New Zealand Spectator AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, March 22, 1845.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 24, 22 March 1845, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, March 22, 1845.

One of the unfailing tests of the fitness of a Governor for his office is his management of financial affairs. Other questions may admit of a difference of opinion, when, as Sir Roger de Coverley was wont to observe on such occasions, " much may be said on both sides ; '' but an appeal to the pocket comes home to every one. Every man who is subject to the payment of a new tax, immediately begins to question its expediency, and to inquire ■whether it is partial in its operation, or oppressive in its tendency ; how it affects him, and why it effects him more than another. The way in which the revenue necessary to defray the expence of his Government is to be raised, is thus, as we have said, the test of a Governor's capacity, it is his pons asinnrum, he must either pass over or break down. We therefore make no apology for returning to the discussion of the proposed amendment of the Property Rate and the bill for licensing General Dealers, because the measures affect the interests of this settlement very materially, and because we have no other means of offering opposition to them except through the press. The Legislative Council is not only at Auckland; but of Auckland, thsre is no longer any representative in the Council of the interests and opinions of the settlements in Cook's Straits, of a population amounting to 10,000 persons who contribute the chief amount of the revenue of the colony. By not sending any member to the Council, we protest generally in the strongest manner against Captain Fitzroy's acts, but it is necessary that on every occasion we should remonstrate against such acts as are prejudi • cial to our interests, lest our silence be construed to imply acquiescene. The proposed property Rate Amendment Bill begins by stating that it is expedient to raise the amount of the rate and composition, and that after the Ist of "November next, the rate to be paid shall be according to the following scale : — £25 £0 50 1 100 2 200 4 300 6 400 8 500 10 600 12 700 14 800 16 900 w 18 3000 ...'• 20 IWO 22 1200 24 1300 26 1400 28 1500 30 And upwards at two per centum. And fixes the amount of composition at £20 We may, in passing, notice the absurdity of continuing the scale above the amount of the composition, as if any one would ] choose to pay £30 when he can compound for £20, and proceed to state the effect of the amendment which is to double the amount exacted from each individual under the present act. The Governor wants our money and is determined to have it, and therefore any pretext will serve. We will say nothing of the justness of the measure, but confine ourselves for the present to the consideration of its expediency. It will not be disputed that direct taxation, under any circumstances, is always the most oppressive way of ndsing a revenue, and is never resorted to except on extraordinary occasions. It was only in the height of a war for the support of which the utmost energies and credit of our country were exerted, that Mr. Pitt ventured to propose a property tax. Here, before we are allowed to call our property our own, before the Government will even give us a title to our land, or permit us to use it for obtaining the means of exist-

ence, we are taxed not only on the amount of our income but of our property also. The law has hardly been in operation three months, people have not time to form an opinion on its probable effects, have hardly time to make a return under the Ordinance, before Captain Fitzroy changes his mind and proposes to double the amount of the tax. What security have we that, as soon as the amended rate becomes law, he may not change his mind again, and amend it by increasing the rate, since every month increases his difficulties and makes him more clamorous for money ? But the amended tax is highly inexpedient as we shall shortly shew. The present tax was submitted to, because some contribution must be made to defray the expences of the Government, and the colonists were heartily desirous of supporting Capttain Fitzroy in his experiment of abolishing the Customs, but they felt that the amount to be raised was as much as they could possibly afford. The account of the revenue collected in Wellington, (which was published in our last number,) will afford satisfactory evidence of the state to which the settlers ai*e reduced by the previous policy of the Government in withholding protection from them, and compelling them to live on their capital by preventing the occupation of the land. In 1 842, the amount of revenue was for the year £8,967, in the very next year 1843, the amount was only £6,538, there is a falling off of £2,429, or almost a third of the amount collected the previous year ; in 1844, if we suppose the two last quarters of the year to have amounted to the same as the corresponding quarters of 1843, which is too favourable a supposition, there would be a deficiency of £792 as compared with the amount collected for that year, or £3,221 as compared with the amount collected in 1842. Can any facts show more clearly the state of the colony. And what has Captain Fitzroy done to remove the evils from which we have been suffering ? Nothing ; worse than nothing. The land question is as far from being settled as ever, our best land (the valley of the Hutt) the natives hold in defiance of the Government, onr pi^operty is daily decreasing in value, but our taxes are increased. Our stores are empty, but we must pay 2 per cent, on their value, — many bonded stores were built from which, by the abolishment of the Customs, owners now receive little or no return on the capital invested, still they must be taxed for them. In the same way many other instances might be given in which capital has been invested, on the expectation that Government would eventually adopt a wise and consistent policy, when the investment would have yielded a profitable return, but the property is so depreciated as to be nearly valueless, but nevertheless it is taxed. It is possible that Captain Fitzroy may issue Crown grants to our lands, to afford a pretext for taxing them. But does he suppose that merely issuing a Crown grant will confer immediate value on them ? Without roads the land must remain unproductive to the owner, who, while receives no return from it, will be expected to pay an annual tax of 2 per cent, on its estimated value. But the case of those engaged in trade is infinitely worse ; they are not only subject to the tax on their fixed capital, but also to the enactments of the General Dealers Bill. We have had the opportunity of looking over the provisions of this Act, which agree with the^ description we have previously given of them . The only important alteration is the penalty for making a false return which is £50 for the first offence, and £100 for the second offence, with disqualification for holding a license for the space of twelve calendar months. Why ! the penalty of one hundred pounds to be recovered in a summary way must inevitably ruin any one on whom it is attempted to be inflicted. We find also that it is lawful to compound for the year, for twenty pound 6 , but as the quarterly payments are fixed according to the schedule at £6, when the amount of goods sold is under £200, any one who, as agent or consignee, disposes of £800 of goods during the year, must pay £22 to Government for the privilege of trading, and, if the compounds under the amended property rate, he must pay £20 more. - So that a person acting as agent in the sale of goods, and having a capital to the amount of £1,000 locked up in buildings a,nd other

fixed property, is expected to pay £42 a year in direct taxation. Can anything be more monstrous? His Excellency, like Moliere's doctor, has only one set of remedies, whatever may be the state of the patient. However extreme the depletion, when another practitioner would apply restoratives, and nourishment, his only notion is — _ Clysterium donare, Postea seignare, Ensuita purgare. If the patient gets rapidly worse, and is reduced to the last extremity — still our state doctor has no other remedy — Reseignare, repurgare, et reclysterisare — Tax them, only tax them, appears to be his governing principle, — his infallible specific.

His Excellency appears to have hit upon a very ingenious method " of raising the wind," though, as to its honesty, the less said, perhaps the better. We need scarcely say, we allude to the bills which for some time past, he has been drawing upon the Lords of the Treasury, amounting now, we believe, to between one and two thousand pounds. These bills are printed and are worded thus — Government House, Jan. -r 1845. No.' Special At thirty days after sight of this my first of Exchange (2nd and 3rd of the same tenor and date unpaid) Pay to the order of Alexander Shepherd, Esq., Colonial Treasurer, the sum of pounds at par sterling for defraying expenses arising from the suspension of the New Zealand Company's operations, as authorized by a despatch from Her Majesty's Principal Sectetary of State for the Colonies, dated April 4th, 1844. (Signed) Robert Fitzroy, Governor. To the Right Hon. the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury. Now we have no hesitation in at once denying, that these Bills are drawn for "expenses arising from the suspension of the New Zealand Company's operations " ; and at the same time we caunot refrain from expressing very strong suspicions, that they are not authorised by any despatch from Lord Stanley to Cap tain Fitzroy. What expenditure has the Local Government incurred, since it received intelligence of the Company having suspended their operations ? At Wellington, some trifling improvements have been made in Lambtonquay, and in one or two other thoroughfares, involving an outlay of £60 or £70 ; but the local authorities had agreed and arranged to make these repairs, some time before the news arrived of the crisis in the Company's affairs. Moreover, the revenue collected here during the last Y ear » nas not been less than £5,333 (viz. — from the Customs £3,933 — from the Property and Income tax £250 — from Licenses, Court fees, &c, about £1,200,) while the Government expenditure (the officials only receiving half their salaries) has been under £5,000, leaving a balance of some hundreds in favour of this settlement. At Nelson the Government Representative has only been authorised to spend one hundred pounds in employing the labourers out of work. We have unfortunately no accounts of the Revenue collected there during the past year, but we feel tolerably certain, that it has been fully equal to the expenditure ; so that, beariug in mind, the order conveyed in the Treasury Minute of March the 10th, 1843, "that the Revenue raised in the different settlements was to be strictly applied to local purposes," it is quite clem, that in these two settlements, no necessity has arisen to justify Captain Fitzroy in drawing bills upon the Home Government "to defray expences arising from the suspension of the Company's operations." We come now to Taranaki, and we affirm, without fear of contradiction, that if Mr. Spain's award had been carried out by the Governor, there would have been a deficiency rather than a surplus of labour in that settlement. The distress which has recently prevailed amongst the working class there, is solely and entirely attributable to Mr. Forsaith and Captain Fitzroy having by their interference, prevented the land owners pursuing their agricultural operations. Any Bills therefore drawn for the purpose of relieving those thrown out of employment by the reversal of Mr. Spain's decision, or for compensating the settlers whom his Excellency thus compelled to abandon their sections, ought to have been headed " for defraying expences arising from the reversal of Mr. Spain's award." Again, Bills drawn for the expences incurred by carrying off 60 emigrants to Auckland, and locating them there, ought to have been stated to be " for defrayexpences arising from crimping the-Company's settlers," a practice severely condemned by Lord Stanley in a despatch to Capt. Hobson, dated June 1842. We maintain then that the local Governmen has not incurred any expense from the suspension of the Company's operations, but that all these bills have been drawn to meet the heavy expenditure in which

the Governor has involved himself, by his infamous attempts to crush and break up the settlements in Cook's Straits. We need not now go into the question of whether in drawing these Bills, Captain Fitzroy has not been obtaining money Under false pretencetf, as it must of necessity become a subject of discussion (if not of legal inquiry) when they are returned protested. With respect to his Excellency's statement that they are authorized by a despatch from her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, we must be permitted to doubt its truth, until the despatch is made public. We know indeed that in a letter dated April 4, 1844, addressed by Mr. Hope to Mr. Somes, after alluding to the Company having ceased their colonizing operations, Mr. Hope says, " Lord Stanley can only hope that Captain Fitzroy, with whom there is now no time to communicate before the crisis arrives, will on his own responsibility, take such steps as may be necessary, and within his power for" relieving the distresses which will have been caused to the settlers." Is it possible that this letter is the despatch mentioned in the Bills ? that this extract constitutes the only authority to draw, yet received by Captain Fitzroy ! His Excellency can alone answer this inquiry ; but taking into consideration, that the Lords of the Treasury ordered every possible publicity to be given to their minute of March 1843, forbidding the Governor to draw, without the express sanction of the Home Government, — that no despatch giving this sanction has yet been published by his Excellency, —^hat he has repeatedly declared that he had no such power; — that Mr. Hope's letter to Mr. Somes, is dated the 4th of April, 1 844, the date mentioned in the bills, — that it is not stated in the bills to whom the despatch was addressed, — that the letter together with the other correspondence which passed at that time between the Company and the Colonial Office, was transmitted to Captain Fitzroy under a despatch dated April 18, 1844 ; and that even this despatch gave no permission to draw; — taking we say all these facts into consideration, we confess that we cannot come to any other conclusion, than that Captain Fitzroy has converted Mr. Hope's letter to Mr. Somes, into a despatch from her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, and has been pleased to construe the extract we have quoted, into a permission to draw upon the Home Government. But as such a proceeding would render his Excellency' liable to the serious charge of practising fraud and deception^ we forbear making any further comments upon it, until we are satisfied that our suspicions are well founded. We trust, however, that no time will be lost in bringing the subject before the Legislative Council, and in calling upon Captain J>'itzroy to produce and publish the despatch authorizing these bills.

Bt private letters we have some amusing accounts of the warlike proceedings in the north. It appears that the Governor being determined to have a Flag-staff at the Bay of Islands in spite of John Heki, entered into a contract with a carpenter of that place to erect one, (we believe the fourth.) The man had got his spar in readiness, a block-bouse was built, and the Hazard moored within range to defend it All being thus prepared a party went in state to take possession of the intrenchments and to erect tne staff, but on attaining to the top of the hill they found to their consternation that the staff had again, vanished. There was an, immediate cty that "John Heki was upon them," but on the panic being alittle allayed and inquiries instituted, it turned out that a venerable old chief in the neighbourhood, having ascertained that he had been born under the tree from which the spar had been made, concurred that if it was erected Heki would certainly cut it down, and he (the old chief) would as infallibly die, so to avert these dire consequences he quitely walked off with it to his own pah, where he guards it with the most scrupulous care. Since then the Governor being determined that maori feeling should be no further outraged has bought the mizen-mast of a Chilian man-of-war lying in the harbour, to erect as a flagstaff, being morally certain that no native of New Zealand can have been born under the tree that it was made from. In the meantime the troops having nothing to defend and not relishing the cool air of the flag-staff hill, dispersed into cantonments. When lo ! at night the whole; town of Russel was aroused from its slumbers by the report of a musket from the fatal hill. A shell lursting in a magazine could hardly have caused more terror and alarm to the surrounding Jieighbourhood, and it was soon evident i hat the worthy inhabitants had determined not to be murdered In their beds. Luckily for them a gallant officer of the Hazard happened to be on shore, and having his wits about him, thought the best way

would be at once to ascertain the cause of the alarm, so collecting a party of his men he quietly walked off in search of the enemy. On getting half-way up the mountain he came' to a maori vrarre, in which were a party of natives, by one of whom he ascertained the shot Tiad been fired. Accordingly placing his men, the gallant officer walked in by himself, having easily forced the door, with a drawn ship's cutlass he collored a man with a discharged musket, and hauled him out from his friends, six in number. The fellow then confessed that he had fired off his piece by way of a laik, or to salute a friend, as he said, somewhere on the hill. The gallant officer not having the same zest for the waggish propensities of -the natives as our worthy Governor, and thinking it no joke to be brought out of bed at midnight, informed his maori friend that he would give him a salute and accordingly having the man seized up, sccundum artem gave him four dozen with a pointed ropes end, with his own hand, on so tender a part as to prevent the gentleman sitting down for the whole of the next day. On this being reported to the Governor we understand he sent the Chief Protector to condole with the poor man, and to recommend him to bring an action for assault against the officer of the Hazard, but unfortunately this was the only consolation he got for the raaories only laughed at him and said it served him right. We hear in addition that John Heki had seat word that as soon as the new flag-staff was erected, he should come down and try the strength of the block-house and its guard. The worst we wish him is that he may fall in the way of the gallant officer who showed himself such a proficient with a ropes end. We shall then hear no more of him and his absurdities. But we much fear that the Governor will still step in at the last moment to prevent the troops being used for any useful purpose. .

We have received the most contradictoryreports respecting Taruia's visit to Manawatu, and his alledged massacre of the natives at the pah Patea. The account which we inserted in a previous number, was received from a letter addressed by the Chiefs at Waikanai to the Missionaries here. Mr* Forsaith, however, who went for the express object of inquiring into this affair, has assured us that no such event has taken place. The report appears to have originated from the natives having been for some time past, in expectation of Taruia making them a hostile visit, and from three natives having fled to Waikanai from Patea, on seeing a number of strange natives whom they believed to be Taruia's tribe approaching the pah.

We find that we were in error in our leading article of the week before last, on the subject of Major Richmond's double pay as a soldier and a civilian. We said that he had been receiving " hdlf-pay " as well as his salary as Superintendent, whereas it ought to have been <f full pay." We ought also to explain, that their is an officer in the Lutherian Church called " a Superintendent," whose duty it is to see that divine service is properly performed, so that our derivation of his Honor's designation was grammatically correct.

Bibth. — At Lambton-quay, Wellington, on the 19th March, the wife of Mr. E. Stafford, tailor, of a son.

Wb have received files of the Southern Cross to a late date. The Editor tries to raise the sinking spirits of the Governor by quoting in his favour the petition and letter of a Mr. Cobham, the proprietor of a coffee house in Newgate-street, and a garbled extract from the Times. We ' recommend to his attention the following extract from that Journal as more german to the matter. — Ev.NIZ.S. " The interesting Colony of New Zealand is in a position from which it must be rescued without delay, if it be not already too late to obviate the fatal consequences of the almost incredible mismanagement which has brought affairs to their present crisis. "An enterprising, energetic population of British Colonists with labour in abundance, capital sufficient for its necessities, and every element for the immediate constitution of a thriving community, had been established at one extremity of an island many hundred miles in length. The Governor, whose almost sole business was to rule these men and to bring about their peaceable amalgamation with the aboriginal inhabitants, fixed himself, and remained for eighteen months as immove.able as King Log, at the opposite end. Then, the prime requsite of a new settlement being land on which to dwell, and from which to raise the necessaries of life, no intelligence

has yet reached this country that a single acre has been allotted to colonists who left England in 1839, and who have been compelled to subsist, during the long interval, almost exclusively upon their capital largely employed, in one of the most genial climates and fertile soils under the sun, in importing flour from Valparaiso. " A country, the aggregate area of which is about equal to that of Great Britain, has a native population which has reduced itself, by wars of extermination and other savage practices, to about 100,000 souls, who live in abundance by cultivating in the wildest possible manner, not a thousandth part of its surface. The effect of the measures of the local authorities, encouraged in their impolicy by the lords of misrule at the Colonial Office, has been to divide the whole population of the islands into three bodies — the Government, the British settlers, and the natives — which but for the grossest mismanagement, if only, indeed, the second and third had been let alone in any tolerable degree, would have lived and co-operated with the utmost harmony and to the best possible effect : but which are now arrayed each against the other in the most deadly hostility. The massacre of the Wairau is already too well known. It is more than probable that the next mail will bring an account of further bloody collision between the races. Even if this extreme of mischief be staved off by the great forbearance and the respect for the laws, however partially administered, displayed by the British settlers, what has been done towards generating a spirit of animosity between the colonists and the aborigines, is, we greatly fear, irremmediable. Bad blood and troubles extending over many yeors, and scarcely ever to be allayed, it is now hopeless to avoid. " Thus the fairest prospect which circumstance have ever afforded of trying the great experiment, whether successful colonization of a wild country by civilized men, and conversion to Christianity of barbarous aboriginal tribes may not be simultaneously carried on, has been wilfully clouded for ' years, if not absolutely ruined. And for what object has this great sacrifice of advantages absolutely within the grasp of the the Colonial Minister, been made ? Solely with a view to traverse the schemes of the New Zealand Company, to prevent it from achieving too great success in carrying out the novel principles of colonization which owe their origin to its principal adnuinstrator, and to hinder its chief settlement from being in name, as it is and must be in fact, the capital of the colony. "We have given a rough estimate of the area and n.tive population of New Zealand. The people are agricultural ; they have neither flocks nor herds ; and, having nothing to hunt except ra s and the progeny of the pigs given to their ancestors by Captain Cook, they do not ivant wide tracts, like the red ! men of North America, to support themselves from the produce of the chase. It is believed that nine hundred and ninety-nine out of ever thousand acres are in a state of nature. Will it be thought possible that the local Government has been supported by the Colonial Office in determing that the whole of the enormous area in question is to be regarded as the property of the aboriginies, who do not and cannot occupy a thousandth part of it, in the same sense as the domain of Knowsley is the property -of the Earl of Derby ; that not an acre of it, from low-water mark to the highest mountain ridges, can. be made available for colonization until purchased from the natives ; and that, by the most preverse ingenuity in mischief, even such purchases have been delayed by litigous investigations interposed until illegitimate colonization having made some progress, the aborigines have been made aware of the value which British capital and labour are capable of giving to the wastes, which but for their access would never have been trodden by human foot? Consequently they now measure the demands which they have been taught to make, not by the value of their forests, from which they and there forefathers have never derived the smallest advantage, but the neat and commodious dwellings, the well-stocked homesteads, and the smiling harvests of those of the colonists who have been bold enough to enter upon their arduous labours without any other title to their lands than that sacred one of the first useful occupation. " The chiefs have shown themselves no respectors of persons. They have begun to demand second payments from the Government itself, coupled with a notice that they intend to be * dangerous ' if the requisition be not complied with. And it is stated in one of the most recent letters from Auckland, that the lady of Governor Fitzroy has thought it prudent to take refuge on board ship from the danger of a ' raid ' upon Auckland. This comes of playing with edged tools. " This is a brief and very imperfect representation of the flagrant injustice with which the colonists of Mew Zealand, in connection

with the Company, have been treated by the local Government and the Colonial-office in respect to the land title question — laad to which the Tory Committee of the House of Commons has resolved that the Company has an absolute claim of right, under their agreement with Lord John Russell, as against the estate of the Crown. Yet these colonists have not deserved ill of their country, and in regard to every matter in which they have depended upon their own exertions, their success has been complete."