THE CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION AND THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 769, 27 August 1853, Page 3

THE CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION AND THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

(From tiic “Wellington Spectator,” July 23.) Whenever a Blue Book comes out about New Zealand affairs, we make up our minds to a fit of mental indigestion. Wo cannot help cramming ourselves with the heavy reading, and have to pay the penalty of getting our senses obfuscated among all the jobs, dirty transactions, and dishonourable acts that arc brought to light. Tho two last Blue Books, however, issued at the beginning of this year, contain more villanies than are to be found in any previous dozen. There is one about the New Zealand Company’s business, which we mean to take an early opportunity of dissecting for the information of the public, and one about that immaculate sect, the Canterbury Association, respecting which we propose to say a word or two to-day.

Our readers know that the Association, after having vainly tried to increase the debt of our Land Fund from .£208,000 to ,£834,000 (wc shudder to think how narrow an escape we had) became liable to the crown for certain sums on account of their land sales, that they tried every possible manoeuvre to evade their payments hut withotat success, and had to pay over a large amount which immediately went into the pockets of the New Zealand Company. Last year they had to pay £4,215 more, and neither the Government nor the Compbny would let them off. With an ingenuity which does them credit, and with a great display of virtuous indignation, they then discovered that the Company had misapplied the Parliamentary Loans, and was a debtor to the public to the amount of £36,000, and petitioned the Secretary of State to make the Company disgorge the money, sending in at the same time a report of their sub-committee which had picked this hole in the Company’s accounts. They then coolly proposed to the directors that this accusation should be referred to arbitration ; to which proposal, “ obviously as futile as dishonourable, the Directors could only express their regret that the Association should for a moment have thought it possible they could become parties.” This dodge failing, the Association proposed in June to borrow to pay its debts, suggesting that, of course, “ it will be necessary that the security for such loan should be a primary charge on the Land Fund—say 10s. per acre, independent of all contingencies ; and until the money be repaid the Land Fund of the colony will not bear further diminution in respect of the Company’s charge, which, therefore, must he postponed .” A clause was accordingly to be introduced into the pending Constitution Bill by Governpaent, and “ they respectfully submit whether it may be deemed necessary to obtain the assent of the New Zealand Company to the prescript oposal ” Can any language do justice to such conduct, or adequately express the painful sense of humiliation and disgust any Englishman must feel at seeing suoh proposals made under the supposed sanction of Bishops of the Church of England and Peers of the Realm —

proposals which in private life could only he dreamt of by swindlers 1 What! there is honour even among thieves, and we can only wonder at the immeasurable effrontery with which the committee of the Association presume to ask the Queen’s Government to assist them in robbing the New Zealand Compan}”, confiscating that share of the plunder which they had themselves voluntarily agreed to divide with that body, and repudiating honourable obligations, on the faith of which the Company had advanced them large suras of money. Of course, that dodge did not succeed ; hut the New Zealand Company, thinking, no doubt, after such an attemj t at Pennsylvanian repudiation, it was high time to seize upon all that was left, went at once to law with the Association and their guarantees—•par mobilefratrum !—for their money,— As a last resource, the Association then resolved to transfer their functions immediately to the province, of course with the following slight condition, namely, “to adopt and make provision for the Association’s outstanding liabilities, amongst which they will reckon any sums which, under the proceedings instituted by the Company against the guarantees may he found ultimately due.”— Here they thought they had done the trick ; by a little thimblerigging, a mere sleight of hand, shift the debt on to the colonist’s shoulders, let them find the money, and all will he right. But this most honourable Association again reckoned without their host; the assent of the Queen’s Government had here also to be obtained to the transaction, and Sir J. Packington, to his infinite credit, refused it, with a quiet intimation that they had better pay their debts first. As the Association would not pay, lie extinguished them ; for which act alone, and for thereby sweeping away the Selfe and Sewell mob that were to lie quartered on the colony, and the rest of home jobbers that were to fatten at the Adelphi, Sir John would be entitled to the warmest gratitude of the whole body of colonists. Now comes the cream of the joke, for such transactions seem hardly credible as plain dull matter of fact. When Sir John had decided to put an end to this precious set ofrepudiators, out comes Lord Lyttelton with the following pleasant intimation :

“ With reference to the points at issue between the Association and the New Zealand Company, it was impossible for the Committee, with the conviction they had of the paramount importance of investing the colonists with the powers they had themselves hitherto exercised, to delay that proceeding (of the transfer) till those points had been finally settled. The Committee could not suppose that their proceeding was in any way unfair towards the Company, nor in prejudice of their pecuniary claims, for, as a matter of course, the rights both of the Crown and the Company are distinctly reserved in. the Act; and the remedy of the Company would be, in fact, much more effectual against the colony, which is fully able to hear ant/ change that may be'placed upon it , than against the Association, which has no resources to meet any such charge.” Thank you, Lord Lyttleton ! We did not, until now, know that we were to pay for your failures, as well as those of the New Zealand Company ; nor were we aware of one other little fact of which you acquaint Sir John Pakington at the last moment, namely, that Mr, Henry Sewell —the “ gentleman who is always in a hurry,” as he is happily described by our Auckland contemporary, and who, probably on that account, is not Attorney-General of Canterbury—had come out here as the special agent to make the settlers pay the Association’s debts, and before leaving England protested against the Association’s being extinguished, on the ground that ‘‘it was doing all in its power, by causing the debt to be undertaken by the colony, an effort which would be defeated if Sir John Pakington’s intention were put in force.” Of course it will, now that the colonists know that they were being trafficked in by the learned gentleman. The correspondence on the part of the late Colonial Minister stands out in bright relief amid all the trickery which he lias to fence off. Perhaps it also explains how it is that the prime movers and active agents of the Canterbury* Association came to emigrate in such a hurry.