AFFAIRS OF NEW ZEALAND. [From the Spectator.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 41, 19 July 1845, Page 4

AFFAIRS OF NEW ZEALAND. [From the Spectator.]

When a Governor was sent out from this country to New Zealand, it was understood that lie was to act in the interest of his paymasters, the people of this country — to set matters in better order, and to govern the colony — to administer British law, and make the territory available for British colonization. From the newspapers and letters which have been received this week, it appears that Captain Fitzroy's conduct has been the veiy opposite ; that he has acted, not as an agent for the British Government in the interest of the settlers at the colony and the great emigrating class in Britain, but as an agent for wwcolonizing New Zealand — for rendering it back to sevenfold anarch) r , and, under a pretence of " protection" for the aborigines, preparing a state of things and provoking a state of feeling under which the aborigines will inevitably be swept away, root and branch. It will be remembered that a band of natives had committed very violent and gross outrages on the Bay of Islands town of Russell, which they held in possession four days ; and that ! Captain Fitzvoy had sent for troops from New j South Wales to quell the outbreak. The trbpjps arrived, but he made no use of them. On the contrary, contenting himself with a written apology, and the empty tribute of ten guns in token of submission — which he returned — he abolished the custom-duties in the Bay of Isiands, to please those same marauders 1 and be it borne in mind, that when he made this concession to savage violence, his treasury was so insolvent that he had resorted to the expedient of deluging the colony with assignats ; and that the Cook's Straits, settlements, where the cus- \ toms are continued, were already suffering from J the unequal . burden of taxes chiefly raised at Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth, but ! spent mostly at Auckland. Captain Fitzroy has done yet more : undertaking to settle disputes about land between natives and settlers in the Company's territory, he has reversed the decisions of the Government Commissioner of Land Claims — has told the natives that they need not observe bargains which they confessed to having made, and has thus practically annulled the great social right of property. Yet again : he has broadly exempted the natives from British law, while no other law is established in its place. The Colonial Gazette gives utterance to the question that naturally arises, is the man mad? Poor Captain Hobson was seized with paralysis soon after his assumption of the Government of New Zealand; and it does look as if Captain Fitzroy's senses were gone. For all his monstrous " concessions" to savage murderers and robbers, he has nothing to show.; he has obtained no profit or advantage to set against the 130,000/., and odd, which New Zealand has cost in three years, and which has been paid out of British taxation, — rather too large a subsidy to Exeter Hall for Anti-Colonial objects. It it is iraposible that Sir Robert Peel's Government can suffer such a state of matters to -continue. [From the Liverpool Albion.} Mr. Somes has obtained a footing in the lower house, and from the ministerial benches Lord Stanley and his compeers at the Colonial-office will receive their castigation. Fortified by the report of the late-select committee, the governor of the New Zealand Company will be enabled to approach his subjects with the boldness of conscious rectitude, injured prospects, and acknowledged injustice. It is not a party question — it is not a mere political movement. No : it must be a bold demand for justice on behalf, not of a mere speculating company of merchants, but of a numerous and respectable body of our fellow-countrymen, who, placing faith in the distinct and defined agreement of the executive with a respectable i - ecognised legal company, departed from the shores of their native land to plant the standard of British enterprise at the antipodes. But the good faith of England was neither respected by officials, to whom were committed the task of carrying out the intentions of the then executive, nor by the present authorities at the Colonial-office. Unable to get possession of any considerable portion of the lands guaranteed to them by royal charter in the proportion of four acres for every pound sterling expended by the company in the purposes of emigration, they were debarred from fulfilling the conditions under which they had disposed of extensive tracts of land. The purchasers were compelled to remain for years, and most of them are still, without possession. Prevented

from fulfilling the intentions with which they. sought those distant shores, the too confiding reliers on British faith have departed whilst they could to push their fortunes in other lands, or are now lingering in poverty and want on the shores of New Zealand. The functions of the principal officers of the various departments, confided to improper persons, have been made use of to advance the interests of private parties by aiding them in land speculations and rewarding their abettors in those unjust and iniquitous practices. The late acting governor, in defiance of prohibitions to the contrary, took advantage of his position to obtain, at a price far below the marketable value, an allotment of ground in Auckland, the capital, and in a few days disposed of it for £1,200, being an advance of 400 per cent. The chief-protector, a Mr. Clarke* an ex- missionary catechist, followed the example.* of his superior, but on a more extensive scale. His ability to commit wrong was greater, owing to his peculiar position and his influence over the aborigines. That influence and that position have been made use of for the purpose of effecting personal purchases from the natives of considerable tracts of land, and, in return, assisting them in opposing the just claims of the company and others, as well as instilling into their minds superlative ideas of their own importance, which has induced, as a necessary consequence, the most absurd pretensions on j the part of the aboriginal population. That feeling has been gradually settling down into a. confirmed belief in separate and adverse interests on the part of both white and black, sa that the ideas thus assiduously instilled into the retentive minds of the New Zealanders have already been fraught with most serious consequences, the massacre of Wairau, the consequent impunity on this score enjoyed by the murderers, their increased boldness and self-reliance. ! But this is not all. Consequences, the results of negligence, misgovernment, and supineness j of the most fearful description, threaten the settlers of New Zealand. The bold and warlike j chiefs of these islands are not the men to submit, without a fierce and bloody struggle, to what they have been taught by our own interested and dishonest officials to consider unjust. The bravery, powerful frames, and considerable skill in the use of fire-arms, of their followers, present a barrier that will, before long, be opposed to the colonisation of New Zealand, and which British bayonets will have some difficulty Ito overcome. Former opinions have passed away before the blighting influence of self-inte-rested men. Esteem and respect have given ! way to hatred and contempt; friendship to anger and detestation. Dormant savage passions have j been roused by the establishment of those feelings, and, under the excitation of cupidity, the manly front of the New Zealander already lowers and threatens vengeance on the suffering settler and his unhappy family. The officers of the government have raised this storm of passion ; J have alienated from us the affections of upwards j of 100,000 bold and well-disposed hearts; have j endangered the very existence of our authority over the most valuable islands of the great Pacific. Can they now peaceably allay the first. j restore the second, and insure the latter. No, ! they cannot. ~ British blood- and British gold j may with difficulty secure possession, but not i induce affection or allay savage passion. The blood of the colonists may yet be plentifully i poured out, to wash away the effects of wilful misgovernment. The red tomahawk of the islander will gleam in the towns ; the report of death-dealing firearms reverberate through the hills of New Zealand, and the extinction in a great measure of her aboriginal population take place, before peace can be restored to its distracted shores. Out of the entire sum raised for colonial purposes in three years from the first official settlement of New Zealand, acknowledged to be upwards of £135,000, upwards of £90,000 went to pay the salaries of speculating public officers. This, however, is not all. In. consequence of long-continued mal-practices in New Zealand, the credit of the Colonial-office was reduced from above par to 15 per cent, below it, which was the rate paid by Mr. Shortland for the discount of drafts, on home, besides promising to give collateral security, by means of debentures, on the revenue of the colony. With a surface exceeding that of the united British Isles, New Zealand possesses an unequalled position in the southern hemisphere, owing to her vicinity to the Australian continent and the other Pacific Islands. Her natural resources of every description are abundant ; her coasts indented with splendid harbours, in which the South Sea whalers, of all nations, find refuge and refreshment, present a nucleus from whence, in the hour of need, the fleets of Britain might command the destinies of valuable countries, millions of human beings, and most extensive commercial relations. We should hope that those considerations are too important to be neglected, and that the persons under whose auspices such considerable private and public wrong has been effected, will be taught to know that the interests confided to them by t>e public must not be prostituted to private^purposes, and political jobbing.