AUCKLAND AND THE NORTHERN PROVINCE IN 1851.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 493, 4 January 1851, Page 2

AUCKLAND AND THE NORTHERN PROVINCE IN 1851.

In our customary " droppings-in " at the stores and counting-houses of our mercantile friends, we have within the last few days found most of them engaged, either personally or by their clerks, in adjusting the accounts, arranging the balances, or otherwise winding up the affairs of old 1850. The idea is naturally suggested to us, — Have we, Editorially speaking, anything of a similar character to propose. It does not strike us that we have much to do in this way. No doubt our running account with the public, — to whom we owe the obligation of communicating, not only as full and early intelligence on all matters which may interest them as we could procure, but also such suggestions and comments on passing occurrences as (without the presumption of any attempt at dictation) might help them in the formation of their opinions, — has been a large one. But we have tried, as opportunity offered or permitted, to make punctual payments in these respects, and, where we may have failed, we have reason to believe that our generous and discriminating readers have laid the blame, where it should lie, not upon the want of will, but upon the paucity of the means and resources all but inevitable in a colony which — although an infant Hercules, — is confessedly but in its infancy still, and has yet to acquire the strength which will draw around it the elements and capabilities connected with maturer growth. Still, an Article, — partly retrospective and partly anticipatory, — at the commencement of the New Year will, we think, not be unwelcome to our readers, and, at all events, will be in accordance with an usage which they will probably agree with us is not "more honoured in the breach than in the observance." If the question be asked, Whether our Colony has retrograded or progressed during the year 1850, there cannot be, in any impartial and sufficiently-informed mind, a moment's hesitation in giving such an answer as would afford encouragement to present residents, or intendiug emigrants to New Zealand. Many things have been left undone, which parties, whose views deserve respectful attention, think might and should have been done ; but " Rome was not built in a day ;" neither can New Zealand be erected in all the completed fabric of her destined eminence, in a day, or in a year. It may be enough to mark, as we happily can do now, expanding and brightening political prospects ; equally decided enlargement in educational

movements as respects both the Colonists and the Natives ; and a general sense of progress experienced by all classes of our community. Our political affairs may perhaps technically claim precedence. We say " technically," because we do not really believe that party politics have the great hold on the minds of the public here that is sometimes asserted, or that might be inferred from the demonstration made on an odd occasion, when the hall of the Mechanics' Institute, is crowded by some two or thiee hundred persons, or a Memorial is sent home with correspondent two or three hundred signatures, many of them being those of parties who obligingly affixed their names to it in partial or total ignorance of its contents. Our conviction is, that our townsmen, taken as a body, are minding their own proper business far too well, to be greatly distracted by the points of political controversy which a few fractious and ill-tempered agitators endeavour to make them turbulent about. Most of them have come here with a laudable desire to provide for themselves and their families ; they find, that they are able, by God's blessing on their industry and good conduct, to accomplish this object ; they may, now and again, see things which they wish altered, in the administration of public affairs — and in the alteration of some of which they know that any assistance We can render them is entirely at their service — but, on the whole, they find, from month to month, that their circumstances are bettering. They see this in the better houses they are enabled to build ; in their ability to avail themselves of the best means of educational improvement for their children which the enlarging capabilities of the colony are now supplying; in the knowledge that they are, according to the old proverb, " laying up something" — more or less j— " for a rainy day ;" and in the general increase of the comforts which surround their domestic circles. It is of no use to tell persons in such circumstances as these, that they are slaves, living under a despotism which cramps and fetters their energies. Their instinct of common sense contradicts the fallacy. They feel that they are free, and that their Creator is giving them prosperity as well as enjoyment in the exercise of their freedom. It is lost labour for agitators to tiy their mischievous skill in tampering with men in such a position as this. Agitation is here at a miserably low ebb. The decision with which we hold and express these views, do not however, prevent our speaking upon a point or two on what we believe to be the public mind. The enquiry arises every where in the retrospect of 1850, — " Why have we not had a meeting of the Legislative Council ?" We can give no satisfactory answer to this question. It certainly was not because every existing Ordinance wasso perfect that no improvement could be made in it ; nor yet was it because theie was no new Ordinances which required to be introduced. As a single instance, we may mention the Marriage Ordinance, which Sir George Grey many months ago — faithfully carrying out his promsse that he would officially publish a draft of it — di« i rected to be inserted in the Government Gazette, but which up to this moment has had no legalized existence, — no such legalisation as would have met, with regard to all the parties whom this matter was designed to conciliate what we believe to have been Sir George Grey's honest intention in its preparation. Still, without being political in the party sense of that term, our community is not regardless of those political improvements which they believe would conduce to the advancement of the colony. If it were so, it would be unfit for such destinies as Lord John Russell predicted for it, when in March, 1845, he said, in his place in Parliament, " I believe that New Zealand, if its resources are properly cultivated, and if it is rightly governed, is destined to have a great influence on that part of the world. I believe that the Englishmen who are there are destined in all probability to be the progenitors of the governors of a great part of that Hemisphere." It is obviously essential that men who are destined to be the governors j of others should have a fuller right of selfgovernment that has yet been conceded to this colony. But the good time of the acquisition of such privileges is evidently coming, and coming rapidly too. The Home Government are now distinctly pledged to bring before the very next Session of Parliament, a measure for the purpose, which, if their deeds come even moderately up to their words, we may believe will be large and comprehensive. And meanwhile, we have already before us, the draft of a Colonial Ordinance, which, — to quote once more the words of the Wellington Independent — is " a great step in the right direction," promising as it does such an infusion of popular influence into the Local Legislature as will give the people, if they be only true to themselves, a " potential voice" in the management of many of the most practically important affairs of the colony, and obviously designed as a preparatory step to additional and greatly enlarged concessions in the same direction. We have heard few things with more astonishment than the allegation that Sir George Grey's proposed Bill for the introduction of Representative Institutions is " a Bill of Pretence attempted to be palmed by the Viceroy in the very teeth of a measure of self-govern-ment promised by England's Premier." The assertion comes with a singularly bad grace, from^Darties who, when it suits their purpose,

indulge in unqualified reviling of the Go-vernor-in-Ciiief as the "delegate" and submissive tool of the Colonial Office. Surely the common sense view of the matter is, that our Rulers here, and our Rulers at Home, have been, on mutual counsel and consideration, preparing a scheme of liberal Institutions for the colony, of which this proposition is the first instalment. The price of land continues now as heretofore to be the great matter of contention, which undoubtedly engages the sympathies of many who do not trouble themselves much on other public questions. We have always declared our conviction that that price ought to be lowered, and that the country onght to be opened, under proper regulations, more fully than it now is. And yet, after all, — (only that it would lead us too far from the purpose of our present article) — we think we could show that this grievance also has been exaggerated, and that a reduction in land from its present upset price would not so readily as some seem to suppose multiply our immigrants from tens to thousands. In both the Land Question and the Question of Representative Institutions, there is one fallacy which appears to pervade most or all of what we have heard or read from our "reforming" fellow-colo-nists. They seem to forget that there is a Native Race in the Country, who, let us twist and turn diplomatic and legal points as we may, are really the aboriginal possessors of the 1 " soil, and whose right we cannot ignore without trampling on the plainest principles of justice. And yet this appears to be the identical point to which many of the arguments and statements which reach us fiom time to time would legitimately conduct. The Wellington and Nelson " Constitutional Associationists " speak and resolve as if they were utterly unconscious of the fact — even as a matter of natural history or of geographical research — that there is in New Zealand a numerous, powerful, and almost pre-eminently intelligent and improvable aboriginal people. Why, even j the grants made for the education of the poor 1 little Maori children are cavilled at, and occasion is taken from the liberality of those grants to assail Sir George Grey, who, whatever may be said of him in other respects, must be admitted, by his bitterest opponents, to be. both officially and privarely, a munificent as well as an enlightened patron of the education of the maories. A fair estimation of the rights — taken both on legal and moial grounds — of the Native Population, would scatter to the winds not a few of the assertions objections and cavils which it has been our lot to hear. But, as we have intimated, entering on the proofs now would be a digression. We I merely glance at them as matters which' I thoughtful readers may, and ive trust will think about. But, however restrictive the price of land may be, agricultural efforts have undoubtedly progressed within the year. The simple facts of the fresh cultivations of nicely-situated pieces of ground which some of us see as soon as we look out of our windows on a morning, and the reduced price of milk, butter, and other commodities of constant and immediate consumption are some — yet only some — of the evidences of this advancement. They do not show any falling-off in the agricultural market. Just the contrary. They show what economists regard as perfection,— an increased supply produced on fair terms to meet an increased demand. Thus the case is substantially the same with respect to potatoes aud other vegetables. Both our Colonists and our Natives have been active in the cultivation of those within the last year to an extent which probably had no precedent. In every improvement of the Colony within the year, the Natives have had their share. This deeply gratifying fact has been presented so repeatedly in our columns, and is indeed so thoroughly implied in the whole course of our present remarks, that we need not further extend an article — already lengthened beyond our original purpose— by enlarging upon it. A few other points occur to us as worthy of mors or less observation, but we must not unduly tresspass on the patience of our readers in one day. They will probably think with us that what we have said, will indicate to them a prospect for ISSI and futuie years, in no wise disheartening to themselves, and in no wise calculated to deter them from casting their lot in this rising and richly gifted colony.

While we were engaged in writing the foregoing article, the Maori Messenger of yesterday came into our hands, furnishing an-addi-tional and most gratifying illustration of what we had — from the unavoidable restrictions of our limits — perhaps only too cursorily touched on, the effects of Sir George Grey's wise pohcy towards the natives of New Zealand. The l article to which we refer, and which will be • found in our next column, is a communica- ' tion from the Rev. John Morgan, giving a graphic description of the reception by the native Chiefs ot the Waikato of the presents of portraits sent to them by Her Majesty in condescending exchange for their presentation to Her of their own flour — a flour which we would venture to say has been produced before now at , the table of a Queen who is eminently and illustriously domestic in her habits, and is a living, speaking evidence, such as we are bold to aver the history of the world has never yet produced of what a Queen may be— a. Queen upon whose Empire the sun never sets. The

natives were evidently half wild with joy when they saw the 'gifts. We thoroughly anticipated 4 this. They of course might have been led to think if they had been newspaper readers— that no very particular care had been bestowed in the selection of these gifts. One of the most malevolent things we have seen here, was the effort to create dissatisfaction with these pictuies ; — but our noble native population rise above the inducements thus presented to them. Their instincts are, we are happy to believe, wholly loyal ; and the maories at Mr. Morgan's station only express what we are persuaded is the mind of their fellow-countrymen in thus hailing the Queen as " their Mother," and in assuring Her Majesty that "the kindness and love of Governor Grey to us Natives, is O Queen ! very great." The natives are now more than beginning to appreciate Governor Grey's conduct towards them ; and the more they know of it, the more they will estimate and piize it.