To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, January 4, 1848.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 358, 6 January 1849, Page 3

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, January 4, 1848.

Sir, — I wish to say a few words on the subject treated on in last Wednesday's Independent. I cannot but smile at the simplicity of the Editor's remarks. He must either be rut her dull, or give his readers credit for no small share of dullness if he thinks many of them will he misled by what he saj's. He says, as though it supported his views, that, just before the rebellion in Canada, it was a ground of complaint on the part of the colonisls that when their representatives stopped the supplies the Government was carried on by means supplied from the commissariat chest. Of course the colonists complained ; but, why ? Because, when they had applied what they deemed^ a certain means of controlling the Government, tbey found it fail, — because they found to their disappointment, what you, Sir, showed in a recent number, that the power of stopping the supplies, when exercised by the Legislature of a Dependency is notlthe infallible remedy it unquestionably is in a Supreme Government. But this astute writer, although he allows that it was looked upon as a grievance by the colonists, adduces it as an instance that grants are made by Parliament notwithstanding the existence of representation ; being ignorant of, or quite overlooking, the fact^that when the temporary differences between the colony and the mother-country are adjusted, the amount taken from the commissariat chest is made good from the colonial treasury, where it had been accumulating during their continuance. He^seems to have mistaken^an act of coercion on the part of the mother-country, for an act of grace, and actually brings it forward as an instance of the latter/ *He tries to invalidate the Governor* official statement, that grants will cease on the establishment of representation, by appealing to a despatch of Earl Grey's, which to his apprehension, seems to imply the contrary, But, allowing that that despatch really conveyed the meaning; which he" wishes to put on it, though the concluding words of the extract he has given clearly states, that the continuance of the grant was a temporary exception to a general rule; still, any attempt to ascertain Earl

Grey's present opinion on the question, or infer the tenor of his Lordship's instructions to the Governor, by going back to a despatch written in February, 1847, when we are in possession of his official statement made in Parliament in 1848, is a palpable absurdity. Moreover Earl Grey ha* admitted that he was wrong, and has accordingly deferred for five years the full establishment of the principle of self-government, which he now states must be connected with another, namely, self-support. How ridiculous, tberefore, to go back and appeal to a principle Earl Grey has himself abandoned, and to censure the Governor for not acting upon it. ! I must now notice the inference he would try to draw from what passed in the House of Commoas in reference to the grant for New Zealand, which seems to be the exact opposite of what the real inference should be. He infers that the Government believed representation to be now in operation here, and that €20,000 being notwithstanding voted, there exists evidently in their minds no necessary connection between the principles of self-government and self-support. This is the way he attempts to delude his readers. But what is the true inference? Why, that her Majesty's ministers, availing themselves of the permission given to the Governor of establishing representation in the colony — though, as you have recently shown, they might have foreseen that they had imposed upon him an impracticab'e task — had actually reduced the grant almost one half, and would probably, if they heard of its establishment, stop it altogether next session: — and that, so far from there being no connection between representation and the withdrawal of grants, Mr. Hume asserted it as an indisputablt principle; Mr. Hawes acknowledged it, but said that New Zealand was a temporary exception; while Mr. Gladstone maintained the same, calling on Mr. Hawes to define clearly the ground on which any such temporary exception was made. The foregoing may be hardly worth insertion in your Journal ; but it is right that some of the plain hone3t readers of the Independent should be put on their guard against the false reasoning and erroneous statements (some of which you have so ably exposed) which have lately abounded in that Paper. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, A Looker-On.