PETITION OF THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. [Presented by Joseph Somes, Esq., M. P., April 16, 1845.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 62, 13 December 1845, Page 4

PETITION OF THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. [Presented by Joseph Somes, Esq., M. P., April 16, 1845.]

7. The conditions of the agreement of November, 1 340, were, tbat an estimate, of our previous outlay, under certain enumerated heads, should be prepared by a Government accountant; that "when" so prepared, -we should.be secured by, a Crown grant, under the public seal, in four t ; mes as many acres of land as the pounds sterling we should be found to have expended in the manner and for the purposes stated; that these lands should be taken " in that part of the colony at which our settlement had been formed, and to which we had laid claim' in Virtue of contracts made with the natives and others;" that they should " comprise all tracts to which any persons had derived title through us ;" and tbat we did therein " forego and disclaim" [not assign and Itansfer to the Crown] " all title or pretence of title to any lands purchased or acquired by us ether than the lands so to be granted," and i held mediately or immediately from the Crown.

The intention obviously was, thatthe power of conferring titles to land should be acknowledged to reside, undividedly in the Crown, in contradistinction to the natives ; that, our equitable rights being respected, we should be secured by -titles from the Crown in possession of the settlement which we had established, and the lands we had already sold to others ; and that, in determining the extent of land, so to be secured to us, the amount of our previous expenditure on public objects should be admitted as payment thereof. The heads of expenditure to be so admitted were defined as being " in the purchase of lands in New Zealand, from the native chiefs and others in the taking up, chartering, and despatching ships for-the conveyance of emigrants thither.; in the maintenance of such emigrants before and during the outward voyage.; in the purchase and transmission of stores for the public use of the settlers collectively on their arrival; in surveys ; in the erection of build* ings, or the execution of other works dedicated exclusively to the public service of the settle- ] meat; and in other heads of expenditure or, absolute liabilities unavoidably required or reasonably incurred for the before-mentioned j purposes.*' •) 8. On the 2d December, 1840, we received information, which had been expressly withheld until our acceptance of this agreement should be formally notified, of " the general principles by which the Crown proposed to be guided in its measures" [not towaids us, but} " for the government and colonisation of New Zealand;" aud, as a part of these, it was then officially mentioned for the first time, in the Under-Secretary of State's letter of that date, that " with regard to all lands in the colony acquired under any other title than that of grants made in the name and on the behalf ot her Majesty, it was proposed that the titles of the claimants should be subjected to the investigation of a commission to be constituted for that purpose. 11 On our proving the first portion of our ex- i penditure, Lord John Russell, on the 20th May, ' , 1841, addressed the Governor of the colony, | Captain Hobson, to the following effect : — j " The result of his (Mr. Pennington's) investigation you will perceive to be, that under such arrangement, the Company are entitled tore-; jceive five hundred and thirty-one thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine acres of land, at pre- 1 sent, and that they may hereafter be entitled to a further portion of between.iour and five hundred thousand acres. You will therefore make the necessary assignments of land to the agents of the Company, in pursuance of the terms of the agreement." t~9. But in>January,*lB4l, prior to receiving j information of that agreement, in ignorance both of its existence and of the charter erecting j New Zealand into a separate colony, and in obedience to an enactment of the Legislature of New South Wales, under whose jurisdiction New Zealand wai still supposed to be, our a^ent had forwarded to Sir George Gipps, in Sydney, a statement of the claims of the Company to the lands ceded to them by the natives. Those claims, and all arising out of them, were considered to be merged in the agreement with the Secretary ot State. But, Governor Hobson, reviving the claim, refused to issue the grant as ordered by Lord John Russell, unless we established our title by that process of investigation by the Ctmmissioner of Claims, from which we conceived it to-be specifically exempted. On our appealing, in October, 1842, to Lord Stanley, who had succeeded Lord John Russell, as Colonial Minister, his lordship adopted the views of Governor Hobson; assigning in substance, as a reason, that the agreement was based on an understanding that we had purchased and sunendered to the Crown a much larger quantity of land thau that which was to be granted to us ; and that unless that. understanding was fulfilled, the agreement itself, so far as related to the grant, could not be carried into effect. As this interpretation has been condemned both by Lord John Russell, who, with ourselves, was a party to the original agreement, and by the committee of your honourable house, which last session investigated the affairs of New Zealand, it is unnecessary to recapitulate the arguments by which it was either supported or rebutted. But it is proper to observe, that, however the question regarding our purchase from the natives might stand, the lands which formed the subject of the special - con-tracts-of June, 1 841 t .and August. 1842, were quite unconnected with that purchase,. and quite unaffected, therefore, by any question relating to it. .This land we had as much right to demand, as the purchaser of a single acre in any part of any of the colonies, or in London. Yet. in re/erring our claims to the investigaiion of the Commissioner of Claims in New Zealand, no part was excepted; no reservation made., whether those claims were founded on the transaction with the natives, or on these direct

contracts with tbfr Crown in England. In. January, 1843, therefore, finding it impossible to remove the impression received by Lord Stanley, and being apprised, by command of his Jordship, that he desired a discontinuance of our correspondence, we deemed i| a matter

of justice to the public, as we could obtain no Crown title for our lands, to- suspend our. landsales ; and, as those sales were our sole source of income, wewere obliged to discontinue, all colonising, operations. 10. But the effects of this misunderstanding were so ruinous to those who had purchased our lands, as well as to ourselves, that in the ■ succeeding May, with a view to Us removal, vre consented to waive our entire absolute claims, and to accept in lieu a secjnd agreement, the basis of which was, that we should receive forthwith a conditional grant of the lands selected by our agents, conveying to us a pvima facie title, and whatever interest the Crown might have ; and leaving to others, whether natives or Europeans, the burden of subsequently dispossessing us by proving any prior claim which they might be able to adduce in opposition to ours. The appointment of Captain Fitzßoy to be Governor of the colony afforded, as we thought, a pledge for the punc- , tual and honourable fulfillment of this stipulation^ i Our hopes became faint on our discovering, six months after (in February, 1844), that Lord Stanley had not communicated to us, together with his assent to the second agreement, a private correspondence with Captain FitzRoy on the subject of the manner in which the , agreement was to be interpreted. But notwithstanding this, so important were the interests at stake, that we once more made an attempt to enter into new negociations. For some time .Lord Stanley listened favourably, and contemplated the idea of affording us the assistance of Government in meeting the embarrassments occasioned by the non-settlement of our land-claims.; but when we ventured to point out that the conditions on which the assistance was proposed lo be offered would in fact be injurious, oy throwing a doubt upon our title, his lordship suddenly broke off the negociation, and once more intimated to as that he must decline our correspondence until he should have received further reports from Govenor Fitzßoy. Thus repulsed from the Colonial Office, we appealed to your honourable house in April, 1844. Your committee investigated the case, and reported strongly in our favour. But the lateness of the period prevented any active steps from being taken in accordance with their report before the close of the session. 11. We .feel justified in asserting that no instructions whatever on the subject of the agreement above mentioned ought to have been given by the Secretary of State -to the Governor, without being simultaneously communicated to us.; and that the instructions actually so given were altogether inconsistent with our public arrangement. They were thus inconsistent, in making what we were to obtain, contingent, not on rights already established by proof of expenditure, but on titles to be established by proof of .validity of purchase; in denying that the Government was either indebted to us in any ' Quantity of land, or bound to make compensation to us for our expenditure incurred, proved, and the land awarded to us in accordance with our agreement of November, 18 10 ; and still more in the generally adverse tone which ran through the whole instructions, while* v\e were allowed to remain in the belief that all had been agreed ■upon in an amicable spirit, for the express purpose of terminating a long and angry controversy. The correctness of this view of the question is confirmed by the effects of the instructions thus given, of which -intelligence ha? been re- - ceived in the interval since last session. During nine months' residence in the colony, not only, had Governor Fitzßoy made us no grant in accordance with the agreement of May, 1843, but whatever steps he had taken for the settlement of our titles, had proceeded solely on the principle which that agreement was intended to supersede. When our agent had heen induced by him to make additional payments to the natives, in order to obtain possession of the land in the immediate neighbourhood of Wellington, no measures were taken to give him that rpossession. And when the Commissioner of Land Claims made an award in our favour in another part ot the island, New Plymouth, the Governor, without having heard the witnesses, or .investigated the case, set aside the Commissioner's decision, and refused' to ratify th* reward, until we should have submitted to further payments. i (To be.cqnfim^ed in our, nefct.) j