New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, December 15, 1849.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 456, 15 December 1849, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, December 15, 1849.

The examination we have recently made of the articles which have lately appeared in the Independent from the pen of the Principal Agent of the New Zealand Company, will serve at once to show what stuff his patriotism is composed of, and prove a sufficient excuse for us in so seldom taking notice of his effusions. They are all much alike in in their composition, being marked by the same characteristics, full of gross personalities, unfounded imputations, and unqualified abuse of the Governor-in-Ch"ief, and those who compose his government ; undeterred by any feeling of shame or compunction of conscience, unrestrained by any of those conventional proprieties which commonly regulate the discussion of public questions, their author seems to have only one object in view, how he can annoy those to whom he is opposed, being perfectly unscrupulous as to the means to which be resorts, for accomplishing his purpose, and i " Half froth, half venom spits himself abroad In puns, or politics, or tales or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies." These are continually referred to with a complacent self-satisfaction, whether under the name of the Ancient Mariner, or the blasphemous rubbish styled the Chaldee Manuscript or other productions of

the same stamp and character, until his readers are weary and disgusted with the' tiresome repetition. In the same spirit Mr. Fox and his friends arrogate to themselves an exclusive affection for liberty ; according to their own account they are the only friends of freedom in the settlement, they only are desirous of Representative Institutions. We have repeatedly shown that the difference between the Faction and those who are opposed to them is not as to whether Representative Institutions ought to be granted to the colony or not, but as to the period of their introduction, whether it is not safer and likely to be productive of greater ienefit to the community that the establishment of these institutions should take place with due deliberation, and after mature consideration of the details of the measure, than that they should be rendered inoperative or mischievous by precipitate haste. The violence exhibited by these men, and the disposition evinced by them to control the opinions of others have caused many v reasonable persons to doubt whether we are really in a fit state to receive Representative Institutions, and whether a seasonable delay is not required to allow time not only for the adjustment of the details, but for a further increase of the European population. They fear that men who misapply and pervert the freedom they already enjoy to such unworthy purposes, who prostitute the freedom of the press by bespattering with indiscriminate abuse all who differ from them in opinion, and convert the right of petitioning into a vehicle for gratifying their dislike of the Governor of the colony — that such men are not likely to make a better use of a greater amt.unt of freedom, but would probably endeavour, if they had the opportunity, to establish under the colour of popular Institutions a tyranny of the most degrading kind, the odious and irresponsible tyranny of a Faction. Their continual abuse of Sir George Grey, the personal vituperation and unworthy calumnies with which he is assailed by them, cause their motives to be suspected, and themselves to be distrusted ; such conduct is more natural to disappointed placehunters than to disinterested patriots. The observations we have felt it necessary to make have put these men in their right position before the public, we have exposed the falsehoods of their attacks, and have shown the personal motives that actuated them. They have in effect admitted the the justice of our remarks, since the only answer the learned editor has attempted to make is a tissue of low abuse directed against ourselves, unworthy of notice except to prove how well he and his follower deserved the castigation they have received. His attempt to insinuate a charge of venality against this journal is one of those gratuitous and deliberate falsehoods of which the learned j editor is too often guilty. He knows full well that we are perfect' y free from any external influence, and that we should be as ready to resistany jobbing or despotism on thepartof the Government, as we are to unmask and expose the meanness and tyranny of the Faction. We cannot but feel a contemptuous pity for men who have sunk to so low a state of degradation, and are capable of such disgraceful meanness. Their worst enemies can only wish them ever to write thus to destroy what little influence they may have previously possessed, while the poor creatures who have made themselves their tools, may find that the consideration they have j received for surrendering the journal of which they are they are the nominal proprietors to such management will prove very i inadequate to the injury they are likely to J sustain from it. i