The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 535, 31 May 1851, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Be just and fear not : Let all the ends thou aims't at, bo thy Country's, Thy God's, and Tiuth's.

SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1851.

A Government Gazelle was issued yesterday. As its contents — (the principal of -which are a Proclamation of a Land Sale in which a large number of Town Lots will be put up to auction, and a Table of Rates for Trespass of Cattle) — wilN be found in our other columns, we need do no more heie than thus notice its publication.

It was not unnatural that the gathering of a large number of Natives at Waiheke so soon after the late temporary unpleasantness with the Ngatipoa tribe, should excite more or less of uneasiness in the minds of timid persons who were not acquainted with the really peaceable object of the meeting ; but the fact stated in our last, on sufficient authority, that an investigation made hy the Police Department into its character had proved in every respect satisfactory, might in itself have sufficed to remove apprehensions so disagreeable, and calculated in various ways to be productive of so much mischief. We regret to find that the Southern Cross of yesterday contains an article the tendency of which must be, so far as the influence of that journal extends, to revive and deepen a feeling of alarm, and to awaken the gloomiest foiebodings as to the future, We of course cannot pretend to say what sources of information our contemporary may possess ;— it is possible, although we do not think it likely, that the circumstance of the reputed Editor of the Cross being also the reputed Editor of the Maori Messenger, may give that gentleman access to special intelligence possessed by the Government of which he is an officer j — but we deem it a public duty to declare our own conviction — a conviction fully coincided in by persons well qualified to form a correct judgment on matte* s m which the Natives are concerned — that the representations to which we refer deserve no credence, and lhat the disposition of the Mao-

lies of this district towards both the Government and the Settlers is at present of the most fiiendly description. If there be a real cause, however remote, of alarm, it is not in any bad feeling on the part of the Natives themselves, but in the provocatives brought to bear upon their excitable minds by those who, like the writer in yesterday's iross, would fain persuade them that if they are discontented and troublesome they ought to be so,— or at least that great excuse for their being so might be found in the administration of the Government placed over them by the British Crown. We may probably return to this subject, which vitally affects the best interests of the settlement ; but we should not think it right to let even a daj'pass without assuring our readers that, so far as we can ascertain, there is not the slightest reason to dread an interruption of the tranquillity now happily prevailing,

"Plan of a Proposed New Colony to be.called Britannia," is the title of a Pamphlet recently printed at Lyttelton, which conies forward with claims so elevated in themselves, and advanced with so much confidence 'in their pie-eminent justice and excellence, that we might have felt called upon to take some notice of the scheme, even if its heing a product of our young sister settlement of Canterbury did not entitle it to an especial share of our legaid. The subject of colonization is con,- j fessedly environed with numerous and great j difficulties. Many of the most acute and pvac^ [ tical minds of the age have bent, atid are still i bending, their strength to I ' a solution of the problem which it' involves. 'Bull from 1 Port. Victoria issues an (Edipus to solve the riddle j by which the " learned Thebans 1 ' have been j puzzled — a Great Ale^andkr to cut or unravel the intricacies of this' Gordian knot. He announces himself as " qualified ,to form a^'plan, the main object of which is to ameqcl, oriavojdi those features, which, in the operation o&ether,! systems, experience has proved to be defective." Eureka !— " I have found it'f^^o^jpW Archimedes, as he ran naked through thqjtreeis of Syracuse, wild .with joy at having distfoveijea 1 in the law of specific gravity, & mode of detect- 1 ing the' frauds of the knavish goldsmith': — , Eureka ! cries the philosophical statesftian of Canterbury, with iio less assurance of Success, although with the greater calmness of jnannex befitting the enunciation, not «f> a chance discovery, but of a theory wrought out by* much attention, personal experience, and the knowledge derived from the "experience of othets." The /( coming man" before whose advent the RussEixsand STANLBYsand Greys and Moles.worths and Adderleys and RoebuCks and Humes, et hoc genvs omne, are to hide their diminished heads, is—Mr. Henry Gouland ; a gentleman of whom (albeit the confession may " argue ourselves unknown, 1 ') we cannot remember to have heard' much before, and cannot say that we know much now, beyond the fact of his being Sub-Trea-surer, at Lyttelton, and whatever else is de- ' scribed in the autobiographical notices scattered • through the pamphlet. ' The leading features'' of his scheme are briefly as" follows :—: — ' ' It being essential that the Government of.' "Britannia" should be *♦ distinct from, and independent of all other colonial governments," (probably lest its nascent purity should be, contaminated by contact with veteran corruptions), the new colony is to comprise StewarUsj 1 , Island, with so much of the middle' Islftfld r as | lies to the southward and westward "|f ' the, j Otago, and Canterbury sett^^rrijen^.^^A-jDcalUyj on the northern shore of Foveaux; Straits is to ' be the fortunate site of its capital, which, (we ! suppose as a loyal compliment to. Her Majesty,') j is to be called Regina. A sale of rural land in the territory, at the rate of £\ per acre, is to be commenced in London ; and so soon as I a remittance of £30,000 can be -forwarded to' | the colony, the Queen shall be ' Solicited to ap-/ j point a Governor. To this .Governor, sftall be] entrusted among other things, " a discretionary power" of. expe ndinj hi £30,000, "in preparing for the reception of settlers." No lot of " Rural" Land shall consist of less than one hundred acres. " Pastoral" Land njay be occupied at a rent of £8 per square ,mile. Town and Suburban lands are to be sold by auction. . .The Legislature is to consist of — (1.) A Governor, whose salary shall, Infixed by the Crown, but paid from the revenues of the' colony, the Colonial Legislature/ however,' having no control over it:- : -(2.) A7i iV^J^per House of Parliament ; the qualification for a member being a freehold of not less than five hundred acres, or the payment of a fent to Government for pastoral land to the amount of £50 per annum j and (3.) A Lower House, , every Member of which must . have a freehold of an hundred acres, or a'cleai income* from" some creditable soure'e of £100* per annum/ The electors of members of 1 the Upper 'House; must have a property qualification; fpr'the'. Lower House there is to be almost universal suffrage. The Parliament is to- be elected for { thiee years, subject to dissolution by the Go- \ vernor. There may be three nominees in leach House. The appropriation of, the jl^nd r^jxue ', shall be exclusively vested in the Governor and ] the Upper House j the levying and apppopria- ■ tion of all other revenues; and all ordinary le- ; gislation, shall vest in the three branches of the Legislature, which, collectively, are to be entuely independent of the mother-country, ! except on questions affecting the interests of '

the British Empire, or involving organic changes in the colonial constitution ; in which acses " the pleasure of Her Majesty's Government" must be known before the Acts come into operation. The 3 e are, we say, the " leading features" of the scheme. We lefer those who wish to study its lesser parts and proportions to the pamphlet itself. They will there find many very minute details, showing that Mr. Gouland's parturient brain has produced no mere shapeless, imperfectly defined offspring, but that the " Plan " has sprung from it, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, completely organized, and armed cap-a-pie. Now, beyond yea or nay, there are points in the scheme which merit graver consideration than we are at present " i' the vein " to give them ; but somehow we have a floating notion that they are, not altogether new to us It may be an illusion of fancy, but we certainly think that (with perhaps the exception of the powers and privileges granted to the proposed Governor, of which more anon), we have seen, or heard, or read, or dreamed about them before. It strikes us as possible that Mr. Gouland's originality may reside chiefly in his organ of constructiveness ; and that we cannot regard his genius as exactly creative of new elements in Colonization and colonial constitution-making, however we may be called upon to admire its potency in so operating upon ,pre-existent materials as to bring forth from the recesses of its profound laboratory this (as the old alchymists would have said) Alembroth— this "salt of wisdom." We have, however, given a really fair, though condensed, view of his ptoject, and the reader can j judge of it for himself, irrespective of our i " running commentary." The plan is broached in the form of a letter to Mr. Gladstone, who is chosen as the agent at home through whose instrumentality the scheme is to be wrought into immediate efficiency, -—his " high character as a statesman, on colonial subjects' especially," having induced Mr. JSfoji^MD to fi> on him, for" the office." Not ,that Mr. Gotland means any "disrespect to Her Majesty's Ministers," in not entrusting the first nursing of l< this child of his hope" to one of them ; but just uin order that the measure may attain some degree of maturity before it is brought officially to their notice." The line of procedure which Mr. Gladstone is to adopt is so clearly marked out that he can "scarcely be dull enough to miss his way ; and indeed permission is granted, him to "make such alterations" in the " preliminary measures" as his" better acquaintance with public opinion" may suggest. He is to invite gentlemen disposed to support the scheme to send their names to him ; then he is to call a meeting of those gentlemen ; then an Association is to be formed ; and then the raising of thethirty thousand pounds, and the transmission of the cash to the colony, ancl all the other steps as indicated above, are to be taken in due order. When we remember how much of mere theory there frequently has been in such projects, it is quite refreshing to observe the cool, self-pos-sessed, and business-like way in which Mr. Gouland instructs Mr. Gladstone to make the necessary arrangements. We have now got to the last page of the pamphlet, and it certainly seems to have the conclusiveness and practical importance familiarly attributed to the postscript to a lady's letter. It would be a thousand pities to abridge or paraphrase it ; so here it is, in all the pristine charms of its own maiden modesty :—: — I <«nclude by offering myself to the proposed Association as the first Governor. I hare tbe necessary colonial experience, hating, in addition to my pretions knowledge of colonial matters, witnessed all the preliminary measures adopted in anticipation of the arrival of tbe colonists of the Canterbury Settlement. And I hate the necessary administrative experience, having for nanny years held the highest appointment 1 under the executive Government of tha northwestern province* of Bengal, to which any individual who has not been expressly educated for the East India Company's Service can attain ; and being in thu settlement the «e»ior magßtrnte and collector of customt. Further there must of necessity, in a scheme ot this nature, be many things which cannot possibly be anticipated ; and it u but reasonable to suppose that he must be the beat qualified to work a machine, who hat iurented and constructed it, who ha» for many years matle it bit study, and who is intimately acquainted with all its parts. * This is the top-stone of the building ; the finishing stroke to the picture; the bonnet and plume of feathers on the head of this fair "child of" Mr. Gouland's "hope." Only let Mr. Gladstone diligently follow out his instructions; let Her Majesty's Ministers spiritedly adopt the scheme when it comes officially before them ; let a Governor be appointed, (Mr. Gouland strongly recommends, p. 11, that the appointment should be for life) ; let thirty thousand pounds, to begin with, be remitted as speedily as possible, to be expended at the, discretion of the Governor ; and let Mr. Gouland himself be that Governor ; and then — why then, New Zealand, the other colonies, <sreat Britain, and the world, shall see what ;they' shall see.

Birth-Day Ball. — The Ball in celebration of the Anniversary of Her Majesty's birth which was given on Tuesday night, in the large room connected with the Ordnance Buildings, by the Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Wynyard, passed off with all the brilliancy anticipated in. our last, and is spoken of by those who were present in terms of the

highest gratification. It is intended — (if we may be pardoned for a bad pun) — to " keep the Ball up/—t he Officers of the 58th Regiment having issued cards of invitation for another festivity of the same kind, which is to take place on Wednesday evening next, the fourth of June.

Government Land Sale. — A sale of Crown Lands (as proclaimed in the Gazette of the 24th ult.) took place on Thursday, and was numerously attended. The competition was spirited, and sales were effected to the amount of about £2,500, The lands on the Tamaki brought especially high prices, their value having been greatly increased by the new Bridge across tlie River, of which a description was given in the New Zealander of (he 9th ult., thus furnishing an additional illus* tration of the fact, that such works of public utility, taken even in a commercial point of view, are wise and amply remunerative. The sale of various Lots at the Village of Onehunga was protested against by Mr. Magee, who claims these portions of land as his j but the protest did not deter bidders from purchasing several of them.

Supreme Court.— The Criminal Session of the Supreme Court is fixed for Monday next ; but we are most happy to hear that there is not even one case for trial. Notwithstanding this, the attendance of the gentlemen summoned as Grand Jurors will of course be required at the opening of the Court at ten o'clock.