THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S DEBT.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 784, 19 October 1853, Page 3

THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S DEBT.

[From the “ Independent,” September 21.] So much haa been said and written both by the public and ourselves regarding the debt which the New Zealand Company has endeavoured by mis-representa-tion and fraud to fasten upon this Colony, and the injustice of that debt has also been so severly commented upon, that we scarcely know any additional argument that can be adduced against it. We however trust that the vast importance of the subject to the colony at large will offer a sufficient apology for our reverting to it as we are particularly anxious and more especially so since a Committee has been appointed at a late public meeting to report upon it, to keep the attention of the Colonists steadily and constantly directed towards it. When the New Zealand Constitution Bill was under discussion in the House of Lords, the present Secetary of State for the colonies (the Duke of Newcastle) said that he considered the subject of the New Zealand Company’s debt to form an important feature of the bill, important, not only as regarded the interests of this colony, but al-o a regarded the Legislature of the Imperial Parliament; and he begg« d that the House would pospone the consultation of a matter which, from the charges brought against it, and those charges still undecided, was not in his opinion open to hasty legislation. The question of the Company's debt is one which involves undoubtedly ft great public principle—that principle being nothing more or less than whether a trading company, through being unsuccessful in its speculations, should be allowed to cripple the energies of an infant colony by charging upon it resources a claim for which it has not the remotest grounds or foundation. Let us again briefly review the whole matter, so as to bring it once more under the attention of the public. By the act of 1847 the Government lent to the New Zealand Company the sum of £236,000, without interest; there was also by the same act an additional charge of .£268,000 saddled upon the land fund of this colony for the benefit of that Cjmpany. making altogether a sum of upwards of half a million of money payable to it. But how was it proposed that this £268,000 should be charged] Why upon, and to be paid out of the proceeds of all sales of land in New Zealand, it being also at the same time stipulated that in the event of the Company break ng up, or being unable to carry on their operations, the lands in the colony claimed by them should revert to the Crown, on the latter undertaking to satisfy any liabilities that the Company might at the time be subject to under their existing engagements with reference to the settlement at Nelson ; mark, not their engagements to the colony at large, hut to Nelson only. Well, tie Company breaks up ; charges of the most serious nature are brought against it, more especially with regard to its transactions with the Nelson settlers, and what does the Imperial Parliament in its wisdom do under these circumstances? Why, it not only forgives and expunges the loan of the £236,000, but it also, in the very face of those charges, and while they remain uncontradicted, and without in any way consulting the colonists upon the subject, saddles upon the land revenue of this colony the enormous sum of £268,000 with S| pr cent, interest. There surely cannot be much doubt but that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in total ignojance of the liabilities of the Company, when he consented to the Act, of 1847; and there can also be no doubt but that his ignorance on the subject proceeded either from misrepresentation, or else a from suppressio veri, on the I art of the Company. This is the present as well as the real slate of the case, and we do trust, and we also express a confident hope, that the exertions of the Committee appointed at the late public meeting for the purpose of investigating the matter will be indefatigable, and that the settlers of Wellington will back those exertions in every way they possibly can. We can only add that if upon investigation the debt should be proved, why then let it be paid by all means —but if not, why let it be repudiated hi toto, let no interest, beyond that of the colony at large, be consulted—let there be no vaccillation on the subject whatever, but if the debt is unjust reject it entirely.