AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 22, 1852.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 698, 22 December 1852, Page 2

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 22, 1852.

We mentioned in our last number the fact •of which we had been informed that several of the wealthier residents in Melbourne and its neighbourhood, feeling painfully the want of the elements of physical and mental comfort in the present state of Victoria, arc turning their thoughts to our Auckland district as holding out Jn all respects a more desirable home.* We have since read in one of the late Melbourne papers (the Argus of the 49th ult.)an article so strikingly illustrative of the circumstances leading to such a disposition, that we are induced to copy from it the following significant pagragraphs : | It may scarcely be known to many of the ; residents of countries not directly exposed to the action of wonderful gold discoveries, (hat, I combined with the numerous advantages at- | lemlant upon the throwing open such yast mines of wealth, a very peculiar condition of society is apt to be developed, and very great social discomforts are likely to exhibit themselves. In fact, a very rich gold country is not a very pleasant place to live in. It may be a place in which to get rapidly rich. It may be bustling, j and progressive, and business like; but we ' learn from the results of bolh California and Victoria, that a profusion of gold is not favourable for the increase of (he pleasantness as a place of residence. House-rent is extravagantly high ; provisions are dear ; and not as good as when one-half the price ; servants are saucy, capricious, and unmanageable ; life and properly are not as secure as they should be ; the roads are unsafe ; the very slreels of our towns | are almost tabooed, as far as ladies are con- ' cerned. . Under such circumstances, hundreds of the very pick of our society are beginning to look around for a plcasantcr home. They arc rich ; they can afford to spend their money freely ; bul lhey grudge expenditure when they find it unattended by reasonable comfort and security. They have a link probably, to bind them still to ; Victoria, in the possession of houses, lands, &c. I which must be periodically seen to, so that they

cannot go away (o England, or France, or other distant places ; but still the disagreeables of Victoria are such that (hey would willingly escape them if they could. The Editor of the Argus asks, ' c Now where do people so situated naturally turn?" lie replies, "Where so naturally as to Van Diemente Land ? It is near. It is readily | accessible. Its climate is highly adapted to the British constitution of the great bulk of our population. Much of its society is agreeable. House-rent and provisions are reasonable. In fact it has almost every requisite that may be looked for, if,"— and here he introduces, with the all-important "i/," the great drawback which it is the main object of the article to exhibit as the fatal blight withering everything else—*' if they were not all spoiled, and tainted, and neutralised by the great curse of Transportation. The foul stigma of a 'penal settlement' rests upon her, and the mind of the free colonists naturally and iftstinctively shrinks ! from the odious consideration, as it would I shrink from the plague itself." j This is truth so self-evident as to I need no elucidation or enforcement. We lament for the sake of Tasmania that if such should *be her lot, and no practicable effort on our part should be wanting to aid in her emancipation from the curse. But still the loathsome fact that she ! is pervaded by Convietisni stands out in ali its ghastly deformity :— then it is like a poisonous Upas tree rooted in the midst of her soil, and spreading its desolating influence over all her fertility and beauty. It is no wonder therefore that attention should be turned by persons in such circumstances as the Argus describes, to New Zealand, where the requisites which our contemporary enumerates are to be found — in some particulars even more fully than in Van Dicmen's Land — ivilhout the evil which there more than neutralizes the form of every attraction. Auckland is sufficiently "near" and "accessible" to meet the case of those whose concerns may occasionally call them to visit Victoria. Its climate may fairly challenge a favourable comparison not only with that of Van Diemen's Land but with the most vaunted parts of Italy and France, as is demonstrated as clearly as any conclusion in vital statistics admits of demonstration, by the well-informed and candid author of "Auckland and its Neighbourhood," (a pamphlet which, as we had the gratification of stating in our last, has been read by many in Melbourne) ; while, — as is shown by the results of the extensive observations made by Dr. Thompson of the 58th regiment, "Compared with Great Britain, New Zealand, so far as its general salubrity can be ascertained, possesses a marked superiority." In the other conditions specified by the Argus it may bo said, without any boasting, that Auckland is not deficient. And its district presents very many localities which, by a moderate outlay, might be made truly delightful residences for those who, sick of Victoria {is it is, "are beginning to look around for a pfeasantcr home."

Wk this day complete the transference to our columns of the whole of the discussions in Parliament on the New Zealand Constitution Bill, having copied verbatim from the Times the proceedings and speeches, from the commencement of the consideration of the measure in committee of the House of Commons, down to its third reading,and passing in the House of Lords. Our readers, have now in their hands a mass of, information respecting the views — not only of thisparticular Act— but of New Zealand affairs in general, entertained by the leading statesmen of all parties, which no summaries, or no extracts from the observations of the English Press, could present in an equally authentic or satisfactory form ; and we confess it affords us much gratification that our journal has been the medium of circulating here &o large an amount of matter possessing not only immediate but also permanent and historical value, and that we have been able to present it without omitting due attention to subjects of local and passing interest. It has indeed necessitated the postponement of various extracts from our recent English files which otherwise would have appeared ere now in our columns ; but we have taken care, as far as practicable, that these should be such as would suffer little diminution of their worth by a short delay. It will be seen that amongst the several questions of importance connected with the measure, none excited so much discussion as the New Zealand Company's Debt. Not even the seeming, if not actual, invasion of the time-honoured theory of the British Constitution which is involved in making the office of Superintendent elective,— (of which the Times says, " strange that the Minister who insists upon foisting upon the Colony that most odious of all institutions — a nominated Chamber, because tie cannot bear to depart from the similitude 'of the House of Lords, should sanction the principle of electhe Monarchy, and the still stranger innovation on English ideas of placing the power of veto in the hands of a person utterly unconnected with the Executive"):— not even the erection of the shadow, of the House of Lords where the substance of it cannot for many years to come be produced, although the nominee constitution of the Upper Chamber elicited the energetic condemnation of some of the most reflective 1 and best informed menvbers of both Houses, fortified in their opposition by the recommendation of Governor Grey and the adoption of that recommendation in the plan proposed by Sir John Pakington's predecessor in oflice. Neither of these provisions excited so strong a feeling either within or without Parliament as the arrangement for perpetuating and strengthening the hold of the New Zealand Company on the land of the Colony. This, no doubt, was owing in a, great measure to the steady and unrelenting hand with which Sir Wm. Molesworth unmasked the Company, and brought home not only to John Bull's understanding but to his breeches-pocket the cogent argument that, by a fraudulent suppression of facts and a tissue of unprincipled misrepresentations, the Company had not merely already obtained hundreds of thousands sterling from his Treasury, but had betrayed i

him into liabilities to the Nelson settlers, the actual amount of which is uncertain, but which cannot be less than very large. Most of this we may well believe to have been new light to the English public, seemg 1 that it is so to many in New Zealand— at least in this part of it; for much as was known of the trickery and dishonesty of the Company, we question whether there was any suspicion generally entertained of the systematic course of cruel deception which was exposed in Sir Win. Molesworth's speeches, and forcibly summed up and denounced in the article | from the Times which we copied on Saturday, and in that from the Examiner which appears in our columns to-day. It is true that these revelations have reference mainly to the transactions of the Company with regard to their dupes and victims at Nelson, and do not directly bear upon the grounds on which we, in this Province, protest against the infliction upon our revenue of the smallest fraction of the Company's pretended debt. But we may anticipate benefit from the disclosures, notwithstanding. They have turned attention to the conduct of the Company to an extent that will render a searching inquiry into its affairs inevitable,- and will prepare the public mind to weigh dimly and justly the evidences we can abundantly pour in to show that the Company and its advocates disingenuously practised upon the ignorance prevailing in England, as to the internal arrangements of the colony, and the differing circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the several Settlements, when it obtained legislative hold not only upon those Settlements in which its own operations had been conducted, (and to which alone therefore any rightful claim it may really possess, must of necessity be entirely restricted), but upon "New Zealand" as a whole, and consequently upon the Auckland district, which has not derived even the semblance of good from its wretched experiments in colonization, but, on the contrary, has been the object of unremitting hostility, calumny, and wrong from it and its agents. As unfortunately we have not yet done wiih this Shylock Association, the reports which we have copied of the trenchant attacks made upon it in Parliament, .and of the blustering but manifestly shuffling attempts made to defend it, merit the careful perusal of all who desire to be fully equipped for that struggle against the unrighteous claim which must now be made more vigorously than ever.