New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 15, 1848.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 274, 15 March 1848, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 15, 1848.

So much has lately been written on the different questions raised by Mr. Cowell's Report that the subject may almost be considered exhausted ; but there is one pomt — the right of the land purchasers to compensation from the Company — which will still bear further examination. Mr. Cowell, in his Report, after recommending that this claim should be referred to a court of equity for investigation, carefully abstains from entering into any discussion of its validity;

but it will not be difficult to shew that the same considerations which have operated in deciding the question of compensation between the Government and the Company in favour of the latter, operate still more strongly in establishing the claims of the settlers on the Company. Laying aside the moral and equitable grounds which bind the Company to compensation, and which have been previously urged, if we refer only to the terms of the agreement, we think the following considerations will place the subject in so clear a light as not to admit of any misconception. Mr Cowell objects that the letter writers appeal to the intention of Lord John Russell and assert that his, Lordship could never have intended that benefit should accrue to the Company from the use of money which never was in any sense their own, and which they professed to hold only in trust for others. But the letter writers only did what the Company under similar circumstances had done before. Had they remembered Lord John Russell's answer on that occasion they probably would not have done so. Now what were those circumstances ? Why a difference had arisen between the Company and the Colonial- office as to the interpretation of Lord John Russell's agreement with them. The point at issue was this :—: — Whether the land to be granted to the Company in consideration of their expenditure for colonising purposes was to be given when they should have established their claims to certain districts, which they might have purchased from the aborigines, before the Land Commissioner's court ; — or whether it was to be given irrespectively of any such supposed purchase. Lord Stanley adopted the former view, the Company the latter. Hereupon the Company wrote to Lord John Russell requesting- him to state what had been his intention. He very properly replied, that he did not sufficiently recollect all the circumstances of the case, but that the agreement must be interpreted according to its obvious and literal meaning. When Lord Grey came into office, he decided in favour of the Company, — he decided that they had a claim against the Government, — that the Government were bound to give the land irrespectively of any supposed purchase from the aborigines. Consequent on this decision a question arose between the land purchasers and the Company. The former claiming that portion of the land accruing to the Company, in consideration of money expended in colonisation, which had so accrued from the Company having included in their statement of their expenditure seventy-five per cent, of the money they received from land purchasers, which never was their own, — which they held only in trust, and which it is ridiculous to suppose they could have any right to represent to Lord John Russell or any body else as their expenditure. Let the case, as stated in the Letter, be decided according to Lord John Russell's dictum, that is, according to its obvious and only rational interpretation, and the land purchasers can have no doubt tnat it must be decided in their favour.