ENGLISH EXTRACT.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 23, 15 March 1845, Page 4

ENGLISH EXTRACT.

The Colonial Office made, it turns out, many - desperate efforts to obtain fioin the New Zealand Committee a Report excusatory of its mismanagement of that colony; but in vain. Though ten out of fifteen members of the Committee were Conservatives, ten times, were the organs- of the Colonial Office, Messrs. Hope and Cardwell, sjgnally defeated in their efforts- to foist into the Report one scrap of comfort ; and once even Mr. Cardwell was so thoroughly ashamed of the office, that he left Mr. Hope "alone in his glory." The merit of this righteous condemnation of

a high department of the State, when in the wrong, is, after Lord Howick, due to the stern integrity and high honour of Lord Francis Egerton, and to the manly independence of Mr. Monckton Milnes. The Colonial Office stuck at nothing ; it boldly brought forward, in the form of resolutions, the most unblushing falsehoods, and embodied in a draft report the most monstrous mistatements ; to no purpose, however ; one by one, time after time, the Committee negatived its resolutions, and at last bodily rejected its report. Throughout its deliberations the position assumed by Messrs. Hope and Cardwell, particularly by the latter (who, by his determination to become a placeman, seems resolved to throw away all chance of becoming a statesman — far better cleave to the law, Mr. Cardwell, than the Colonial Office), was painful, and we must add not a little disgusting; however, "the hands were the hands of Esau ; but the voice was the voice of Jacob"— Theirs were the lips that moved, And the tongue that shaped the sound, But whose was the voice that was heard? As the Father of Lies spoke through the frenzied Kawlah, as spoke Stephen through Cardwell. Let us contrast a few of the allegations, resolutions, and passages in the resolutions and report proposed for adoption by the Colonial Office, and rejected by the Committee, with allegations, resolutions, and passages in the report which the Committee have presented to Parliament ; the contrast will do more to show the past misconduct of the office and Mr. Stephen's present position than anything we can write ; though we do not hold what we have written cheap. The Colonial Office first of all attempted to seduce the Committee into an admission, by implica- ; tion, that the sovereignty of New Zealand never had been in the British Crown. Mr. Cardwell moved that «• the independence of New Zealand had never been questioned by this country." Lord Howick instantly put the question of independence on its right footing by an allegation that the sovereignty "had been formally disclaimed" by the British Crown, that is, by Mr. James Stephen (vide his letter to Mr. Backhouse, in 1840); the Committee affirmed Lord Howick's acl curate statement, which involved the direct contradiction of Mr. Card well's perversion of a notorious fact, and rejected the latter gentlemau's. Disappointed Mr. Cardwell J Certain to be defeated in an attempt to gain any direct approval of the treaty of Waitangi, Mr. Cardwell endeavoured to stave off condemnation by a resolution that it was made in pursuance of instructions from home, and had obtained, when concluded, the subsequent approbation of Government. In vain ; the Committee resolved that the treaty " u-as part of a series of injudicious proceedings," which commenced by the disclaimer ot the sovereignty. Poor Mr. Cardwell ! The Colonial Office treaty being thus signally condemned, Mr. Cardwell next essayed to get the Committee to sanction its present validity ; to that there could be no objection ; but when Mr. Cardwell came to state that its effect was to vest all unoccupied laud in the natives, Lord Francis Egerton at once put him out of Court with the following resolution " That the acknowledgment by the local authorities of a right of property on the part of the natives of New Zealand, in all wild lands in these islands, after the sovereignty was assumed by her Majesty, was not essential to the true constitution of the Treaty of Waitangi, and was an error which has been productive of very injurious consequences." Unfortunate Mr. Cardwell ! A resolution was then made that the New Zealand Company " had a right to expect to be put in possession by the Government, with the least possible delay, of the number of acres awarded to it by Mr. Pennington." Mr. Hope here interposed : he was willing that the Committee should recommend this course"; but lustily did he strive and struggle against the recognition of any right in the Company ; and no less than thtee amendments did he move to omit the offensive word right ; with no better success, however, than Mr. Cardwell ', the Committee was mercileesly just ; and thrice it affirmed the Company's " right." Luckless Mr. Hope ! Nor did better luck attend Messrs. Cardwell and Hope's subsequent attempts to cover the discomfiture of Mr. Stephen ; but the contrast we have commenced is too valuable an illustration of Colonial Office misdoings and incapacity to be "used up" in one week's Bull; we have more regard for the instruction and amusement of our readers than to crowd learning or fun on them in larger batches than the can comfortably digest, so reserve the remainder for other opportunities, 'Said we not it was a rare Office ! The world cannot match it. " None but itself caabeits parallel." Scobble is ashamed of it ; and Buxton himself is disclaiming all faith in. Stephen. " Qoming events cast their riwdowa before them." — John Bull,