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 64, 27 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.

i 10. Unfortunately, also, the same cause induced another step, which, at the very foundation of the colony, brought the Government into serious collision with our plans. Arriving subsequently to the establishment of out first settlement in Cook's Straits, Captain Hobson chose entirely to overlook its existence : and to establish the Government, not on the spot where the great bulk of the actual colonists had planted themselves, *but in thai to which he determined that they ought rather to have gone. He fixed his capital near one extremity of a narrow country twelve hundred miles long.; in a spot where at ' the time there was not a single European inhabitant ; so distant from the great bulk of the colonist population, and having so little natural intercourse with them, that all communication had for some time to be carried on in vessels chartered for each particular occasion — where the Government was in fact practically more remote from the people it was to govern than either New South Wales or Van Diemen's Land. The mischievousness of this error was aggravated and perpetuated by the operation of sinister influences. Without funds, except each as were borrowed, the Local Executive could devise no better resource than* to plunge into land-jobbing ; and the greater part of its higher officers immediately followed the example which it set. Within a very short space of time, the Colonial Secretary, the Colonial Treasurer, the Attorney-General, the Crown Surveyor, the Commissioner of Land Claims, and other persons in office, were found to have engrossed the most eligible sites in the town. «It became the interest of every one of these persons, who, from the state of Captain Hobson's health, in fact directed the Government, to raise as high as possible the value of the lands among which their own were situtuate<l. Effectual measures were accordingly taken to foster a spirit of reckless speculation. Competition was invited by a system of auctions, and the result was achieved of selling for exorbitant prices a portion of the town lands. In this profitless gambling the greater part of the capital which was required for the cultivation of the soil passed from the hands of the settlers into those of a few fortunate adventurers ; and, in a short time, when the delusion ceased, the population of Auckland found themselves exhausted of their original means, destitute of resources in trade or in the produce of the surrounding country, and dependent for subsistence on little beyond that public expenditure, for which the Government derived its means either from the taxation of other settlements or from drafts on the JBritish Treasury. ? -The stimulus first given proving thus insufficient, other measures were resorted to. Our agents were not allowed to avail themselves of the permission given by Lord John Russell to fix our second settlement south of Cook's Straits, but an attempt was made to force them to the northward. Captain Hobson employed the means of Government to entice away the labourers who bad been sent out at our cost. And we regret to add that the censure of this proceeding by Lord Stanley does not appear to have prevented similar endeavours at a more recent period. Governor Fitzßoy, after setting aside the award df the Commissioner in our favour at New Plymouth, offered to compensate the claimants if they would take grants in the neighbourhood of Auckland. Even the Colonial Department in this country held out inducements to the intending colonists of New Edinburgh to desert the Company and establish themselves in the northern settlement. 20. Subservient to the Government plans, and rendered necessary by the contradictory expedients above alluded to, was the Court of the Commissioner of Land Claims ; than which it is difficult to conceive* machinery mere effectually calculated to disturb the harmony and arrest the progress of the community. It proceeded to the investigation of a ' very delicate question of policy and feeling with the cumbrous forms of legal procedure, alike un suited to the circumstances of the case and the habits of those immediately concerned. It could not decide on a single case without recognizing murder and robbery as the basis of title; it could scarcely enter upon an investigation without offending prejudices or awakening feud" 4 without exciting desires which it was impassible to gratify, and tampering with the rude sense of right and wrong which the natives before possessed. The tendency of its operation was to set the two races in hostile array against each other. One or other of the languages used was always unknown to one or more of the parties interested. The very thoughts of the several parties on the subject of property in land were so different as to be respectively incomprehensible. The parties best informed 00 the subject in debate, the natives, whose law of real property was to be the guide of the court, never bad any law of the sort, but only vague, diversified, conflicting customs. Tjhat the terrible disaster ot Wairau was the

i result of our being referred to the Ofifatt of Land Claims, and of the undue desires and hostile feelings excited by the proceedings in that court, and by the' continual disparagement of our settlers, has never been doubted by, any unprejudiced perion. It embitters our re|ferto know that the sovereignty of ihe Middle Island having been proclaimed upon the right of discovery, even the ostensible ground of a reference to the Court of Claims had no place ; that our second settlement was fixed at a spot which entailed this dispute, by Captain Hobson's refusal to allow us the choice sanctioned by Lord John Russell ; and that by specific contracts, relating especially to that second settlement, the Government was bound to put us in possession of the quantity of land which it had sold us, quite irrespective of any transaction between ourselves and the natives. 21 . The committee of your honourable house has done justice to the memory of those who felljat Wairau, by recording its belief that they lf were actuated by a desire to uphold the law. The recent decision of the Commissioner, by virtually establishing our right to the disputed land, has shown that the natives were the ; wrongdoers. .We make no' complaint that their "crimes had not been visited with* the. severe penalties of our law ; but we do complain that nothing has been done to vindicate the authority of the Government, or to guard the colonists from similar outrages ; that the whole policy of the Government has been to soothe the, perpetrators of the massacre, as if they were the injured party, and to treat the European community as dangerous and criminal ; ■that the first official act was a demand* from the protector of aborigines that the survivors, not the murderers, should be capitally punished ; that the inhabitants of Wellington, who, under the lawful sanction of the magistrates, had formed: themselves as volunteers for repelling an expected attack, were denounced as gu'lty of illegal acts, and threatened with military violence ; and that, without a shadow of inquiry, or a statement of the .grounds of his judgment, Captain Fitzßoy and -his subordinates thought proper to throw the -entire blame on those who had perished in the massacre, and to slander the memory of the dead with unmanly reproaches. it is not our wish to insist on a severe retaliation for the excesses of uncivilized men. But for the sake of the natives themselves, who are thus tempted to a fatal indulgence in their ferocious passions, we deprecate a system which, demoralizing them by its immediate operation, ensures a sanguinary repression, and such an antipathy of races as no after policy of Government can prevent from ending in the extermination of the weaker and more numerous. It is not our duty to create in the minds of the New Zealanders vague notions of imagined proprietary rights : to deny to -our countrymen the use of a soil now unavailable to man ; or to corrupt the native races by stimulating their rapacity, and satisfying their craving for noxious enjoyments. But it is oar duty to them to carry into effect plans for their ultimate improvement and incorporation with the settlers whom we introduce among them ; and, in furtherance of such plans, to use our superior power to enforce on them obedience to the laws which we know to be for their good. 22. We have sought in vain, however, in the acts of the Government for any plan for the improvement of the natives, or any evidence of a wise care for their interests. Absorbed in the scheme of conferring upon them a proprietary right in land, and either blind to the fact, or .careless as to the result that this proprietorship is the certain means of their destruction, the Government appears to have been incapable of receiving any higher or larger idea. It seem 6 to have no conception that there are duties involving a graver responsibility, or evidencing a more enlarged intelligence. The plan of native reserves has always heretofore been the object of disfavour. While eagerly using our stipulations as an argument against us, the Government has turned td no account the reserves which we placed in tts frands. Those which it affected 'to make in Auckland, and of which the Colonial Office despatch of 13th August last would suggest a belief that they were in actual use, never had any existence. 1 Nothing nas been done to familiarise the native with habits of order, by means of military discipline. Instead of maintaining the relative position of the chiefs,ia*we proposed, elevating theii character ana attaching them to British rule, the measures of the Govern-, ment have in every way tended to degrade them, and render them discontented and turbulent. In the lavish estimates of the colony, we find a protectorate of aborigines made a pretext for creating offices of Europeans ; but not one thousanth part of the expenditure devoted to any service df real utility to the aborigines themselves. In an expenditure of £128,985 19s. 3d., the total amount appropriated to religion and education during three years is, to the former, £388 Os. 5d. ; to the latter, £91 Bs. (3d. In utter disregard of the moral contamination which has inevitably resulted, and which'

ought to have been foreseen, • number of boff \ from Parkhurst Penitentiary. have been imported into the country ; and* in order to evade the pledge given by Lord Normanby, that "no convict should ever be ««nt thither to undergo his punishment." the Ydividuals were pardoned on reaching their destination. 23. Perhaps there is nothing connected with New Zealand which more demands the attention of your honourable house than the mode in which revenue has been raised and expended. In spite of the constitutional principle that the people of this empire are only i' to be taxed by their own consent, the revenue of New Zealand is raised by a Council composed of four Government officers and three persons named by the Governor — removeable at his pleasure — and in fact visited or threatened with removal if their opposition become* troublesome. By aid of such a Council, Governor Hobson was enabled to load the infant colony with debt and exhaust its- resources by an improvident expenditure. During three years, of which alone the accounts have been furnished, out of £128,000 aforesaid, it appears that less than a third was applied to objects wearing a character of utiljty~or permanence. The excess of outlay over real income was £57,000 ; the annual.costof the Government, with respect to the European population, £9 7s. lid., £8 14s., and £4 19s. 3d. ahead. The financial proceedings of Captain Hobson's temporary successor, Lieutenant Shortland, are shortly known by the difficulties in which he was involved, the failure which attended his measures, and the disallowance of his bills by her Majesty's Treasury. Of Captain Fitzßoy the course has been still more extraordinary. He imposed taxes which would almost appear to have been contrived for the very purpose of preventing the growth of a colony. He issued an inconvertible currency in notes for very small sums. To conciliate a turbulent tribe, he, without colour of law, exempted a particular port from the general customs duties, to which the rest of the island was subject. Then suddenly altering his entire financial policy to uphold this error, he has in an instant abolished the whole customs duties of the colony, and, after proposing the precarious resource of an income tax for raising a portion of the revenue which he flung away, has left the remainder of his expenses to be defrayed by the Imperial Treasury. 24. In old times, when our forefathers laid the foundation of the greatest colonies that the world has ever seen, the revenue and expenditure of every colony was from the first defrayed from its own resources, and modest establishments were dictated by the simple habits and restricted means of the early colonists. In the middle of the last century the internal government of the thirteen colonies of North America, with a population of three millions, cost only £100,000 a year. And with this small outlay for the business of government did these communities of Englishmen contrive to make and to administer salutary laws, to reclaim the forest, to establish a flourishing- trade, to cultivate the arts of peace, and to lay the foundations of a great empire. Even in our present colonies of North America, representative institutions ensure a wholesome economy. Forty seven thousand people in Prince Edward's Island are well governed for £19,600 a-year. The taxation of the people of Nova Scotia is 10s. 9d., that of New Brunswick 10s. 6d., that of Canada Bs. 2d. a head. But New Zealand, though from the first an unmixed and untainted community of free and enterprising Englishmen, has been subjected to the same arbitary government, lavish expenditure, and burdensome taxation, which have been imposed on our convict colonies. Independently of the burden of taxation, this lavish expenditure is an uncompensated evil. It corrupts the colony by accustoming it to unnecessary establishments; gives mischievous examples of private luxury ; checks the noble disposition to serve the public for no reward but the good opinion of the public, which is found in all free communities ; maintains a host of instienf officially tbe labour of Others ; converts a vast proportion of those who should be working into idle recipients or greedy expectants of salary^ and subjects the colony to the rule of those whom no Government and no individual will trust or employ at home. But in New Zealand this evil end has been attained by taxing every individunl nearly £3 a year ; being three times as high as the amount disbursed in the United Kingdom for its effective, expenditure. Here, as in other colonies, this system has broken down ; debts are contracted, applications are made to Parliament, .and the colpny becomes an object of cost and aversion to the mother country. (To be continued)