The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 675, 2 October 1852, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

He juit <mu fear nut Let all the ends thou ,iim'.st at, be thy Countrj's,, Thy God's, and 'iiuth's.

AUCKLAND, SA'IURUAY. OCT. 2, U,:Y2.

We learn with pleasure that the present season for planting potatoes is being availed of to a very great extent through various parts of the Auckland district, and that there is every probability of an unusual breadth of land being placed under this important crop, — without, we trust, any diminution in the quantity usually devoted to "wheat tillage There can be no doubt that New South Wales and Victoria — what with the teeming population now collecting at the goldfields, and the desertion of agricultural pursuits by numbers attracted from farm work to the diggings — will present a market in which all the food that can be ; spared from the produce of this colony will be readily bought up at amply remunerative prices. In our last, for instance, we mentioned the authority of information received by the Pandora, that JNevr Zealand potatoes were sold at Sydney at £12 per ton. There will also most probably be a continued demand for timber, — which we can supply in abundance; and we believe the attention of: many of our merchants and other settlers is just now so much awakened to the opportunity, that more than one vessel bound for Australia might readily find freight at our port.

If it be Mr. William Fox's ambition to secure for himself a name in connection with current affairs in New Zealand, he has undoubtedly succeeded. To be sure, it is a bad name, — at least so far as the Northern Settlements are concerned, for we can truly declare that we do not know of the existence of a single individual in this District, (amongst those who have taken the trouble to look into his sayings and doings), by whom he is regarded in any other light than as an unscrupulous traducer of New Ulster, and particularly of Auckland and its vicinity. Still he has a notoriety, unenviable though it be ; and his meddling in colonial matters is so incessant that we are constrained to make more frequent references to him than to many worthier men. The mail from the South recently received by the Eclair has forced him anew on our attention, — first by a communication from a gentleman long resident in the Nelson Settlement, who culls upon us to add to our former strictures on the " Six Colonies" an exposure of a misrepresentation respecting that " colony," for which he sends us some materials ; and next by a packet from London containing the " Minute on the Government of New Zealand," which Mr. Fox obtruded on Lord Grey, after his Lordship had refused to recognise or receive him in his assumed character of Political Agent of the Colonists. Our former comments on Mr. Fox's Book were advisedly restricted, for the most part, to a demonstration of the falsehood of his disparaging; statements in relation to the Auckland District. Here, our local knowledge and immediate means of information enabled us to speak with all confidence, and we left his allegations respecting the South to be dealt with by our Southern friends, — as has been efficiently done, especially by the Wellington Spectator. We can have no objection, however, as we are requested to do so, to point out in another instance, how utterly untrustworthy a historian ( ! ) Mr. Fox is; — particularly as it is an instance arising out of his endeavour to cast reproach on the influence which " Missionary teaching" has had on the Natives, — a subject which greatly concerns the North, where the bulk of the Native population is to be found. In a very long section of the " Six Colonies," entitled " Missionary Influence," Mr. Fox labours to show that — while " up to a cei*tain point that influence has been beneficial,"—(he is compelled to admit that " without it, it is probable that we should never have occupied New Zealand"),— yet " beyond that, it has been injurious in a very high degree." He maintainsthat the advancement of the Native race proceeds more satisfactorily and rapidly under the operation of " colonization ' than under " Government and Missionary influence." It is difficult, he to find cases in which " actual experiment has tested the merits of the two schemes," each having " thwarted" the other; but he has found "one instance in which the two systems have been contrasted," and to this he triumphantly refers in support of his views. He takes on the one hand, Otaki and Waikanae, on the northern shore of Cook's Straits, " the head quarters of the Church Mission in the South;" and, on the other, Motueka, in Blind Bay, nearly opposite to Otaki,— upon the Natives of which, he avers, '-neither Government nor Missionary influence has ever been brought to bear to any appreciable extent." Comparing the state of the Natives at these localities (by a perverted application of Sir Fowell Buxton's saying that the plough is the best test of the progress of civilization amongst savages,) Mr. Fox draws an inference in full accordance with his own views from the alleged fact that the Motueka natives cultivate a very much larger quantity of wheat in proportion to their numbers than is cultivated by the Natives of Otaki. The same statement having been made in a letter to the Secretary for the Colonies, signed by Dr. Dorset on behalf of the Settlers' Constitutional Association, (and made so nearly in the same words as to confirm the opinion that both proceeded from one mischievously fertile pen), Archdeacon Hadfield addressed an able confutation of it to the Colonial Secretary of New Munster, which has been published in the Blue Book of 1851. In this it is clearly shown that the allegation as to the smallness of the quantity of wheat produced at Otaki was egregiously false ; and it is conclusively argued that, even had it been correct, it would not have proved the point sought to be established by it, — any more, for instance, than the fact that, in 1848, the Wellington settlers, although twice the number of the Nelson settlers, giew only 350 acres of wheat, while Nelson grew 1,435 acres, would prove " that the people of Nelson were ten times as industrious as those of Wellingtoa." But the

point to which we would particularly advert is, that, whatever may be the merits of the Motueka Natives, they are not to be attributed exclusively to colonizing- influence, as distin guished and sererated from " missionary influences," and that when Mr. Fox asserted that no missionary influence had ever been brought to bear upon these Natives, he asserted what he must have known to be untrue. Such facts as the following-, which Mr. Fox or his friends will scarcely venture to controvert, may decide the question : — Before the Nelson settlement was projected, before even the preliminary expedition left iSngland, most of the residents of Motueka were under the instruction of a missionary, the Rev. S. Ironside, who baptised at least thirty of them in May 1841. In this number was the leading chief E Tana (the Maori form of the name " Turner,*' by which he was baptized). When it was known that Blind Bay waa to be the site of the second settlement, these people left Port Underwood and settled in Motueka. Another missionary, the Rev. J. Whiteley visited tliem, and baptized some of their children in May, 1842, not more than three months after the arrival of the first settlers; and in the latter part of that year Mr. Ironside baptized forty who had been under missionary instruction. It was also Mr. Ironside, we are assured, who furnished the seed for the first crop of wheat grown by the natives on that side of the Straits. In the communication already referred to, Archdeacon Hadfield says, " Within a very few months after the establishment of the settlement at Nelson, a missionary of the Church Missionary Society, the Rev. C. L. Reay, was located there, and he made it his constant practice to encourage the natives of the district in habits of industry ; and during- the last three years, the Rev. T. L. Tudor has been residing in their immediate neighbourhood, and assisting then* with his advice and encouragement. They had also, previous to the arrival of settlers, been some years under the instruction of missionaries, though no missionary resided among- them." Mr. Hadfield adds that missionary natives, and especially Himiona te "Wehi, a native who went from Waikanae, were their principal teachers in agriculture. The fact thus being that the Motueka natives have for many years been directly under the influence of both Wesleyan and Church Missionaries,— not only does Mr. Fox's forced conclusion entirely fall to the ground, but he is in this instance, as in many others, proved, by irrefragable evidence, a false witness. A correspondent who has furnished us with some of the foregoing particulars, remarks, scai-cely more severely than justly, "His misrepresentations are wicked and wilful. His little book is throughout bad ; and if it were only circulated in New Zealand, where it will go merely for what it is really worth, there would be no great harm done ; but New Zealand is 16,000 miles from England, and W. Fox, Esq., will receive far more credit than he deserves. Truth is great, however, and ultimately will prevail." As to Mr. Fox's "Minute, &c," we may dismiss it in a word or two, as we have already (see NewZealander, July2l ,) noticed it, when the principal part of it reached us through the columns of the New Zealand Journal. We then called attention to a single but a decisive evidence of its deceptive character, as exhibited in the assertion that" one of the most numerous public meetings erer held in Auckland condemned Sir George Grey's Provincial Councils measure," — the notorious fact being that there never was a public meeting held in Auckland to consider that measure, and that, as has since been abundantly shown at the elections, all parties have agreed to accept it and make the best of it according to their views of the public good. A voice from the South on Mr. Fox and this' " Minute," copied from the Wellington Spectator will be found amongst our extracts. We have to acknowledge having received in the same envelope with Mr. lox's pamphlet, another pamphlet containing a reprint, from the Lyttelton Times, of Mr. Godley's speech on Self-government for New Zealand, delivered at a public meeting at Lyttelton, in August of last year, with Remarks by Mr. C. B. Adderley, M.P. The " Remarks" were mainly designed to stimulate members of Parliament to press for a proper constitution for New Zealand, which the writer declares " Lord Grey is not the man" to giveSince the publication of these " Remarks," however, Lord Grey has ceased to .be Colonial Minister, and his Successor in office has introduced a measure which seems to have met Mr. Adderley's views in all its leading features,— but especially in its formal recognition of the New Zealand Company's debt, the payment of which this very disinterested patriot, and colonial reformer, evidently deems most fitting and equitable.