New Zealand Colonist TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1843.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 95, 27 June 1843, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1843.

The Gazette has chosen the present moment to enter into the discussion of the Land Claims question, and. in its paper of Saturday, lias favoured its readers with an elaborate piece of special pleading, in order to prove that the Company has no obligation, legal or moral, to take any steps to give to the persons who purchased'.under them; possession of the lands they professed to sell. We had intended to

allow this question to remain untouched for the present, but we cannot permit the article to which we refer to pass without an immediate answer. It is hardly necessary to remind our readers that the grounds upon which we 'base pur claims upon the Company are twofold; First, that they professed to have purchased land of which. they sold the possession, though without guaranteeing the title—and secondly, thdt by : means of their expenditure of the money which we had contributed, they are entitled to a grant from Government of four times the quantity of land which they are bound to convey to us. We have used the former consideration as an argument to prove that as men of honour, or men of business, as gentlemen or traders, in whichever light they desire to be regarded, they are under an obligation, without any regard to profit pr loss, to fulfil their bargain with us : and the latter, to shew that they have the means of fulfilling this bargain, and still of deriving a large profit from the transaction. In whatever point of view, therefore, their advocates would place the question, we have a right to demand, and we will insist upon, the completion of their part of the contract. The plea, however, which is now set up for the Company is of a singular character. It is not altogether devoid of ingenuity, but it is the ingenuity of an advocate retained to make the best of a bad cause, and willing for the accomplishment of his purpose to distort facts and to garble evidence so that he may make out his case. It may be stated in a very few words. The writer argues, that the Company expressly stipulated that they would not guarantee against the acts of the Crown, and stated that it was probable the Government would interfere with titles to land in New Zealand; that the Crown has interfered, and by its interference has released the Company from all obligation ; that the Natives are a tumultuous body of ignorant savages, and therefore can have no rights; and that, if the possession of land for.the purpose of cultivation is of any importance to the claimants or the colony, which the writer appears to doubt, the landowners should themselves make whatever further payments are required to satisfy the Natives. Times are indeed changed, when the advocates of the New Zealand Company can employ such arguments as these. We do not believe the Directors of that Company would themselves advance or sanction such a defence for their proceedings. But that such arguments should be put forward ontheir behalf, ought to convince everybody that it is to ourselves alone we must trust for the maintenance of our rights. We will, however, examine in detail the: grounds upon which these somewhat startling; propositions are rested, aud we trust that we • shall prove them to be utterly untenable. In order to do this, we must commence at a rather earlier period than has been selected by our contemporary, and we must treat the subjeot at a length which could only be justified by its paramount importance. We shall also consider the various branches of the subject in a slightly different order from that* in which they have been arranged by the Gazette. Our contemporary appears to have borrowed from us the opinion, that the Government ought not to have recognized any right in the Natives to land which they did not occupy; but he has so disfigured it, in order to make it pass forjhis own, as to render ithardlyrecognisable. But while we stated, as the fact is, that the Governmeiit had been led, we might almost say forced into this error by the proceedings of the Company, he would represent it as the act of ment alone, for which not l merely the Company is not responsible, but by which it has been discharged from all its obligations. He ; says — “ It is the Government which, has placed us in our present dilemma by its acknowledgment of the jndependettpe of tlie Natives; by attribfitihg the rights of civilized states to. a tumultuous body of ignorant savages—a thing utiheard' tif before in the history of Nations.” We say- 1 — If the Government has done this, it is because 'it has followed iii the track marked out' arid ; entered upon by the (Company, and it finis'done far less than the founders • of the : Company originally to the legislature iji its! fM^opr tion/ Whether, therefore, the Government Ipe

right or wrong m attributing to the New Zealanders the* rights which it has recognized, the fact of this recognition does not in ' anydegree lessen the obligation of the Gonipany, whose proceedings both ih the purchaser and in the sale 1 of lands, were founded hpon the assumed existence and validity of these rights. And our Contemporary himself appears to have an obscure and twilight conception of this truth, since in another place lie contends that the Company are released from their obligations, because the Government would not attribute to the Natives one of the rights of civilized states—that of selling their lands to whomsoever they pleased; upon the presumed existence of which right the Company had proceeded. 'We leave it to our contemporary to reconcile as he best may the contradictions ih which he has involved himself, only assuring him that with a felicity which we have often had occasion to admire in his lucubrations he has advanced two propositions of which one must be erroneous, and both are unserviceable to the cause he desires to support. Our contemporary, however, founds his main argument upon the qualification in the land orders—by which the Company excepts from its guarantee the result of any acts by the Crown. Does he know that these land orders were not issued until after the purchase from the Company had been completed, and that they formed no part of the original agreement ? Of course, upon this question, as upon all, we defer to the superior legal knowledge of our contemporary. We do not pretend to know how a court of law would look upon the matter, but we presume that the prospectus issued by the Company, under which the land was purchased, must be taken into account in any judicial construction of the agreement between the parties. And whatever may be the rule of interpretation, in a court of law, we appeal to the Directors as gentlemen, and we ask them, if they will; upon a quibble such as this, attempt to justify themselves in failing to do that to which, in the face of the whole British public, they pledged themselves ? We do not, we will not believe, until some stronger proof is offered, that they will be guilty of such a contemptible evasion. If, however, they should make the attempt, relying upon the legal acumen of our learned contemporary , we still suspect that they will find themselves deceived. For they db guarantee the purchasers against thear own acts, and surely the pretence to sell land which they had never purchased, is one of those acts for the results of which they are legally as well as morally liable. We at least are unable to attach any meaning to the guarantee, if this was not to have been included within its scope.

But if our contemporary has been infelicitous in the arguments which we have thus examined, he is still more glaringly in error in that which he founds upon the proceedings of the government, . and the arrangement which they made with the Company. In the proposals by Lord John Russell there is the following clause: — "** The Company forego and disclaim all title or existence of title to any lands purchased or acquired hy them in New Zealand, other than the lands so to be granted to them as aforesaid, and other than any lands to be purchased or acquired by them from the crown, or from persons denying title from the crown/’ Upon this our contemporary argues: —“They (the Company) gave ample warning to purchasers on the face of the land orders,” (after the purchase money had been paid) “ of the possibility of -Government interfering. It did interfere; and by the treaty of Waitangi, through which it obtained the right of pre-emption, it said to all British subjects, and the Company among the-number, ‘‘your purchases from the natives are void, and whatever land you buy in New Zealand you must buy of us!” Now a more extraordinary misconception, as a more gross misrepresentation of the plain meaning of words and actions we scarcely ever remember to have,met ,wijjh.. The Government dpes not say to the Company that :their purchases shall be void. .On the contrary, those purchases are confirmed to a very large extent —to the extent that is of four acres for every pound which they have expended* To this - extent they .are to have a i title to the lands they have or in 1 New Zealand 1 , required to forego all pretence of title to any other part

of the twenty millions of dbres : which they represented themselves to have purchased. We may remark in passing, though not xie.cessary to our argument/ that’the Governmerit,instead of avoidihg|ibbnfirmed the titleof .other purthe'same extent, imposing upon all the , sole condition of establishing the validity of their purchase before a Commissioner appointed for the purpose. Was it really necessary for our contemporary to blunder upon every point ? As if, however, he was resolved not. to make a single statement to which he did ;npt furnish the contradiction, after sneering at the ; landowners in a manner which we could hardly have expected from a person who had any stake in the settlement, or even intended to remain in it; and telling them that after' haying bought the land from the Company theyare now to pay for it to the Natives, he goes on--—“ We see however no reason why either the Company or the landowners should make any' such sacrifice. As we have already hinted, if anything is due it is due -from the Government.**, Why he had before printed the following clause in the proposals of Lord John Russell. “The Company having sold or contracted to sell lands to various persons, Her Majesty’s Government disclaim all liability for making good any such sales or contracts; it being, nevertheless, understood that the Company will from the lands so to be granted to them as aforesaid” (the lands, that is, purchased or acquired by them in New Zaland) “ fulfil and carry into effect all such their sales and contracts.” How in the face of l such a provision he can say it is the Government, and not the Company, by whom the contracts of the latter for the sales of land are to be completed does, we confess,, puzzle us not a little. We have thus examined the various arguments by which our contemporary has attempted to prove that the Company are entitled to take to themselves all the advantages which they have gained by kindly undertaking the expenditure of our money, without giving us even that which they professed to sell. And we trust that we have satisfactorily vindicated the character which we gave at first of his attempted reasonings. We have referred to none of the higher motives which should induce the Company to afford to us what would after all be a tardy and imperfect measure of justice. We feel that such considerations would be thrown away. They are not in the bond. Beyond the letter of the contract our contemporary refuses to go, and the contract itself is regarded in the same light as a lawyer might regard a deed in which he was instructed to seek for some flaw which should defeat its intended operation. We have contented our Selves with detecting the omissions and exposing the blunders with which the article in question is rife. We shall take another opportunity of restating more fully than heretofore the claims of the settlers.

We have seen the Rev. Mr. Hatfield, who yesterday arrived at Wellington, from Qtaki, where he left Rauparaha and Rangihaiata. From him we learn that the stories which have been circulated with regard to the parties who were actually concerned in- the slaughter of Mr. Thompson and Captain Wakefield are quite incorrect. It appeals that neither of the two chiefs we have named took part in the affray, and .that Rangihaiata was not on the spot when those gentlemen were put to death. The object of his visit was, we believe; to ascertain the truth of a report which had reached Otaki, that Puha, a Missionary chief, residing at Cloudy Bay, had been seized and handbufied, in order to bring him over to this place. We trust that the report is altogether without foundation, as any such step could scarcely fail to lead to retaliatory measures on the paH of the natives, which, whatever might be the ultimate resplt, would expose numbers of our defenceless : countrymen along <tbe coast to inevitable destruction. 1 • :

jWs'call attention of the Shareholders in the Colonist - ,to qn ' c; /paper of to-day convening a meeting pf the Sharehplders on Friday next. The pbject the meeting will be to determine what steps shall be taken in order to maintain the existence oftbejpaper. Although the circulation of the Colonist is larger even thap ; ye .had f ,anticipated,in our original calculations; Imd? withtlie advertisements, quite 'adequate ‘to. defray: all 'the' expenses' of i the undertaking, J knd [ even to ! yibld profit upon theycapital advanced, yet, in tne present state iPf ithe colony, it is found quite impossible

to secure any regularity of,payment. The consequence of this has been, for some time past, a constant excess of expenditure over the receipts, ivhich will speedily necessitate a suspension of the undertaking, unless some means are found of obtaining the necessary adyances.. We make no appeal to the Shareholders. It will be for them to consider whether the motives which originally induced them to advance the capital to commence the work do not exist in equal force at the preseut time, and to decide according to their deliberate conviction.

We would beg to direct the attention of the Chief Police Magistrate to the fact of persons discharging fire-arms within, the town. Last week two females were alarmed by a bullet passing close to them near Manners-street. It appeared to come from the direction of Dickson r street. We know parties who have lately suffered from their window's being broken, and otherwise annoyed, by shot falling on them, in that neighbourhood.

We have hitherto abstained from giving publicity in our columns to the various reports that have been daily circulated, respecting the Wairoa affair, for the purpose of not creating unnecessary alarm to the settlers, fully hoping that the circumstances would not turn out so alarming as our apprehensions led us to fear; but as the arrival of the Nelson Packet has pretty well confirmed the latest account that was brought in by the Mabries on Saturday last, we have ventured to lay the particulars.before the public, although we do not pledge ourselves for the correctness of it. It appears that as soon as the affray was ended, the Maories crossed the Straits to Mana and the main; that Rauparaha Was going to land at Waikanae, but was prevented by the natives of that piace, who are not on very friendly terms with him, fearing it would be the cause of disturbing the good understanding existing between them and the white people. In consequence he landed at Otaki, but has threatened to make war on the Waikanae people at some future time. It is a remarkable fact that the Natives who must from the first have been in possession of the result of the affray, should have been so cautious in giving them publicity, first stating the loss to be three or. four on each side, then seven, which was afterwards increased to twenty, and last of all forty persons. Is it that they expected we should take immediate and indiscriminate vengeance upon them, or that they hesitated to make us acquainted with such a distressing and revolting narration of the tragical melancholy scene we now have too much ground to believe is true. Five and thirty fellow creatures have been thus killed. The . dead bodies were afterwards taken by the Natives to Guard’s whaling stations at Cloudy Bay, and there left for interment. This is the best account we have been enabled to collect of this most tragical and heart-rrending affair, and. we sincerely hope that the Inhabitants of Nelson will use all due discretion on this very trying occasion, where so many are left to mourn the loss of a relative, parent, or friend..