The New-Zealander

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 608, 11 February 1852, Page 2

The New-Zealander

Be just and fear not : Let «Htne ends thou alms't at, be thy Country's Thy God's, and Truth's.

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11, ]852.j

■ 'It will be seen by tlio announcement in our advertising columns that a change has been made in the time and place of holding the Public Meeting, convened by the Mayor, for the purpose of taking steps to lay before Parliament a Protest from this Borough against the New Zealand Company's nefarious * claim. This change has resulted ■ from the solicitude felt that the demonstration should be of so- marked a character as •to make an impression even upon careless observers of our colonial movements, and an anticipation that the previous arrangements would prove scarcely adequate to the occasion viewed in this aspect. The country residents of the Borough have an equal, if -not a greater, interest in the subject with the inhabitants of the town ; and it was therefore thought expedient to prolong the term of notice in order that they might be more generally apprised of the meeting, and to fix on Saturday rather than Wednesday, as more likely to be convenient to them. Then, again, it being expected that the attendance will be far beyond the capacity of the limited accommodation afforded by the Hall of the Mechanics' Institute, or of any other available room in the town, it has been determined to conduct

the proceedings in the open space opposite the Court-house. These conclusions wove arrived at. in a preliminary meeting 1 of a number of the Roquisitionists and other Burgesses, who, on the invitation of the Mayor, came together at the Royal Ex- | change Hotel on Monday to confer on the ' best mode of preparing for the Meeting. Perhaps there never was a Public Protest of the kind put forward on grounds more clear and solid than those which support this. Let who will call us dogmatical or uncharitable in the assertion, 1 we boldly and deliberately affirm that the man who maintains that this alleged debt is morally obligatory on the Province of New Ulster must be very ignorant of the facts, or, — something worse. The New Zealand Company was simply a trading association, engaging in a mercantile speculation, and carrying on that speculation in a manner which would have given them no claim to respect had they succeeded, and which gives them no claim to sympathy now that they have failed. They engaged in business as landjobbers — a sort of middle men — between the Natives and the Crown on the one hand, and intending settlers on the other. We have heard much of the philanthropy which was said to have actuated them ; but that pretence has had its day ; it can now be met only with contemptuous scorn. Their career was one of accumulated fraud : — fraud towards the Natives, whom the Agents of the Company cheated into bargains of which they did not understand the nature ; and frauds towards the Purchasers to whom the Company sold lands which were not theirs at the time they received payment for them, and which never became theirs up to the hour of the surrender of the Charter. It may be (as we heard it said in our Common Council) that individual Directors of the Company arc high minded and honourable men ; but if so, it only shows how strangely such men sometimes depart from their own principles when they associate in money-getting schemes, and how much truth.even in their cases, there is in the sarcastic saying that Joint Stock Companies have no conscience. The undertaking did not prosper, however. ; Like many railway and other speculations at homo, it proved a source of loss to the speculators. What then ? the common sense view of the matter surely is, that, as the Company would have pocketed the gains had it been successful, they sbould, like other speculators, bear the loss when it turned out badly. At all events, the purchasers, who have been by far the greatest losers, should not be required to pay also the losses, of those by whose mismanagement or want of principle they have already suffered so severely. We do not dispute the plea advanced on behalf of the Company that they became embarrassed partly through the proceedings of the Imperial Government; but we deny that the colonists should be punished on that account. If the Imperial Government have done them wrong, let the Imperial Government atone for that wrong from the Imperial Treasury. Much, however, has been done for the Company at home. Money was advanced to them to the amount of hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling, and they have been forgiven every fraction of that debt, and permitted to give up an enterprize which they found unprofitable. This did not content them ; they sougfet and obtained through their Parliamentary influence an Act saddling the Land Fund of the Colony with a debt of £268,000 for their behoof. Still more recently they sought to have this claim charged upon the general revenue of the colony also ; and, although they failed in this object, the scheme met with Lord Grey's sanction — (since emphatically expressed in the despatch which we published on Saturday) — and unless the evil be averted by an immediate and vigorous opposition, this flagrant oppression may be actually legalized before the termination of the Session which is probably progressing while we write. For these and other reasons, we sympathise with the settlers in the South in their opposition to the demand ; and we have no doubt their case will not be lost sight of at our forthcoming meeting. At the same time we must be aware that in the Southern Settlements the question has various complications, arising out of the fact that the Company's operations, such as they were, have been carried on thore, with a large outlay of capital ; and especially from the fact that the large tracts of land owned by the Company have been surrendered to the Government for the satisfaction of tho I Claimants. The Wellington remonstrants themselves virtually admit the possibility that some payment from the proceeds of the lands in the South may equitably be looked for by the Company ; but (in the Petition which we copied a few days since) they urge that, before any such payment is made, " a most searching inquiry ought to be instituted as to the precise extent to which the alleged benefits have been conferred, — an i inquiry to which the Colonists ought to be parties, by means of accredited representatives." This we deem an obviously just con- ! dition, and in the maintenance of it we shall be happy to render them our utmost aid. But no such condition is necessary or admissible as respects the North; for here there are no " benefits 1 ' which it can by any stretch of hardihood be " alleged" that the : Company have conferred. They have sent | out no emigrants, expended no money in | this settlement. We cannot indeed say that they have treated Auckland with indifference and neglect. Not at all. When opportunity offered, they have been very attentive to Auckland. But it has been to depreciate our resources, to libel our character, to invent and circulate misrepresentations designed to prejudice emigrants against choosing this district in preference to that in which the Company's sordid interests centred. And for those benefits w-e are coolly asked to submit to the imposition, not only on our land fund, but on our general revenues, of a claim of absolutely crushing magnitude ;— that our bitterly hos tile traaucers may be saved from the consequences of their failure in another Province ! Well may we apply to this demand particularly, what the New Zealand Journal says of the demand generally, " a more extravagant claim was never heard. It would be ludicrous, but for its revolting dishonesty. * * The broadest farce never ventured

1 to attribute such a strain of extravagance to its most impudent heroes as is involved in this proposition. Indeed, the extension of any portion of the claim to this settlement, is so demonstrably unjust that it might not be a bad way of setting- the case before Parliament to assume that the wording- of the A.ct of Parliament which makes the Land Revenue of " New Zealand,'* — as a whole, — subject to the demand, must have been a mistake — a mere oversight in the preparation of the Bill, which only needs to be pointed out to secure its being immediately rectified ; and that we respect the wisdom and justice of the Imperial Legislature too much to suppose that such an enactment could have been intentional. The injurious bearing which the charging ot the Claim on the General Revenue (should that monstrous injustice ever be perpetrated) must have on the interests of the Natives, is a point which mei-its the most serious consideration. The Natives contribute very largely to the Revenue; but what have they done — What, but wrong and insult have they ever received from the New Zealand Company— that they should be directly taxed for its benefit, and indirectly mulcted of the grants now made from the Revenue for their educational and other purposes, as they must be if this enormous claim be made a first charge on the Revenue after the C ivil List, as it was to be according to the compact last year between the Company and Lord Grey ! This is an aspect of the case which should not bo overlooked in any comprehensive view of the subject. The course before the Meeting on Saturday is, wo apprehend, a very plain one. It will doubtless express objections to the infliction of the charge upon the Southern Settlements, — at all events, without such investigation as the Settlers there demand : but, as respects its own more particular concerns, we trust it will distinctly protest against the charge being laid in any form, or in any proportion, upon this Province. We submit that the Meeting will only perform its duty and exercise its most equitable right by petitioning Parliament, not merely that there may be no new legislation charging the pretendod debt upon the General Revenue, but also that the existing Act may be so far altered as to exempt New ulster from every share in the legal obligation ,to pay the money demanded by the Company.

Wesleyan Missionary Society. — The Annual Meeting of the New Zealand Auxiliary to this Society was held on Monday evening in the Wesleyan Chapel, which was filled by a respectable and deeply attentive audience. The Mayor of Auckland occupied the Chair. The Rev. Thos. Buddie read from the last Report of the Parent Society extracts exhibiting the state of the Funds and a summary of operations of the Institution; he also read a Financial Statement for the New Zealand District, a remarkable and interesting feature of which was the liberality of the contributions from Native converts. Resolutions were then moved, seconded, or supported by the Revds. J. Whitely, J. Inglis (Presbyterian), J. Buller, J. Wallis, W. Lawry, <T. Polglase, T. Hamer (Independent), J. 11. Fletcher, A. M'Donald (Independent), and 11. Ward (Primitive Methodist). A collection in aid of the Funds having been taken up, and thanks voted to the Mayor for his conduct in the Chair, the Meeting sepai-ated. We sht?ll give a fuller report of the proceedings in our next. Inquests. — On Saturday last the 7th instant, an inquest was held at the " Caledonian Hotel" on the body of Kaumio, a native of the Sandwich Islands, belonging to the American ship Anadir, whose body was found by a settler named Kelly, on the North Shore, on Saturday morning. He had been missing from the vessel since Wednesday night, and, it is supposed, was drowned in attempting to desert. The Verdict was— Found Drowned. On Monday last another inquest was held at the " Leith Hotel," Onehunga, on the body of William Purtle, one of the Pensioners located at that village, who had died suddenly on the afternoon of the preceding day. From the evidence of Dr. Mahon, who made a post mortem examination, it appeared that death had been produced by a rupture of the aorta, or great blood-vessel of the heart.— -Verdict accordingly.