THE NEW ZEALAND CONSTITUTION, AND THE COMPANY'S DEBT.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 692, 1 December 1852, Page 2

THE NEW ZEALAND CONSTITUTION, AND THE COMPANY'S DEBT.

(Prom the "Wellington Spectator" October, 30.) We may very shortly expect the publication in the Colony of the New Zealand Constitution

Bill, which has been passed during the last session of Parliament, and which as the basis of the future government of these islands will doubtless afford i fruitful themes for discussion. Among the many questions connected with it, the New Zealand Company's debt, as it is called or the claims which that body through its Parliamentary influence, and b\ virtue of the arrangement made with Lord Grey had established on the Land Fund of the Colony, ought constantly to be borne in mind by the settlers. What is the precise nature of the arrangement that has been sanctioned by the present Act, we have no present means of "knowing, but it is evidently more favourable to the Company than the former terms it had obtained, since the objectors to the present arrangement wished to restrict that body to its legal rights, wished in. fact to confine it to its bond. Whatever ad- ! ditional advantage the Company may have ob- [ tamed at the expense of the jsettlers, however the latter have been sacrificed to the cupidity of the former, even under the old plan there were two features so grossly unjust that, if the interests of the settlers had in any way been consulted, they could not have been sanctioned. Although the Local Government has to find the money for the purchase of tracts of land from the natives, as soon as the newly purchased districts become Crown lands they become subject to the rapacious claims of the Company ; but though this be bad enough-— worse remains behind— in the payment of interest to the tune of something like .€lO,OOO a year on the sum claimed by the Company. Mere is no Value received, no one can point out the districts surrendered by the Company, the million of acres, like the respectable Mrs. Ilarris, though much talked of, offers no evidence of re* ality ; and as for any advantage, especially to the older settlements, although in the three last years of its existence the cost to the Company for establishments and law expenses in England and the colony amounted to nearly £3s,ooo, the ordinary sales of land, (excluding the sale at Otago on the first establishment of that settlement), did not exceed £3,000. From having been relieved from further intermeddling with the affairs of thecolony, the Company saved something like £10,000 a year, and for this it claims to be paid the same yearly amount, which exceeds the value of all the public lands sold in the colony throughout the year. So that the New Zealand Company bids fair to absorb completely any good to be derived from the land fund, and as if the Company was not sufficient, the Canterbury and Otago Associations come after, to make assurance doubly sure, and prevent the possibility of any advantage accruing to the colony from the Land Fund.

[From the " Wellington Independent," Oct. 27.} The emancipation of a slave is, no doubt, a good thing; but the abolition of slavery and the slave trade would be still better. The gift of a constitution to a colony, by the sovereign state, may be accepted as a boon ; but it is, after all, an act of the purest despotism, in principle ; for it assumes the right of one set of people, by whatever fine names or titles they may think proper to call themselves, to dictate to another, who may be separated from them by half the circumference of the globe, on what conditions and to what extent, they shall exercise those powers of self-go-vernment which seem to belong, naturally, to every community of men upon the face of the earth. We are now venturing to treat the subject abstractedly, as philosophers, and, principally, for the benefit of those loyal settlers who are preparing to throw themselves down upon their bellies, to return thanks, in an extasy of gratitude, for the infinite goodness and condescension of the " mother country," in sending us out the little gocart, in which we are to be permitted to toddle about in safety, during the next few years' of our political infancy. To abstain from interference, and to leave us to ourselves, would appear to be the natural, as well as the just and the magnanimous course to take ; but, then, that would be a relinquishment, in principle, of the rights of the slave holder, who, even in the act of emancipation, has, always and in all countries, thought in necessary, if only by some symbolical process, such as that of spitting in the face or flinging an old shoe after him, to remind the slave that be had obtained his manumission, not of right but by the mere grace and bounty of his master. . . The British parliament has partly emancipated us ; but the act itself is, after all, one of the proofs and badges of slavery, and it is accompanied by such drawbacks, that the most thoughtful men are beginning to doubt whether we have not been sold, most effectually and irredeemably, • into a fresh bondage, under a false pretence of giving us freedom. The two drawbacks we refer to are, the saddling us with the debt to the New Zealand Company, of 268,000£. and the establishment of a Nominee Council, as a co-ordinate branch of the supreme central lagislature of this colony. The one was so flagrantly dishonest, and the other so mischievous and, at the same time, so unpopular a conh'ivance, that we wonder how it was that the liberal members of Parliament permitted the bill to pass at all. Perhaps they thought it a good thing that we should start with a pair of swinging grievances, like outriggers, to keep us steady, or, possibly, they were so tired of the discussions and intrigues and squabbles, to which the colony has given occasion, that they were willing to get rid of the subject, at any price. A Nominee Council, worse than a Tooleystreet oligarchy, aping a House of Lords in New Zealand ! The thing is so absurd — so childishly, savagely, brutally absurd — that one does not know whether to laugh or to cry, at the incredible folly and ignorance of those who projected it. There is one thing only that it may be useful for; and that is as a bait, in the hands of joint stock land companies or associations, to attract simpletons to the colony, under the lure of installing them has >an aristocracy; and, perhaps, a few more demireps may be sent out by their mothers, under that and similar delusions. JBut, to view the matter soberly, where are the materials to be found, in New Zealand, or in any colony, for the composition of such a chamber, after the elective assemblies have forestalled and monopolised, as they will do, all the talent and wealth of the country ? ■ ■ Repudiation of the New Zealand Company's debt, and Abolition of the Nominee Chamber, will become, we shrewdly supects two at least of the tests by which candidates will be tried, when t they put forth their pretensions to be elected to the House of Representatives.

[From the " Spectator," October 23.] The following is a summary of last Tuesday's Government Gazette: — A proclamation offering for sale at the upset price of £1 per acre, three homesteads of runs in the Otago Settlement ; a communication from the Society of Arts, London, having for its object the establishment of a correspondence with some Institution in the Colony whereby information may he obtained by the Society on the resources and capabilities of the Colony, and on subjects connected with Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce ; information is reSuested at the Civil Secretary's office respecting le present place of residence of A. S. Lillyman, last heard of in South Australia ; notice of the appointment of J. C. Boys, Esq., to be Government Surveyor for the Middle District of the Middle Island ; and a notice for tenders on or before the 29th inst., for a five-oared whale boat. Fifty Crown Grants under purchases from. the New Zealand Company, two under purchases from the Crown, and a grant of 245 acres at Wanganui to the Bishop of New Zealand for educational purposes have been executed and are, ready for issue at the Commissioner of Crown Lands office, Wellington. A return is published of the sales of laud at Nelson, from 13th March, 1851, to 24th January, 1852; total number of acres sold 735 ; amount realized, £1416 : 15 : 3,.

Scarcity or Labour.— The first of tins season's clip of wool was brought over on Friday last by the Sea Bird from Messrs. Clifford's station at the Kai Kotos. The clip, we hear, bids fniv to be unusually heavy this season, and of good quality, but at most of the stations the shearing is not prooressing so rapidly as could be wished in consequence of want of hands. Shearing has also commenced, we believe, in the Wairarapa, where shearers appear to be more scarce even than they are in the South, and flock-owners are already beginning to feel rather uneasy and anxious, both as 'regards the washing and the shearing. — Inde~ pendent.