up to the present day— that one consideration, which weighs with the director! in founding the Scotch settlement at Otago, ii, that " It will be a service to the Church, of great consequence to carry the Gospel into those parts of the world, and raise a bulwark against the kingdom of Anti-Christ, which the Jesuits labour to build up in all parti of the woild." The Company have adopted this pious declaration from the pilgrim father*, of whom they consider themselves the legitimate successor!; and further, at page 13, they ascribe the whole transaction to a " singular Providence, which baa assigned this movement to the Free Church." Plain Church of England Christians might have said that this Joint Stock Company, having exhausted all other means of laising the wind, and being beset in the South of England with the bitter reclamations of those whose friends had paid their money for land in the Wellington district, and got nothing in return but the insolence of an agent, or the gleaming of a tomahawk, had bethought them of opening a frcih lottery in the most remote part of the kingdom, and of making gain out of that new form of godliness that was then rife aud epidemic in Scotland. "It is now four years since the Directors of the New Zealand Company, under the perplexities of an adverse Providence ;'' But we forbear ; lest in commencing on the cagoterie we should be led into a fit of indignation, which ought to be icserved only for hypocrites, impostors, and quack speculators on the bigotry and credulity of mankind, inconsistent with that quiet good humour with which we wo Id contemplate every new manifestation of the character of Tartuffe, and quite inapplicable to such a simple-minded and honourable set of men as the l)i« recors of the New Zealand Company. But so it was. They were suffering, as they say, " under the perplexities of an adverse Providenoe, 1 ' They had began by selling enonuoui quantities of the before- mentioned land orders. They had pocketed a dividend of ten per cent, per annum on their capital. *' Our friends in •hipping interest" had fingered all the hundreds of thousands of pounds received from the settlers on the score of emigration. •• Our other friends had been provided for with lucrative places in England and in the colony ; when the watery sphere in Broad-stivet — for we dare not call it by its proper name— barst. There were no more land sales, and no more dividends, when, under the|perplexities of an adverse Providence, 1 ' the Directors turned their attention to New England ai a model, and to Scotland aft a new field for their operations. It seems that theie devout men were doomed to be thwarted. •• Libeialism stepped in — and the piincipal, or religious element, was all but strangled and neutralised." Providence, however, watches over iis own elect. These are but " the trials of the Saints." " There has been a two. fold Providence." say they, " another and a parallel stream of preparation." This second miracle, which assumes the form of a revelation or a prophecy, is uomeihing that was said in Parliament by that inspired man, the late Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, The ancients, before they migrated, consulted the oracle of Pelphi. Pole rcgna per widas, wai once the amwer ; and the directors or the company seem to take the dictum of their Apollo as an oracular approval of the of tbeir " Free Churoh Colony." What they mean by their bitter allusions to "Liberalism," we don't know. We thought that Mr. Charles Bailer, Sir William Moleswonh, Mr. Wnkefield, and others, weie pretty well satuiated with that poison. Neither do we very *ell understand liow Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsinid proposes to raise bulwarks against the Kingdom of Anti-Christ, nor what degree of zjal my Lord Petre will show in thwarting the Jesuitei. The only common sense explanation we can give, is that suggested by the Empeior Vespasian to his ion Titus, who bad expressed his di>guit at the unsavoury source of a particulur branch of the revenue — •* Non olet.' 1 The olfactory nervea of the eliurehoMers will probably not be ofl'euded with the coin iv which their dividend is paid, though it should be extracted by a simulated piety from the odorous reccpta•les of fanaticism itself. There are several things we would advise the Noble Lords and Gen lemen who compose this Company to do * elbre they invite more credulous rustics to leave their homes in order to settle in New Zealand. One is, to go themselves, with iheir wives and families, to iet'le on the frontiers as a cordon to take off from their colonibts the first onbet of the barbarian inuption — the finer edge of the cannibal tomahawk ; — another is, before they venture to sell any fresh land orders, to lulfil the contracts they enteied into in 183U ;— thirdly, to do something to relieve and indemnity those unfortunate men who have returned, ruined and despairing, to England, in consequence of the company's inaßili y to give them their land — the most humane and righteous use they could make of the loan of money and grant of land they have obtained from the government ; and, lastly, having acquitted themselves or the moit sacred obligations, to wind up their aff.iiH, and rejie from an undertaking in which ilipy have gained no credit for themselves, and have contirred but a quus" tioaablcbtn fit on the community at large.

A Pouc man will be stationed on (he floor of the House of Commons, to prevent die exsi.tmon of the threat* Qf those mernbera who have expressed a dtteimination to ''die on the floor" in the course ot the session, Mr. John O'Connell, and Mr. Fergus O'Con-* i or will, it ii understood, be bound over to keep the peace towards tlieitnelves, which will be equivalent to holding their peace — it they repeat the thrc ts of selljacrifice theylutciy indulged in.— Punch