ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 16, 25 January 1845, Page 4

ENGLISH INTELLIGENCE.

The New Zealand inquiry : Judgment against Lord Stanley: — Tne Select Committee of the Commons on New Zealand constituted a real arbitration -court, appointed to try the grave questic ns between the New Zealand Company as plaintiffs and Lord Stanley and the Colonial Office as defendants. Composed of ten Ministeral Members to five of the Opposition, the Committee could not

be supposed to feel a bias against the Minister. Fully to appreciate the remarkable character of the judgment, however, it is necessary to recollect what were the questions at issue. In 1840, Lord John Russell imposed upon the Company an "agreement," conditional to their chartered existence. The expedience of that agreement is now beyond the province of discussion ; it is a/ait accompli, to which all parties have long since grown reconciled. That agreement obliged the Company to abandon their claim to land under any title derived f«-om the natives of New Zealand ; but stipulated to grant them land at the rate of four acres for every pound sterling expended by them in a manner specified by the agreement. The New Zealand Company construed their primary right under the agreement to consist in the having .expended so much money, in modes specified and held to be useful : Lord Stanley construed their primary right to consist in proving a " valid" purchase from the natives, — although the' title as derived from the natives the Company were expressly obliged by the agreement to renounce and they were restricted to claim only under the grant from the Crown : — the Committee have decided that the Company's construction of the agreement was right. The Company claimed a certain quantity of land as accruing to them on proof of having expended a particular sum, certified by Mr. Pennington, an accountant : Lord Stanley denied the right : — the Committee have ratified the claim to Mr. Pennington's award. The Company, estimaing as slight the money-value of the title vested in the aborigines to districts of which they occupied infinitesimal parts, devised a plan for reserving lands for their future use with really augmented value, — a far-seeing policy, which contemplated the welfare of the natives in what is called " the long run " : the local officers put the natives upon demanding extravagant money-prices for land, fostering their rapacity and ignorant passions ; set up the native title in violation of Lord John Russell's agreement ; and obstructed the plan of the reserves ; Lord Stanley upholding them in all this : — the Committee say that the Company's policy towards the natives was excellent, the Government policy bad. The settlers and the Company claimed more efficient armed protection, and the right to form a militia : the local authorities withheld all but the scantiest and tardiest protection, and forebade the militia : — the Committee recommend full protection, and the formation of a militia. Besides other things specifically decided, there were several points of personal dispute between Lord Stanley with his subordinates, and the spokesmen of the New Zealand Company: — the Committee say that they will not enter upon many topics of dispute, — tacitly withholding any sanction of the Minister : it may be inferred which interest it was that dictated the forbearance of the Committee, the Minister's or the trading Company's. In short, judgment is given for the Company on every item, and against the Minister on every item. The Committee, indeed, object to one act of the Company — the original occupation , of New Zealand, in defiance of the Government's refusal to countenance it : they solemnly condemn this, as " irregular." Granting the irregularity, it may be observed th*at, without such irregularity, New Zealand would now have been in French occupation, with a world of Palmerstonian armed diplomacy to dispossess them if possible, at the risk of war. Without -" irregularity," some of the greatest colonies would never been settled. Irregularity has done much for England— obtained Magna Charta, and many other fine things. It may be well pro forma to object to the technical fault ; but the Company will scarcely be blamed out of court, for acting with a spirit of promptitude, boldness, and Enterprise, characteristic of Englishmen, though not of every English Minister. The fact is, that the Government of this great colonising country, in placidly suffering New Zealand to slip through its fingers, forgot its duty ; it defied the public appeals that called it to that duty ; the "energy of the country would not suffer so great a loss ; and thus was the Company forced into existence, and into action. The " irregularity" of the Company consisted in doing what the Governmeni ought to have done, but ignorantly neglected,' or more blameably refused to undertake. And at all events, that question was not at issue between the litigants in the present suit. The consequences of the judgment in this case will be very important. It ought to have the effect of totally reforming the policy, if not of altering the composition, of the Colonial branch of our Government. It wilL have the effect of restoring public confidence in the Company, — a small matter regarding them* only as a chartered body of profit-seeking; shareholders, but a most important thing re- - garding them as the great colonising instrument for New Zealand. It will dispel a dark cloud that obscured the state of affairs in England to the view of the colonists, and to make some of them waver in the trust which they

had reposed in their natural friends at home. Under the ban of the Colonial Office, all enterprise was arrested here — checked even in the colony : a Parliamentary Committee has pronounced that ban to have been bad and illegal from first to last. — Spectator.

The New Zealand Company and Mr. Stephen. — It is impossible that the Colonial Office can remain in the state in which it is after the report of the New Zealand Committee. For what does this invaluable docu - ment prove ? Why, that four successive Secretaries of State for the Colonies have committed such a series of wilful blunders or ignorant enormities as have nearly deprived the British Crown of the New Zealand islands — as have violated a fundamental maxim of colonial law — as have almost ruined the colonizing Company which commenced their systematic settlement — and as have stirred up the natives to acts of hostilities, outrage, and murder against British subjects. First of all the report proves that Lord Glenelg repudiated the sovereignty of England over islands which were hers by priority of discovery, by acts of occupation, by settlement, and by legislation. Secondly, it shows that Lord Normanby, out of spite of the New Zealand Company, whose enterprise he could not cheek, sent out Captain Hobson to obtain by cession an independence which had no lawful existence, and to foist into the treaty of cession, terms which were calculated to neutralize and destroy its effects. Thirdly, it demonstrates that Lord John Russell advised his sovereign to confirm and to act on a treaty which, by its stipulations, deprived her Majesty and her subjects of rights inalienable by any other operation. And lastly, it leaves, no doubt that Lord Stanley refused to correct the errors of his predecessors' policy, and by his own acts aggravated the disastrous results of that policy. Here, then, we find four Ministers of the crown in rapid succession pursuing, with unabated ardour, the same policy, and that policy evidently part of one great scheme. Here, then, we discover a monotony of mischief — a sameness of maleficent intelligence —an identity of evil design. The inference is irresistible, that these four Ministers were puppets in the bands of ot»e and the same person — were under the direction of one and the same master — were mere agents of one and the same enormous, frightful — is it possible, intentional ? — blunderer — who was, as we have over and over again shown, Mr. Undersecretary James Stephen. Now, however convenient it may be for lazy, careless, or ignorant Secretaries of State to have their duties fulfilled, and their business transacted by an Under-Secretary of State, whose labours are invariably crowned with success, whose handiwork invariably procures them easily earned fame and reputation, whose astute habits conquer every difficulty, and beat down all opposition ; nothing can be more inconvenient than for such Secretaries of State to be suddenly aroused from their dream, to be awoke from their slumbers by universal outcries, from east and west, from north and south, that their confidence, so reposed in the Under-Se-cretary, has been every where abused — that in America, Australia, Africa and Asia, a series of unheard-of blunders have been perpetrated by him — that their characters are endangered by his general want of success — that the Administration of which they are members is irfjured in public estimation by the foul state of Colonial Office in which he has been permitted to reign supreme, and by the disastrous prospects of the Colonies he has been allowed to sway. Yet such are at present the relative positions of Lord Stanley and Mr. James Stepheu. The latter now stands before the former and the country, stripped of all his trickery, of all his cunning, of all his pretensions to statemanship, of even the last rag of success ; the cause, the sole, the only cause of the" exposures which have taken place — of the evils that have occurred — of the discredit which has fallen on Lord Stanley. He cannot remain in the Colonial Office ; he will not remain. Mr. Stephen's retirement is inevitable — is certain ; his fall may be broken ere he leaches his congenial earth ; but even now he is fallen — going, going — gone. There is no necessity to disgrace him, though he richly deserves disgrace ; let him be thrust forth gently — considerately — kindly; let him be paid and pensioned ; let him be knighted and petted ; let his feelings be spared ; .but let us — get rid of him. His voluntary resignation is worth £2,000 a-year ; don't haggle then about terms — let him, if it be requisite, be tempted to quite a post he never should have been appointed to, and leave an office which he found respected and honoured, but which he will leave despised and disgraced. Mr. James Stephen may remain a few months longer in office ; but his retirement is no longer a matter of doubt; the only question is, how it can be creditably effected. Of the Report which ia the immediate cause of his downfall, more hereafter. — John Bull.