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, 20 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.

12. In this interval have alsj been made public Lord Stanley's two despatches of .the 13th of August and 30th of November last, explaining the course which his lordship hathought fit to put sue with respect to the report of the committee of last session. That committee was selected with the knowledge and consent of the Colonial Department, and, if variety of political sentiment may be alluded to without indecorum, contained, we believe, a large majority of general supporters of the present Government. We had every right to hope that the report of such a committee would carry weight with those who were parties to its appointment, and that its decision would be regarded as conclusive, at least with respect to those matters of disputed claims which had been especially referred to its arbitration. In spite of our previous experience, we could not help encouraging some expectation of this kind, when Lord Stanley, in answer to our application, informed us that he deemed it most becoming to communicate to Parliament, in the first place, the instructions which he had issued to the Governor of New Zealand, in conseq uence of the report of the committee. Our disappointment has been great, when, on reading those instructions, we have found that no effect has been produced in his lordship's mind by the ample inquiries and sound views of the committee; that he treats the tribunal which had decided against him as a fresh antagonist, with whom he may renew an exhausted controversy ; that he does not scruple to depreciate its authority by describing not quite fairly the mode in which its decisions have been carried ; that the whole tenor ot his inj structions is to exhort the Governor to disregard the recommendations of the report as j mischievous and unsound, and to teach him how to avoid the difficulties which the decisions of the committee are represented as adding to his position. With respect to our own claims, Lord Stanley expresses a fixed determination to persevere in the denial of the right which the committee has deliberately recognized ; grounding that determination on the sufficiency of the unfulfilled agreement of May, 1843. 13. The opposition, of which that determination is but the latest instance, appears to ourselves io be attributable mainly to the influence over the Colonial Department exercised by the societies concerned in missions and the aborigines ; and to have originated, on the part of those societies, in an opinion that the intercourse of Europeans with the native inhabitants of British settlements ought to be discouraged as calamitous to the latter, and the intervention of British authority be limited to upholding the rights of native proprietorship and sovereignty. 14. That opinion is altogether inconsistent with the social condition of the aborigines of New Zealand ajjt existed at the time when our enterprise wJHftet on ioot ; with the highest and mostlastiu&JNHftorationof the aborigines ; and with the prittjp^s which have heretofore been acted upon by aH'civilized states, for the advantage, not of themselves alone, but of the uncivilized nations with whom they have come in contact. Whatever the disposition or natural capacity of the New Zealanders, it is unquestionable that, far from understanding the functions of civil government, they had hardly the rudest conceptions of justice or of order. Until recently taught by interested Europeans, they had no idea of individual property in land, of selling it, or of its exchangeable value. What ideas they did possess upon the subject had been imparted to them by persons whose object it was to obtain their lands under the forms of purchase. Of their actual ignorance, and the extent to which advantage had been taken of it, under that system which, for want of a better term, we must beg to designate by the figurative but too well-known epithet oUand-shark-ing t some idea may be formed from the fact, that claims for 1 0,000 up to 40,000 or 50,000 acres each have been not unfrequent; that Captain Hobson, in one of his earliest despatches, mentions tracts of country, in some cases of 500 square miles, as claimed by single individuals ; and that one claim, advanced on behalf of some speculators in New South Wales, is described by the Governor, Sir George Gipps, as comprising nearly half the Middle Island, purchased at the rate of one penny for 400 acres* To invest such tribes as those of New Zealand with the attributes of sovereignty was inconsistent with truth; and' by perpetuating their existing customs, was in fact to continue in anarchy, which had, in the memory of living men, depopulated vast portions ot the islands. To recognise in the savage a property n iand, without some restraint as to its alienition, or some strong impelling motive for its retention and improvement, was to inflict an njury under the semblance of an advantage ; o excite a Graving for vicious indulgence ; to •euder industry disiasteful, and to hold out a ure to the despoiler. To abandon to little more than 100,000 abirigines a country capable of maintaining wenty -or thirty millions df inhabitants, and

to endeavour to exclude Europeans, was not only to impose a restriction unfeanctionea* by the laws upon the enterprise and activity of the nation, but it was also to rtin counter to the manifest indications of Providence ; to establish, if successful, that system of isolation Under which the native races of North America are withering away ; but more certainly it was to attempt an impossibility ; to shut out, perhaps, the reputable and the good, but to leave the door open to the lawless vnd the abandoned ; and in the meanwhile to infuse a spirit of antagonism into the two races, and in a manner to invite the approaches of foreign powers, less scrupulous or more enlightened on the subject of colouisation. 15, With regard, also, to one society which possesses great power in New Zealand, the Church Missionary Society, we cannot believe that their views on these subjects have been altogether unbiassed by the interest which their local missionaries had in upholding the system of direct purchases from the aborigines. We find by the evidence of official documents, that of thirty-five missionaries employed by the Church Society in 1838, twenty-three have preferred claims on account of such purchases, the aggregate of which, including 3,900 acres for Church missionary families, and 11, 600 for the Church Society itself, amounts to at least 196,840 acres. 16. But, whatever the origin of the views in question, or of the influence of the missionary societies in the Colonial Department, tbe practical result has been that, from the begining, New Zealand has been regarded and measures relating to it have been conducted by the Government with reference to the interests, not of this Kingdom, but of the native aborigines as seen through the missionary medium. Hence tin repudiation of a territory which for upw ards of thirty years had been definitely included (in the same way as Van Diemen's Land) in the successive commissions of the Governors of New South Wales ; the reluctance to re-acquire that territory, notwithstanding its acknowledged paramount political importance, which was avowed in the instructions originally issued to Captain Hobson ; and that series of acts, which, as being of necessity illusive, was in our opinion unworthy of this country. Of this character we conceive to have been the recognition of a flag called " national ;" of ships' registers to be recorded and granted by native chiefs ; of a document purporting to be a " declaration of independence ;" and of a proposed "congress;" together with other measures enumerated in the memorandum transmitted by the Colonial Department to the Foreign Office on the 18th of March, 1840 ; as well as the transaction termed the " Treaty of Waitangi," which may be regarded as the natural sequel and climax of this series of fictitious proceedings, and of which the hollow and injurious nature is forcibly represented in the report of your comraitee of last session. 17. To the same false basis of the intervention of British authority in New Zealand we ascribe that character of indirectness which attended the Government in its first measures with regard to land, and involved it in embarrassments, frcm which it has not succeeded in freeing itself to this day. We allude to the expedients by which, while professing to uphold native rights, it denied to private individuals the lands they had acquired under tbe exercise of those rights ; while excluding the Crown from the proprietorship of unoccupied waste lands, it sought to supply the defect by taking possession of private purchases ; and now, while still declaring those lands to be the private property of the natives, it endeavours to obtain them by the imposition of alandtax. 18. To the same origin we trace that spirit of hostility which evinced itself at the very commencement of our undertaking; which, though suspended apparently for a time by the agreement of 1840 and charter of incorporation, has broken out at every opportunity ; has heaped upon us aspersions of the most insulting nature, amounting to rapacity, fraud, and implied falsehood ; imparted to the official correspondence that undignified and acrimonious character of which complaint has been so justly made; and led to reiterated acts of aggression and misrepresentation in England and in the colony ; the most dangerous tendency of which, much as they impeded our efforts and depressed the energies of the colonists, was to lower our settlers in the eyes of the natives, and to give the impression that they might be injured with impunity , — (To be continued in our next.)

EXPORTS, £ t. d. £ t. d. Alb :N. Z. per hhd. . . 4 0 0. . 5 0 0 per barrel 214 p.. 0 0 0 Bark : dyeing, per ton 115 0.. 210 0 Tafining, 0 0 0 .. 1 10 0 Cordage: N.Z., per cwt. 0 0 0.. 200 Coals: N. Z., per ton.. 1 5 0 .. 0 0 0 Flax : N. Z. per ton, unpacked ........ 10 0 0 .. 12 0 0 Oil : black, in casks, per ton 15 10 0 .. 16 0 o

Sperm : do. da. .... 50 0 0 » 55 CL 0 OiLßdfrs: tf. Z.,p-r r imperial ton .... 0 0 o* . 5 9 0 Timbir^ sawn plank, per < . . per 100 feet .... 060. •» o' -,7 6 Scantling do 0 0 Oh. Q, 6 0 Furniture wood do 615 6 .. 1 10 0 Staves: N. Z. per 1200 2 0 0, .. 010 0 Shingles: N.Z. per 1000 0 6 0 .< 0 8 0 Whalebone: per ton ..130 0 0 "..135 "0* 0 Finners 0 0 0 . 40 0 0 Wheat : per busheL ... 0 0 0 »* 0 8 4) Wool: N. Z. perlb. .. 0 0 9.. 01 3 Do. Lambs' .... 0 0 0.. 0 1 3 IMPORTS. Ale : per Hhd., Bass's 6 0 0. . YlO 0 per doz .0 9 0.. 010 0 Arrack : per gallon .*. 0 1 0. . 0 2 0 Blocks: each, r.. 0 2 6.. 013 f Beef: Sydney, per tierce 2 0 0. . 210 0 Prime India, do. 5 0 0.. 510 6 Blankets: per pair .. 018 4., 1 10 0 Brandy: First quality, per imperial gal. .. 0 4 0.. 0 0 :, Maxell's 0 8 0 .. D O Q Brown Stout : per hh,d. 415 0 .<., -6/t). 0 Blacking: per doz.. v^.. 0 4 0 .. ,0 8 0 Cigars : Manilla, No". 3, i perlOOO 5 0 0 ..' 00 © «, .N0.?4 -... 4 & Ou. 010 '0 No. 5 „ 3 5 0 .. 0 0 0 Coffee: perlb 0 0 7.. 008 Candles: Sperm, per Ib. scarce .. 0 3 0 Mould 0 0 8 .. 0 0 9 Dips 0 0 5.. 007 FlcJur : per ton 14 10 0 . . 16 0 0 Gin : Hollands, in cask, per gallon 0 2 6.. 036 Case, 2 gal 1-8 .. 0 0 0.. 010 6 Ditto 4 gall. 1-4.. 0 19 0 .. 1 0 Mustard : Per dozen . . 110.. 14 0 Oil: Linseed, per gal... 0 6 6.. 080 Pork: Irish, per barrel 310 0 .. 4 10 0 Porter: Dunbar, inbot. per doz 0 9 0.. 010 0 Pickle* : Assorted, per 1 doz., quarts . . 10 0.. 150 Prints . per piece .... 012 0 .. 016 0 Pitch : 0 0 0 . . none Paints : white lead, per ewt 110 0 .. 2 0 0 Black 1 8 0.. 1 12 0 Rice : Per cwt. ...... 0 0 0.. 0 0 0' Rum: B. P., per gal; .. 0 3 6 .. 0 5 0 Sugar: Mauritius per cwt 1 8 0.. 1 12 0 Refined loaf, per lb 0 0 6.. 007 Manilla per cwt. 14 0.. 1 10 0 Salt: Liverpool, per ton 610 0 .. 810 0 Coarse 6 0 0.. 7 0 0 Slates : per 1000, according to size .... 4 0 0. . 015 0 Soaf : Hawes's London, per cwt 1 8 0.. 112 0 Liverpool 1 5 0. . 1 8 0 Sydney 0 0 0.. 1 8 0 Sacks : Corn and Flour, each „ 0 2 0.. 0 3 0 Starch: Perlb 0 0 0 .. 0 0 7 Sheet Lead: per ton.. 30 0 0 .. 35 0 0 Tar. "Coal, per barrel.. 1 0 0 .. 1 5 0 Stockholm 0 0 0.. 110 0 Tea : Hyson skin, per chest 310 0. . 410 *) Congou 8 0 0.. 10 0 0 Tobacco : Negrohead, perlb 0 0 8 .. 0 I 0 Turpentine: per gal... 0 7 0.. 080 Vinegar: per gal 0 3 0.. 036 Wine : Sherry, per doz. 1 0 0.. 200 Port, per doz. . . 1 4 0.. 2 0 0 Whiskey: 0 6 0.. 0 10.0 Cordage : English, per cwt 2 5 0.. 3 0 0 Canvass : per bolt „.. . 200 . . 2 10^ & Iron : English bar, per , * ': ton 8 0 0 .. 12 o#o Hoop, per ton . . 18 0 0 .>%20 0 O Oil Butts : Gordon's or Mills' per imp. tun 3 0 0 .. 3 5 0 Cows: iMilch 10 0 0 .. 15 0 0 Mares: Brood 25 0 0 .. 35 0 0 Working Bullocks: per pair 16 0 0 .. 22 O O Sheef : Each I 0 0.. 1 5 0

CORRECTED UP TO LAST NIGHT. The prices of Spirits and tobacco are in bond.