SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 23, 1848.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 242, 23 September 1848, Page 2

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 23 , 1848.

In our last, we called attention to an extract from the Wesleyan Missionary Notices for May. We, this day, copy the Leading Article from the Watchman of the 3rd of that month. The speakers at the Annual Missionary Meeting on the Ist of May, who dealt with the subject of Lord Grey's " instructions," on the matter of the treaty of Waitangi, and the London Editor who comments on the important results of the Wesleyan Missionary remonstrance, are more easily satisfied than we. We can perceive no new fact, — no more conclusive expression in Lord Giey's renewed disclaimer than that he had previously given utterance to. The denial of a meditated infraction of that treaty was quite as explicit — if a reply ambiguous in a great degiee, in both cases, can, by courtesy, be teimrd explicit — to the Bishop of New Zealand, as that since vouchsafed to the Wesleyan Committee. It is in the tone and the temper alone that we detect the smallest difference. In fact, the pertinacity with which the noble Earl lefeis the remonstrants, to the despatch and " instructions," in which — although every one who read them augured imminent peril, — he can perceive nothing " inconsistent with the Treaty, or calculated to excite anything like a reasonable alarm in those who may be interested in maintaining it." This, to our thinking, affords conclusive proof that if his Lordship is indeed convinced of the force of the reasoning submitted to his consideration, it is precisely that Hudibrastic soit of conviction, which leaves the convinced of the same opinion still. The strength of the argument may have led the noble Eail to pause ,• and as further instructions, " such as will secure the practical maintenance of the treaty in its full integrity," are promised, we must abide in the hope that they will be touched in such clear and explicit teims as shall defy alike misconstruction or dissatisfaction. We have written so largely and so strenuously against the misgovernment of the Colonial Office that were it not a subject of paramount importance we should feel a delicacy in prosecuting the theme, lest a public duty should be mistaken for indulgence of a private grudge. We were amongst the first, when in England, to point to the Colonial Office as the Monster Souice of Colonial wrong. We are happy to know that we have since made various powerful converts to an opinion, the growth of many an anxious year ; and we Avould fondly hope that the day is not a very remote one that shall j see that hideous wart excised from the fairjface of the free and liberal British Constitution, i The London Colonial Gazette vented numberless sarcastic sneers against the mischiefs of which the Colonial Office, (which it facetiously termed Mr. Mother Country,) was the fruitful sire. The Colonial Magazink also laid bare many of the abuses springing from that untiring fount of Colonial injury — and, in our last, we transferred to our columns, an able paper on Colonial Government, from the Morning Chronicle of the 29th April. The follies, the fallacies, of that precious bureauracy are , there caustically exposed. The mischief to the parent Country — the misery to the Colonies are rendered painfully apparent. How, indeed, can it be otherwise — unless at the DowningStreet Constitution Factory, the ever changing Operatives shall have their eyes anointed with a magical, microscopic, ointment, their minds enlarged to a sixteen thousand utilitarian power ? Until British Colonies shall he ruled upon the full and fair principle of British law, they must, in a greater or lesser degree, continue to be a burthen to themselves, a tax upon the parent state. However loyal to British Sovereignty — however happy under British rule, they will ever he disgusted with Colonial Office domination. Is it to be supposed that the mere act of voluntary expatriation is a ground sufficiently valid to rob an Englishman of his birthright 1 That thenceforward, like a child in leading strings, his dearest rights, his most cherished privileges, are to be transferred to the custody of my Lord This or Sir Harry That; and that his moral, social, and political existence is to be measured by the variable standard of caprice or capacity that may temporarily hold sway in this the office of his destiny ? The writer of the article in the Morning Chronicle shows that since the application of that modern blister, the Colonial Office, to the Colonial shoulder, it has drawn almost every Colonial viitue, leaving in their stead an ever running virus of disgust and discontent, which being jon occasion communicated to the British mind, engenders a belief that colonists, in their very nature, are a set of lazy lubberly fellows, whose only desire is to feel the depth of Mr. Mothercountry's pocket. And, under this most unjust impression, the good folks at home are led to support plans of Colonial coercion, which, if they but knew and studied their own best interests, they would indignantly set

as in the good old times, to manage their own concerns in the way that their own necessities, and their own good sense, would infallibly point out to be the best ; the people of England would find them good customers — staunch compatriots — lending assistance to, rather than begging it of, the Empire. If the British nation could only be brought to understand the enormous misappropriations arising from that canker of all prosperity — Pationage — aspecies of ColonialOm'ceAUadin's Lamp. Could they but sift the multiplicity of unmerited appointments issuing from the Lord in Downing-StreeL, and his Deputies in i the Colonies. Could they but be instructed how few, how very few, of those appointments are conferred upon bona fide colonists. Could they but behold the legions of locusts quartered, like a foreign gairisonfor the injlictionof Imperial purposes, to the Colonial injury, they would surely discover that the Colonial Office is the most fertile mint of political pinmoney — the most notorious manufactory of Colonial pin -making, ever devised for draining the resources of a nation or estranging the affections of its dependencies. Well may the Morning CnnoNToi.r. triumphantly ad\eit to the one element of supenonty possessed by'the older Colonies. " Tnr/v weiik NOT GOVKRNED FROM DOWNING - STREET !" In that sentence stands confessed the seciet of their success, their loyalty, and thenliberality. Their representatives could initiate in the Colonial Council Ilall measures conducive to the Colonial weal. They had no delegated Imperialist to put an extinguisher upon Colonial legislation. Their members were men elected to advance the Colonial cause — not puppets paraded to make a Colonial show. Their newspapers were practical instruments — available engines — of thcColonialCommonwealth, not mere essayists, speculative exponents of right, but powerless deprccators of wrong. They had self-government, and they had, no doubt, self-abuses ; but these were remediable, on the spot. The spear that gave the thrust could also medicine the local wound.' They were not doomed to groan under that tyrant plea — that convenient cloak, in perpetuation of wrong — " Until the pleasure of the Secretary of State be known," They obtained redress of ordinary grievances on the instant ; and there was, moreover, this very remarkable difference in the older Colonies — ■ NOT ONE OF THEM WAS SITUATED AT A T>ISTANCtt OF SIXTEEN THOUSAND MIW.S FROM THE SEAT OV ITS IRRESPONSIBLE NOMINATION ! !

Wr are informed that Mr. Nathan's new scoria house has been taken, at a lental of one hundred a year, for Ills Excellency the Go-veinor-in-Chief, His Excellency undertaking such additions and alterations as may be deemed requisite, at his own expense. As extensive preparations are in progress, we presume his Excellency may be speedily expected to enter into occupation of his new and commanding quarters.