The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 344, 21 August 1849, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Be just and fear not: Let all the ends tliou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy Goo's, and Truth's.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 184-9.

To proceed with the Crown Titles Bill was avowedly the main object of the meeting of Council yesterday, and to this attention was directed with such perseverance and actual performance that duringthe day's session the measure passed through Committee,only a fewpoints having been reserved for further consideration ; while on most even of those points there was a substantial agreement which only required to be embodied in such phraseology as might obviate misunderstandings. The discussions on the clauses yesterday were altogether conducted in a gratifying manner, making the impression that both those who brought forward the measure and those who objected to some of its provisions were equally anxious to improve it by any means that might really conduce to the public good. Accordingly the Attorney-General and Mr. Merriman —the Government and " Opposition " leaders on this as on some other occasions —seemed to act much in concert ; —and, as Puff says of actors, we may, (without meaning, as Mrs. Malaprop has it, " Any odoriferous comparisons,") say of lawyers, " When they do agree, their unanimity is wonderful!" The opening did not, however, promise the union of views which subsequently manifested itself. A vigorous effort was made to procure an alteration in the title of the Bill, which, by substituting the words " the Colony of New Zealand," for " the Province of New Ulster," would include New Munsterin its " quieting" operations. Ultimately the words stood as originally proposed ; —Mr. Merriman, the mover of the amendment, declining to press it, not because he was convinced by the arguments on the other side, but simply because he saw that, on a division, he would inevitably be beaten. His withdrawal from the contest reminded us of the saying with which an old disputant whom we once knew was accustomed to cover his frequent defeats in arguments which he was usually the first to provoke, — " I give it up, but I know you are wrong." Por ourselves we are of the same mind with the Council in that decision. What is really " partial legislation" cannot be too strenuously condemned; but it seems to us that it would have savoured far more of it, had a measure, involving numerous and complicated interests, been enacted for the Southern Province in an Assembly where it had no representative, and where (passing over technical and other and more formidable difficulties) no such statement of its circumstances and requirements in the case as would be essential to a right judgment, and as had been brought forward respecting the New Ulster Crown Grants, was in the hands of members, or could possibly be submitted to them before the termination of the Session. The most important change effected in the Bill was with respect to the source from which compensation should be made to Natives whose original titles to the lands conveyed by the Grants had not been fairly extinguished. The fraraers of the Bill proposed that the sums should be charged on the Revenue -of the Province ; but, with their concurrence (as a yielding to what was understood to be the prevailing opinion) it was yesterday determined that, although payment should in the first instance he made by the Colonial Treasurer, the burden

was eventually and leally to lie upon the land itself. Much, it is obvious, might be said on either side of the question raised here ; but, on the whole, we think that this decision was more equitable than an arrangement which would impose on settleis who have no beneficial interest in the matter — who do not possess, and possibly may never possess an acre of land in the colony — a tax to lclieve others from the consequen ces of having made an incauiious or un fortunate bargain ; or, (aswe fear would in some instances, be undeniably found the case) to add to the ill-gotten acquisitions of sharking speculators who had already gorged themselves with the spoil of the deluded and cheated aboriginal owners. The web of difficulties in which the whole subject was involved was so thick and i tangled that it would be utterly impracticable to unravel it so as to prevent loss to some party ; and it appears most consonant with common sense and fair play that the land should sustain the weight of its own embarrassments. A valuable clause was added, on the suggestion of the Governor, empowering the Government to appoint a Commissioner, to act on behalf of the Grantees, in cases when they shall not, within a fixed period, avail themselves of the provisions of the Ordinance. We wonder that the necessity for this did not present itself in the original prepaiation of the measure ; as it must be evident, that without some such auangement, there might be numerous instances in which the Bill would prove Ilibernice, a settlement by which nothing was settled. The piopnety of bringing the Ordinance into immediate operation, without waiting for the lloyal approval, was spoken of, and seemed to be in accordance with the general wish, but, at the desire of the Governor, a decision on it was postponed until the Bill, in the amended form in which it comes out of Committee, shall be printed and reviewed in its entirety. It was intended to proceed with the remaining Estimates ; but this was resisted on the giounds that certain Returns respecting the Roads, moved for by Messrs. Merriman and Barstow, had not yet been laid upon the table ; and that Mr. Kempthorne, who had expressed a special interest in the vote for schools, was not present. In the course of the conversation the Governor made some pungent references to "want of generosity," in animadveiting on the expenditure of monies obtained from the Imperial Legislature, and on the urging of objections " beneath the notice of the Council," which — for whomsoever they were designed — Mr. Merriman regarded as levelled at himself. Thus it is that caps thrown up in the crowd generally are found or thought to fit somebody. It was finally determined that the Committee on the Estimates should resume to-day. In the early part of the sitting, three Petitions were presented. The first, with 17*/ signatures, drew a melancholy picture of the state and prospects of the colony, tracing the existent and apprehended evils mainly to misgovernment, and denouncing with especial earnestness the Native Land Purchase Ordinance of 1846. "We beg," say the Memorialists, "te assure your Excellency and Honourable Council that many of our best colonists are about leaving the settlement much more by reason of their dislike to the system of Government, which has completely shut up the countiy and its resources, and is still persevered in, than because of the superior attractions of California. We repeat therefore that a different system is imperatively demanded, unless the disintegration of this Province is looked upon with indifference. If no such change be adopted, we feel called upon solemnly to warn your Excellency and Honourable Council of the disastrous consequences of such refusal." The second Petition was from eight purchasers of land under Governor FitzRoy's preemption Proclamation of 1844, complaining of the subsequent unsettling of their claims, and the loss which they sustained thereby, and praying for redress. The principal topics involved in these Memorials have long been before the public, and, even had they not been so, are too large and important to be taken up in the present article which arrives at being very little more than a running commentary on the proceedings of yesterday's Council, — a summary anticipatory of the ampler and more formal report which we are compelled to postpone till our next. The third petition was from a widow, Margaret Forbes, of Oneunga, complaining that steps had recently been taken by the Government to deprive her of the chief part of a small piece of land which she had purchased according to the terms of the same proclamation .

Out of office and in office — impatiently toiling the steep ascent to power, or (as Punch pourtrays Lord Brougham) standing at the entrance of the Treasury, like Moore's disconsolate Peri at the gates of Eden, Weeping to think hit recreant race, Should e'er have lost that glorious place,— are such opposite states of political existence, that we cannot marvel if our statesmen view matters very differently at different periods in their personal history. Hence it comes to pass that one of the most striking and scourging comments on the want of consistency — if not of principle — in many of the leading politicians of the day which the ingenuity or

acerbity of a cynical observer could devise, would be a collection, in parallel columns, of the contrasted, and mutually destructive sentiments written or spoken by their own pens or tongues, and that perhaps within a comparatively few years. It is obviously very inconvenient to gentlemen, after they have once more gained the summit of their ambitious aspirations, to be reminded of the sayings and doings of their days of fretf illness and faultfinding, when they vere eagle-eyed to discover flaws in the administration of public affairs, and trumpet- tongued to expose and denounce them. But it is an inconvenience to which they must occasionally submit, and from which they might, if they only would, learn some wholesome lessons. One of these " refreshers" to the memory was not long since forwarded to Earl Grey, by certain memorialists at- Ceylon, who — unmoved by any tender concern for the notorious irritability of the noble Secretary's temper, whenever the self-complacency of" his father's son" is ru filled — apparently reckless as to what explosion of indignant dignity such a spark cast upon the combustibles of his fiery soul might produce — called to bis lordship's remembrance some observations on the character of our colonial policy which he had made when he was out of office ; — when Downing-street was viewed from the contemplative quiet of Hovvick Castle. "I hope," said his Lordship, " we shall resort to the ancient and wise policy of our ancestors, and allow the colonies to govern themselves. When I look at what our ancestors accomplished two centuries ago, under this system, and contrast it with attempting to govern from Downing Street a settlement at the Antipodes, I must say that experience is decidedly in favour of letting a colony govern itself. . . We have before us a melancholy proof of the height to which misgovernment may be carried in Downing-street. From some experience in the Colonial Office, I am persuaded that it is utterly impossible for any man, be his talents and industry what they may, adequately to administer such complicated affairs as those of the British colonies scattered all over the world." An anecdote showing the mode in which the colonies were administered in former times, (which we have met with in the January number of the "Dublin University Magazine,") may not be inappropriate here as a general illustration of Lord Grey's assertion :—: — " Shoitly after his return from the East, Sir Stamford Raffle 3 was invited to a Ministerial dinner, where he dwelt very strongly on the commercial importance of Java, its command of the trade of the Indian Archipelago, and the certainty that its continued occupation would have" opened to British manufacturers the commerce of China and Japan. It was naturally asked why this had not been stated before so valuable a possession had been handed over to the Dutch, almost as matter of compliment, at the treaty of Vienna. Raffles declared that he had represented the facts in the strongest terms to the Colonial Office ; and on subsequent enquiry, all his despatches to Earl Bathurst on the subject of Java were found carefully preserved, but unopened." That things are, in some respects, better managed now, must admitted ; but who, except an unscrupulous per fas aut nejas partisan will I have the effrontery to assert that there are not annual — aye, perennial — bitter fruits produced either by the culpable ignorance or carelessness of the Downing Street officials : or, to take Lord Grey's explanation of the matter, (which, if it be more apologetic for the men, is not less condemnatory of the system,) by the ■' utter impossibility that any man, be his talents and industry what they may," could — do what, Gentle Reader I—Why,1 — Why, do the identical thing which the noble lord himself is now trying to do, and apparently trying much to his own satisfaction, if not to that of any body else. But many will question whether Mr. Adderley, (Member for North Staffordshire) did not give expression to substantial truth, although conveyed in rather violent language, when, in a recent debate in the House of Commons, he said, — " If ever there was a man raised by Providence, to damn the system under which our Colonies are governed, that man is Lord Grey ; and he owed a deep debt of gratitude to the noble lord, for having by the peculiarity of his character, brought to a crisis those difficulties and dangers which have been growing up under our Colonial administration."