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New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 764, 10 August 1853, Page 3

Our readers are rivvare that the Petitions against the infliction upon the Northern Province of any part of ihe New Zealand Company’s Debt, which were adopted at the Great Public Meeting of February last year, were forwarded to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Gladstone for presentation to the Houses of Parliament, of which they are respectively members. It will also be remembered that Mr. Clark, the Chairman of the Meeting and then Mayor of Auckland, accompanied the Petitions with letters to the Noble Duke and the Right Honourable Gentleman, expressing on behalf of the Petitioners a grateful appreciatjonof the interest they had manifested in the affairs of this colony, and soliciting their further aid to avert the threatened. ininjustice and injury. In the letter to Mr. Gladstone it was respectfully asked that he “would be pleased to move that our Petition be read in the House, and that the signatures to it may not pass without notice-” Wc already knew that the Petition was presented (in November last), but the following communication from Mr. Gladstone lias,been received only within the last week. —We have not space to comment upon it now, further than to obseno that—while it is very courteous and kindly in its tone, yet, like the Duke ofNciwcasile’sslalementsin ihediscussibn with Lord Grey, to which we lately called attention—it is far from satisfactory,—avoiding every thing like an explicit expression of opinion on the main and vital points of our case, and showing a willingness to treat a mallcras scaled, which, before now, the remonstrances of Sir George Grey, of Lieutenant Go-

vernor Wynyard and the Executive Council of the Province, and of the Elective Members of the late Provincial* Council, all united in support of the people’s Petition, have assured the Imperial Authorities is«o/ “settled.” This is an assurance which every step within the limits of legal effort which our forthcoming Representative Councils can lake, trill, if necessary, be adopted to echo and re-echo it in the manner most likelv to prove effectual.

Most certainly there can be no “ settlement of New Zealand affairs” in which the North will acquiesce, that does not relieve this Province from ihe monstrous wrong of being compelled to pay any portion of the Company’s unrighteous demand. The following is the letter which has just boon received, and which, of course, the reader will judge of for himself, apart from the view ,we have taken leave to express concerning it:—

Downing Street. London, Fel», 2G, 1833.

Sir, I am in receipt of vour interesting Liter dated, March 2nd, 1852. ' I have been careful to present the Petition wldch accompanied your letter by (he same mail; and I certainly would have complied with the suggestion in your letter that the Petition might he read, had it not been for the settlement of New Zealand affairs during last Session : —a settlement indeed less advantageous than I could have wished ; but at the same time one which 1 trust will contribute in no slight degree to (he progress and prosperily of that most interesting and promising colony. 1 have (he honor to be, Sir, . k Your faithful servant, W. E. Gladstone. Arch. Clark, Es<p, Mavor of Auckland, N. Z.