THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S AFFAIRS.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 591, 13 December 1851, Page 2

THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S AFFAIRS.

The review of documentary evidence respecting tlic position oi the New Zealand Company in relation to its claims on the Colony which we presented in our last, lias aptly coincided to prepare the way for sonio important information referring to the same subject which we have received by the Lord William Bentincic s mail, and which wo now proceed to lay before our readers. The most prominent portion of this information is the fact that a measure entitled " The New Zealand Settlements Bill" had been introduced, and had passed through Parliament with the rapidity which usually characterises the last days of the Session, but still,not without a vigilant supervision, especially on the part oi Mr. Gladstone, which led to its modification in one, and that tho most material, point. We give below every word that appears in the Times report of the successive stages of the Bill ; and it will be seen that tho entire would have left us in a very uncertain state of information indeed, if we had not the additional light cast upon tho matter by the letter of Mr. .Fox, and the speeches at the Meeting of the Company on tho 30th July, which we also subjoin. Even yet, there are particulars which we by no means clearly understand : — indeed it is plain from incidental expressions of their own that the leaders of the Company wished to give no unnecessary knowledge of its affairs even to the shareholders themselves ; but, subject to correction from further information, we may state what we believe to have boon the character of this measure, both as it was proposed, and us it passed the Legislature. It appears that the Bill, as concocted after long negotiations between the Directors and the Government, and brought forward by Mr. Hawks, contained a provision for .submitting the unsettled matters relating to the Nelson Trust Jb'unds to the Lords of tho Treasury; another for enabling the Local Government to issue grants to purchasers from the Company who have not received them ; and a third enabling tho Government to alter tho terms of purchase of land within tho sott!ement,(so as, we suppose, to legalize the grants made on former occasions by tho Company as satisfaction to complaining, because cheated, settlers). But, — what is of more general moment — it also contained a provision for charging tho amount claimed as duo to the Company, on the General Revenue of the Colony. This, which would not at all appcjirfrom the skeleton report of the Times, \s made evident by the other extracts. Tho issue was, that this iniquitous clause was withdrawn, — a result for which the colonists arc mainly indebted to the efforts of Mr. G j,a dstonk. Now, therefore, the Company is, as Mr. AglionbY pathetically declared " more at sea than over." But we must reserve to another occasion fuller comments upon this, and upon the share which the Canterbury Association has in the complicated and far from creditable state of the whole case, and proceed to our extracts ; first congratulating our fellow colonists that one of the worst attempts of the Company — that to get hold of the General .Revenue — has thus far boon frustrated ; but at the same time warning them that tho danger is not passed, as the Company still retains its legal right over the Land Fnnd, and still has an infiuoncowith tho Colonial Office which it will require all the energy and harmonious pulling together which the colonists can combine, — to counteract and defeat. Our extracts include, without any abridgment, 1, the whole of tho proceedings in tlic Mouse of Commons ; 2, the illustra.tiv& letter by Mr. Fox (who, for reasons known to himself and shrewdly guessed at by others) is now out of the Company's favour, and therefore at liberty and disposed to use his very free pen against their plots : — and S, the Speeches at the Meeting of the Company, which arc full of instructive confessions on tho part of the Speakers.