SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1848.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 254, 4 November 1848, Page 2

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 18 4 8.

Wio ai<» indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Woodhouse for the perusal of a Sydney Herald of the 19th ultimo, received by the schooner Cheerful, which sailed on that day. Although there had been no fiuther arrivals from Europe, the Sydney journals continued to be filled with matter of much interest, and their editors were making ample and judicious use of the mighty mass at their disposal. The llkiiai.ij has devoted a couple ol leading ai tides to the piojected New Zealand settlement of Canteibuiy. For these we may probably find room in a future number, for, bitter though they be, they clearly expose the theoretical fallacies of class colonization, and the gross injustice of the New Zealand Company to its seltleis, in each successive founding of new settlements ; or, lather, in, the gulling of fresh swarms, ere the former have had the most limited time or chance to establish themselves. The idea of selling land at thiee pounds an acre, when every colony in this hemispheie lies powerless and prostrate, because ot the attempted exaction of twenty shillings, is conclusive as to the fate of Canterbury. But as the project appears to have been stalled in good faith, and as the New Zealand Company seem to have acted like unsciupulous dvffers to the waies, it is said, they have not, we deem it the duty of every honest journalist to exhibit the scheme in its true character — since, -whether the offspring of inlegiity or cupidity, it is a delusion — a delusion ea culated to impoverish, as well as to disappoint. None but Chinch of England men aie to be empowered to acquire land in this Utopia, and no emigrants save of Chuich of England profession are to be drafted for labour in its exclusive vineyard. To be harmonious in all its parts, the Canterburys should be conveyed to their dominions by a Chuich of England skipper and a Church of England ciew — and a notice affixed on their tapu'd domain, "None hut Church of England men tollrvied' here!" Bah! As we said -in our last, England is one vast field of agitation on the question of emigration, and the leading journals of the empire teem with plans and speculations relative to the conduct of its mighty movement. In a paper, " Who should Emigrate "? — Who ought to bear the expense 1 ?" which appeared in the Morning Chronicle of the 20th of June, the writer enters deeply into consideration of the all engrossing subject. We acknowledge with thankfulness the sincerity and earnestness of purpose displayed by that journal in its endeavours to avert injury being done to the colonies by an indiscriminate shovelling of paupers and parish 'prentices to our shores. The Australian colonies have already sufficiently suffered by the sweepings of Ratcliffe Highway, and of the back slums of Dublin, Edinburgh, and the other large towns of the empire, poured in upon them without regard for the nature or the quality of the labour they required. From such systematic colonization may we henceforth be spared. We want the active and the energetic, not the indolent and the worthless. We want capitalists to purchase the soil, but not at the unremunerative price to which the writer in the Chronicle would so insanely cling — Not at a cost which would swallow up the emigrants' means — but at a rate that would leave him 1 a sufficiency of funds to invest in employment of, and to afford a yearly extending mart for, immigrant labour — at a price that would enable him to reclaim the land and reward his industry — Not at an exaction that would crush the spirit and beggar the pocket. We have had too many and too lamentable examples of individuals whose youthful strength and substance have been exhausted in subduing the wilderness ; and, when the task of conversion has been complete, we have seen those indefatigable spmts, " naked and in their age," thrust from the homes they had hewed out for themselves — a ruinous price for the soil and an impossible payment of labour wages, the prime agents of their undeseived fate. We cannot, at present, notice all the points mooted in the article to which we lefer, but when the writer gravely speaks of taxing the colonists in furtherance of an object fully more advantageous to England than to the colonies, and when he further proposes that such taxation should emanate trom Downing Stieet, we must either suspect him of ignorance or dishonesty. Fiom Downing Street ? — The heavens forefend ! We are already moie than sufficiently oppressed by its impotent, arrogant, unnatulal sway. No man, professing to have the

peace and prosperity of the colonies a(, hc.ut, would de.siie lo see an extension of powei to that odious wait on the fair face of the Biilish constitution — that gi Hiding, modern, incubus, whose tyrannic acts have done more in subveision of Biitish colonial allegiance than any engine ever devised by open enemy 01 latent, Toe. Extend its powers, indeed ! Cuitail them— Ciush them, say we. Abolish the office. Let the colonies, like the country, be repiescnled by the Pailiament — not by an office, where a cleik is permitted to judge of that which is important for his chief to consider — where dispatches are suppressed or delayed, as may, perchance, best suit the views of the patties in iha ascendant foi the hour. Our readers will find a lengthened aiticle, in our this day's issue, contained in a debate in the House of Commons, on the subject of Colonial Office abuses. Thanks to the public spirit of Lord George Benlinck and his coadjutors, a few rays of light have been forced into the dark crypts of that Political Inquisition. From the rabid violence shown by its present familiars to those daring intruders we may easily discover lioav rotten are its foundations, and how utteily undeseiving its pretensions to public respect or .suppoil. We commend, lo special attention, the ovquisile poitiait painting of the British Premier, and the highly classical sketches of Mr. benjamin llawes, the younger. The outlines are, indeed, rather hard, but, consideiing the staking tone of Mr. D'lsiaeli, we cannot be surprised at the lack of customary soft sawder in the exhibition of the Under Secictai y. Having laid bare to the country so discreditable a view of the inefficiency of the Colonial Office machinery, we trust that Loid George Henlinck and his paity will not desist fiom their meritorious exertions until they have called a Hoaid of Public Smvey to condemn the cumlnous pile, which is only /it to be consigned lo those heaps where other and equally congenial "lubbish may be shot."

After a service of some sixteen months, If. M. Ship Dido leaves us, this morning, for England; and, we gneve to add, not with that coidial and thai kindly regret elicited al the departure of many ships of war, pieviously stationed amongst us. The bonhomie of Capl am Graham — the frank, ihe free, the universally obliging disposition of Captain Edward Stanley — the courtesy, the willinguess to show civility, in unconsideied tiiflcs, in Captains Hayes, Sotheby T Hoseason, and others, rendered them, seveially, more or less popular with a community whose demands upon their good nature were small, and whose appreciation of obligation was large. The idiosynciasy of Captain Maxwell, unhappily for himself, and to the nusfoitune of those amongst whom, for a time, his lot was cast, has beea diametrically the reverse of that of his predecessors, and, as a natural consequence, instead of esteem and lespect he has engendeied mutual dissatisfaction and dislike. Captain Maxwell despised the small courtesies of life. He has,- on all occasions, evinced a churlish and an uncomplying temper. He has been " every mcli " the Senior Officer, and a measure or two beyond it; making a mystery of trifles, and bottling his consequence in the marvellous dignity of his undisputed command. We desire not to draw invidious comparisons, but when we look at the Dino, for the best part of sixteen months, framed and glazed, as it were, within the waters of the Waitemata, we cannot but contrast the gloom of her silent and solitary grandeur, with the life like picture presented by the generous sociability of her gallant predecessors. We write this with pain, because we despise party spleen, and have no private grudge to indulge: and we trust that the officers of the Dido will be pleased to bear in mind that our remarks are in no way intended to apply to any but their chief. To commend rather than to censuie has ever been our most anxious desire — and, in proof of our assertion, we appeal to the pages of this journal, where the record of past valedictory salutations, will testify to the spirit in which, by each successive editor, they were framed. To the present editor, whose pen has long and zealously (in London), been employed in the seamen's cause, and whose advocacy, has erewhile, acquired for him the public approbation and the peisonal friendship of more than one of the most distinguished of England's Flag Officers, it is especially distressing to write disparagingly of any naval man ; but Captain Maxwell has acted so selfishly and so unfairly in a matter of such inteiest to the public at large, that we feel bound to give a plain unvarnished statement of facts. On the anival of the SrEC, on the 20th ultimo, her master, Captain Burns, sent, by that foiestaller of news, the boaidmg boat of the Dido, the loan of the papeis containing the details of the late Pausian revolt, to Captain Maxwell, on the expiess condition that they should be relumed within a couple of hours, they being then promised to a merchant of thi» town. Those papers, — and we have reason to suspect, from arrangements entered into by ug, that they might have been our own — were never returned, nor were their contents permitted to tianspirc. The intelligence, in, fact, was summaiily burked, but not

without a faint squeak which led us to follow up the cry ; and, as a public journalist, to tviite in the most courteous and lespedfuJ terms to Captain Maxwell fora loan of the papersjwhich had been^onditionalljj , lent to him. Our note was duly despatched, and, we. have every leason to believe, as duly received. Captain Maxwell disdained reply. Weieceived no papers: — and, for ten or twelve, days, the most appalling liagcdy of modem times i\as kept fiom the knowledge of a community, whose means of infoimation, even at the best, 1 are limited and irieguhir: — monopolized foi the exclusive enjoyment of the saturnine Commanding Officer of one of Her Majesty's 18 gun corvettes ' ]Jut enough ! Cfptain Maxwell is leaving us ; and in saying Adieu, we would fain hope that he will in future, endeavour to eschew the misanthropical austerity, so ungracious in the man, and so unwoithy of the officer. It is bet • ter, he may rest assured, to have even the cms in the kennel harking with than at him.

A Government GazetteG azette was published on Thursday,, and in consequence of the gcneml impoitanrc of its notifications, we rcpunt the most pioniinenl of them as a supplemenl«viy issue to our numbei of this day.