ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 597, 3 January 1852, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New Znu-ANDtrt. Sir,— The draft of a Petition to the JFlouso of Commons respecting the claim of the New Zealand Company, and laid on the table by Alderman O'Neill, is defective in important particulars. The Petition merely alludes to a proposition made to the Secretary of State to charge a claim on the Revenue of the Territory of New Ulster, j I and petitions the House not to sanction any mea- j I sure which may be brought before it to charge i that claim on the Revenue of the Province of New Ulster. Now, I cannot clearly understand whether the Petition at all refers to the Land Fund of New Ulster or not, but in either case the Petition is faulty. In case a reference is made to the Land Fund, the statements are erroneous. A proposition has not been made to the Secretary of State to charge the claim upon the Land Fund, but four years ago an Act of Parliament was passed, {King that charge upon the Land Fund of New Zealand,— of course, in the absence of restrictive words, including that of Now Ulster— thus mortgaging our Land Fund to a fearful extent ; and our Petition should not be against a prospective measure alone, but chieily against one already past. In case no reference is made to the Land Fund of New Ulster, the Petition is not only, 1 believe, inconsistent with the terms of the motion of the worthy Alderman, but also omits the important j part of the question, and the very one with the settlement of which the interests of the Corpora- i tion are so closely allied,— for no one can read the Statute referred to without clearly seeing that the ; third of the Land Fund cannot be legally paid io j the Corporation until the annual interest of the t debt has first been paid to the New Zealand Com- j pany. } As the Petition stands now, . the whole , question is embarrassed, and its meaning rendered , ambiguous. The Petition should recite the fact ' of the charge by Parliament upon the Land Fund j of New Ulstei*, and then remonstrating against it j as inequitable and unjust, request its withdrawal. Of course, the charge having been once withdrawn on those grounds, it cannot be re-imposed on any fund belonging to this Province. The point at issue is simple enough ; — we are | I told to pay a Company who have conferred on us no benefit — who have given no quid pro qno — whose lands, &c, fall not into our hands — whose money was never expended on our behalf, but even, in some measure, bribed a host of penny-a- j liners, whose pens were ever prostituted to malign, depreciate, and retard us in the course of colo- ; nization. We can afford to laugh at these efforts, but when we are told to pay "the men who made them, the rcqucbt is so monstrous that it cannot be per- j sisted in, and must, I foci sure, have been unadvisedly made by ParliamentThe "Wolf and the Lamb" is not a fable for us victims to illustrate in the 19th century. Defamation and mutton are luxuries — both of which we cannot spare to the voracious appetite of the New Zealand Company. — I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, A. B.