THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 726, 30 March 1853, Page 4

THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

[From ilie “Times,’ - Oct. 22.]

Our renders will remember that during the debates of the last session on the New Zealand constitution there arose a discussion compromising most seriously the character of the New Zealand Company, of Lord Grey, and, we may add, of the Colonial Office administration generally. We have been used to hear that department accused of every conceivable error in theory and practice, but this accusation went a little further ; to an extent, indeed, which renders the most searching inquiry absolutely necessary, and a distinct verdict of acquittal or condemnation from a Parliamentary committee unavoidable. The Colonial Office appears determined to violate the maxim, that pending a suit no change should be made, and to prejudge their own case and that of the New Zealand Company, by handing oyer to them money to which , if the grave^accusations against them are true, they have no right, and which, on the same supposition, the Company will, together with much more, be called upon to refund. Wo have twice already stated this case, but a brief recapitulation may still be necessary, in order to show the precise position of the question at the present moment, and to make clear to the House of Commons, which is about shortly to assemble, the plain and positive duty which it is called on to discharge.

The. New Zealand Company obtained their charter from Lord John Russell, when Colonial Minister, by satisfying him that they had increased their capital by 'a hundred thousand pounds, whereas, in truth, this hundred thousand pounds was partly made up by money lent by the Company to its directors for the purpose of purchasing shares, upon which shares the Company paid the calls, and the directors received the dividends. This was the first deceit practised by the Company on the Government. The New Zealand Company broke their contract with their settlers at Nelson, and when those settlers remonstrated, submitted the case for counsel’s opinion, and announced that they had done so to the settlers; that opinion was, that they were liable to a very large amount; yet, when interrogated on the subject by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Company denied that they had any liability whatever. This was their second fraud on the Government. After this the Company laid a second opinion before a person of damaged character, who advised them that they were not liable at all. This second opinion the Company palmed off upon the Government and the settlers as the only one they possessed on the subject. This was their third fraud on the Government. By these means the Company obtained from Parliament, through the instrumentality of Loi-d Grey, payments out of the Consolidated Fund amounting to two hundred and thirty-sixthousand pounds ; an mortgage over the waste lands of New Zealand, in the event of their ceasing to colonize to the amount of two hundred and sixtyeight thousand pounds, subject to the expense of emigration and surveys, and promise to pay the claims of the Nelson settlers. They did cease to colonize, and the mortgage vested in them, but subject to prior claims of indefinite extent. In the bill for the New Zealand Constitution Sir John Pakington proposed to adjust their claim by giving them one-quarter of the land sales. Early in May Sir William Molesworth moved for the correspondence in which the frauds we have enumerated are detailed, and broadly charged the directors with having obtained the act they were then seeking to put in force by these discreditable means. To this charge no answer was made, except that Lord Grey had approved the transaction, and the House of Commons, on the eve of a dissolution, allowed the dame to pass, delegating the inquiry to their successors. When the bill reached the Lords the same arguments were urged by the Puke of Newcastle, who contended with much justice and force, that till the Company was cleared of the fraud, the arrangement alleged to be founded on that fraud ought not to be treated as valid and binding. On the 24th June last we pointed out that Lozxl Grey’s exculpation could avail the Company nothing, since, if the charge were true, he who had begun by being their dupe had afterwards assisted them, "by consenting, in a letter dated the 4th of April, 1848, to the concealment from the settlers of their true legal position ; and we solemnly called upon him to vindicate his character as a nobleman and statesman the next time the bill came on for discussion. As soon as that time arrived. Lord Grey, thus adjured, quitted the house, and left judgment against his own character and that of the Company to go by default. The clause passed without alteration. The papers moved tor Sir William Molesworth have not during the five months which have elapsed been produced; and an attempt is evidently being made to hush up the whole affair. We are happy to say, however, that the New Zealand Company is itself doing its best to prevent this most undesirable consummation. In the report presented b}’ the directors on the 7th instant they say that they gave such answers as the occasion admitted to the charge of Sir William Molesworth, and on that ground and the non-publication of the lettex-s exonerate themselves from touching any further on the case. No one can accuse these gentlemen of being in too great a hurry to defend themselves, since they have been contented to lie for five months under the most grevious imputations without alleging anything material in their own defence. Again, in the meeting held on Thursday last, Mr. Buckle, one of the shareholders, in a kind of ambiguous defence of the Company, seems to state that misrepresentations were made with full knowledge of the facts, and can find no other excuse than throwing the blame on the dead, and heaping obloquy on the name of the late Mr. Charles Buller. Whether Mr. Buller may have made these representations we do not stop to enquire, and are very sorry his name has been introduced into a discussion to which it is really irrelevant, for the correspondenca moved for by Sir William Molesworth will show that the misrepresentations and suppressions were made in answers returned by the Company to queries of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in letters to the Colonial Office and the colonists, signed by Mr. Harrington, their Secretary, on their behalf. From the report laid before the New Zealand Company on the 7th instant, it appears that Sir John Palangton intends to act as if the Company were entirely innocent, and to pay over to them a sum of money, the property of the Crown, in reduction of the debt, which, if the uncontradicted assertions of Sir William Molesworth, Mr. Gladstone, and the Duke of Newcastle be true, is no debt at all, as having been obtained by fraud and misrep"csentation. 'This cannot be permitted ; the Colonial Office must not at the same time suppress the evidence which would convict the New Zealand Company and the late Secretary of State for the Colonies, and assume an innocence which cannot be supported for a moment after the production of the lettexs they withhold. If the New Zealand Company and Lord Grey have not done these things, injustice to them give us the proofs of their innocence, and force us to retract our charges. We desire to spread no culumnies, and to give currency to no idle or unfounded accusations. But, it the charges be true, we have a right to know it at once, and to consider what, under those circumstances should bo the fate of the Company. If they are true’, we have been induced by misrepresentations and suppressions to pay this Company two hundred and thirty-six thousand pounds, to mortgage New Zealand to it for two hundred and sixty-eight thousand more, and to undertake its liabilities to the Nelson settlers, loughly estimated at two hundred thousand pounds. Under these circumstances, it is not we, surely, that are to pay more to the Compdny , it is the Company that should refund to us. The return of post from New Zealand is sure to bring us a host of claims which we have

bound ourselves to satisfy; and yet Sir John Pakington proposes, of requiring an indemnity, to make additional pay ments to those whose arts have lured us into the snare ! Let him, however, not deceive himself. The thing cannot be hushed up. The colony will bo heard on its own behalf. The correspondence cannot be suppressed, and the representatives of the English tax-payers cannot bo silent on theirs. The matter must and will be probed to the bottom. Injurious as it may be to the Company, to Lord Grey, and to the Colonial Office to make these things known, they must and will struggle into light, despite every artifice of official suppression. . It is in the power of Sir John Pakington, if he so please, to shipwreck his own reputation on the rock which has proved so fatal to his predecessor. He may mix himself up with the misconduct of Lord Grey, as Loid Grey did with that of the New Zealand Company. lie cannot save them from exposure, but he may, if he will, share it with them. We sincerely trust that better counsels will prevail ; that the correspondence so long kept back will at once be produced, and that no more public money will find its way into the clutches of the New' Zealand Company until they have given a satisfactory account of the means by which they have obtained from the British Government payments, mortgages, and guarantees which cannot be estimated at less than seven hundred thousand pounds. The thing must come out, but we do not wish the discredit of such transactions to be extended more widely than necessary.