New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 1843.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 72, 7 April 1843, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 1843.

By the Sisters, which arrived here yesterday afternoon from Nelson, we have received Exa?niners of the 18th and 28th March, and the Ist April. The mail of the Phoebe had been put on board the Industry, which may be expected here in a day or two, having touched at Mana.

A requisition is in course of signature at Nelson, for the Sheriff to call a public meeting on the Sth April, to take into consideration the propriety of extending the provisions of the Municipal Corporation Ordinance to that town. Captain Wakefield appears to be fully arrive to the necessity of forming roads throughout the settlement under his care. We are com vinced, that had the same policy been pursued by the Agent of the Company here, our progress would have been far greater. The im*portance of opening up the agricultural districts appears every day more apparent. There are numbers of landholders who would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity of settling on their country sections, if roads, or if even the bush had been cleared, so that they could get to them readily. “ Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” is an old proverb, which too many of us have realised. We could point to several individuals who have been here from the establishment of the Colony, and although some of them have as many as six or seven country sections chosen, yet from the want of roads, they are unable to occupy, or let for cultivation, a single section. We are persuaded, even on the score of economy, the Company would have lost nothing by making roads through most of the districts where land has been given out, as we have been assured, upon authority which we have no reason to question, that the greater proportion of the expense of carrying provisions to the surveying party, would have been saved, had the roads been made. in the first instance, while the benefit to the Colony, by the Settlers cultivating the land thus thrown open, would have been incalculable.

We make the following extracts from the Nelson Examiner of the 25th March, and hope the Company’s Agent here will follow the example set him by the Agent of that place : ‘ ‘ The roads which the Company have made and still are making render bushliving anything but a formidable undertaking; and the excellent arrangements which have been made for the purpose of distributing a due proportion of labourers over the various districts, without at once throwing them upon their own resources, will enable capitalists, large or small, to proceed with their work of clearing, &c. ; “ The road to the Waimea, which has for some time been used by bullock-carts, is how frequented by vehicles of a lighter description. On Sunday last three parties left Nelson in light carts (one having springs), each drawn by a good horse, to pay a first visit to this interesting portion of our settlement. So good is the road, the journey can easily be made in two hours, the distance being about eleven miles. The road through the upper valley is also nearly completed, which will allow of a level drive of nearly, twenty miles through one of the most picturesque countries in the world.”

By the latest advices from China a dispute had occurred between some Lascars and Chinese, which led to a serious disturbance and three Hongs containing property and specie to a large amount were destroyed. It also appears that the inhabitants of the Island of Formosa had from their cruel treatment caused and put to death 23,7 persons, belonging to the Nerbudda, and 46 belonging to th e Ann. ———oAt the Horticultural exhibition yesterday we were glad to f observe tijat notwithstanding the long continuance of' dry"'Weather)'Vie.'jupletstand the display of flowers and Vegetables was jvery superior to any thing we could Lave imagined under the to,; np'eirthele&s, m|y cfia|Q|^jgg; c6mpetil|on',' not, excepting.-, eviep* jour mother country. Of' the vegetables; Jhe. „tur,nipE! were particularly J&ne, and a cabbage grown by Mr. James of Wade’s .Town, weighed 41$>- r . ' ———-0The Phoebe, with 35- chief cabin and 33 f fore cabin. passengers; at Nelson on Wednesday,| • tlije-r. JUtarch, having left Gravesend ,onv the , 15th of November. This is, the, first: vessel sent out by the New Zealand Company at the reduced terms

of passage; qnd, if we may judge from tlie number of passengers she has brought, the thing appeals’ likely to answer. We may now hope to ?ee capital and labour arrive, ip, due ?e- - as. wa. learn that the accounts received of New Zealand i,n England are highly favourable. But one. death occurred on board the Phoebe, although in the early part of t;he voyage she encountered a month’s bad weather. Some of the passengers come on to Wellington, with the intention of seeing both the Company’s settlements before they determine which they shall make their future abode. By the London papers, we learn that the Tyne , a private ship, was to have sailed for Nelson and Wellington in the middle of December, and that the Mary has been taken up by the Company, to sail early in January, on the same plan as that which has been adopted on board the Phoebe, with a slight advance, however, on the cabin fares, which are found to be too low. The Westminster, with emigrants for Auckland, sailed in November.

The following Remonstrance was sent to his Honor the Chief Justice on Monday evening. We are requested to apologise to those of our fellow settlers who were not afforded an opportunity of attaching their signatures, but it was thought expedient to lose no time in presenting it to his Honor : Wellington, April 3, 1843. May it please your Honor, Your Honor having, on the first instant, refused to admit Mr. Fox as a barrister of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, because he declined to make a declaration, “ That he had not, since his leaving England, done any act whereby he should be precluded from practising as a barrister-at-law in the superior courts of England;” which declaration Mr. Fox declined to make, on the ground that it was derogatory to the character of the English bar, We, the undersigned settlers at Port Nicholson, feel it our duty respectfully to remonstrate against your Honor's persisting in a decision calculated to inflict the most serious injury, not only upon this settlement, but upon the.colony of New Zealand. Deeming, as we do, the declaration in question to be most repugnant to the feelings of a gentleman, and incompatible with the duty imposed upon every barrister of upholding the dignity of his profession, we cannot but express our approval of the course pursued by Mr. Fox, and at the same time our surprise and deep regret that the exercise of such honorable feelings should be the means of depriving us of so valuable a settler. Further, when we consider that there is no precedent for such a declaration either in England or in any of her numerous colonies, and being convinced that its tendency will be to deter other members of the bar, entertaining the same sense as Mr. Fox, of what is due to themselves and their profession, from settling in the colony, and that, instead of operating as a check to the admission of disreputable members, it will rather (by excluding such men as Mr. Fox) induce them to flock to your Honor’s bar, We are still more deeply impressed with a sense, not merely of the injustice to Mr. Fox, but of the evils which will inevitably result to ourselves from the declaration being insisted upon. And it is with these feelings that we now respectfully urge upon your Honor the justice and expediency of adopting some other course more in accordance with the practise of the Courts in England and in the neighbouring Colonies, more consonant to the feelings of honourable men, and as such, better calculated to insure the respectability of your Honor’s bar, an object of paramount importance to the colonists of New Zealand. (Signed) William Wakefield, J.P., Joseph Boulcott, Henry W. Petre, Wm. Lyon, Alderman, Charles Clifford, J.P., I. Ridgway,. William Vavasour, W. H. Donald, J. E. Featherston, M.D., Charles M. Penny, Samuel Charles Brees, George Hunter, jun., Francis Skipwith, George Moore, Alfred Ludlam, James T. Hansard, M.D., C. R. Bidwell, Edward Catchpool, F. A. Molesworth, Aid., H. S. Tiffen, W. Johnston, M.D., Kenneth Bethune, I. M. Stokes, M.D., George White, J. P. G. Hunter, J.P., Mayor., Abraham. Hort, jun., AlH. S. Knowles, derman, Arthur Whitehead, F. V. Martin, George Smith, Ed. Johnson, Alderman, John Sutton, Andrew Wylie, Assistant John Wade, Alderman, Surveyor to N.Z. Co., John Dorset, Alderman, J. Woodward, James Watt, Robert Waitt, Alderman, George Scott, Alderman, William'Guyton, J.P., AlW. M. Smith, J.P., derman, Nat. Levin, Robert Park, C.E., H. S. Durie, J. D. Greenwood, S. Mocatta, J. H. Greenwood, Alfred W. Hort, Thomas M. Machattie, Samuel Revans, John Howard Wallace* Daniel Riddiford, George Samuel Evaps* E. Daniel, J.P., L.L.D., J.P., BarristerJames Jackson, at-Law, H. Moreing, J. P., W. V. Brewer, Barrister-at-James Kelham,. Law. Richard Baker,