ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, 17th February, 1848.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 267, 19 February 1848, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, 17th February, 1848.

Sir, — Without wishing to interfere with the able remarks you are now making on Mr. Cowell's report, I venture to offer a few observations on the same subject, which you may perhaps think worthy of insertion in ytfur paper.

Mr. Cowell raises an objection that some persons who have signed the letter to the New Zealand Company are not original purchasers, but he does not slate the grounds of his objection, or give any reason why their position is uot absolutely identical with that of the original purchasers. Surely whatever the claim of an original purchaser of a land order may be on the New Zealand Company, such likewise must be the claim of any holder of a land order; the transfer of such land older to a third party being a mere private transaction, in no way affecting the Company's liability to make good the original agreement. It is difficult to conceive on what ground Mr. Cowell rests this objection : that the objection is utterly urtenable is obvious. The issuer of a promissory note might as well refuse payment on its presentation, though regularly indorsed, on the ground that it was not presented by the person originally therein named. Such miserable cavilling could hardly have been expected from Mr. Commissioner Cowell. But I might go further and ask — whether a mere labourer, even though his passage hither might have been paid by the Company, and he himself had invested no capital in the enterprise, might not have a moral claim to compensation, on the ground that he was led to expect employment, and ultimately a facility for acquiring land for himself, both of which advantages he ha 3 been deprived of by the Company's non-fulfilment of its engagements with the purchasers? Again, passing over Mr. Cowell's impudent interpolation, let the most rigorous construction be put on the cunning reservation contained in the Company's land orders, it cannot, as you justly remark, exonerate that body from the legal, much less the moral, obligation to fulfil its contract, unless they can prove that they were actually prohibited by the British Government from effecting purchases of land in New Zealand ; which they cannot prove, for it is well known that on the arrival of Captain Hobson in this settlement he published a notice waiving the Crown's right of pre-emption over the whole of this district as far as the left bank of the Manawatu, as well as over the blocks claimed at Wanganui and Taranaki, and authorising the Company's Agent to complete the purchases, the completion of which had been suspended by the Queen's pioclamation : — and unless they are prepared to rebut the charges which may be made and substantiated against their Agent of culpable negligence in not availing himself of these opportunities afforded by the Government. It is very easy to say that difficulties were made by the Government, granted; but were those difficulties, whether made by Sir G. Gippsor Captain Hobson, such as ought not to have been overcome by ordinary energy (energy indeed to be looked for in vain in the Company's Agent) ? Were they obstacles that were insurmountable? Did <my act of the Government impede the surveys? But how many months, nay years, were allowed to elapse before purchasers were enabled to select ! There were no natives in the VVairarapa plains; did the Government present any obstacle to its acquisition? Why was no attempt made to acquire this district in the immediate vicinity of this settlement, and why were the settlers driven away to Wanganui, a populous district, the purchase of which to the present hour has not been effected, at such a distance from this settlement as was utterly inconsistent with, and in direct violation of, the Company's avowed principle of colonisation — concentration ? W hen Mr. Cowell endeavours to reuresent the persons who signed the letter as an insignificant minority of the resident land-purchasers, and on that ground to discredit their statements, does he know what proportion they really form of that body (the purchasers of 100 acre sections) ? Or does he imagine that the accuracy of the statements contained in that letter would not be now, in spite of his abuse, willingly corroborated, if necessary, by the majority of the settlers, although not themselves purchasers ? I wonder Mr. Cowell ventured to make this ob jection. If the number of resident land-pur-chasers is small, the reason is obvious: a large number wearied by continual delays, disgusted by the Company's mismanagement, and reduced in their means, have been compelled to leave this beautiful country, and to seek their fortunes elsewhere. One should have expected that this would have been a delicate subject with the Company; but no, they make it an occasion for insulting the reduced but persevering remnant who have clung to the country of their adoption, and who have given the Company that warm and unremitting support, through a protracted period of difficulty and disasters, without which the Company must have long since been buried in oblivion, saving and excepting perhaps in the bitter recollection ot some of the unfortunate victims of its callous hard-hearted selfishness. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, A Looker-on.