New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 13, 1850.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 481, 13 March 1850, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, March 13, 1850.

We are informed on good authority that the New Zealand Company cannot much longer survive the atrophy with which it is afflicted, and there is every reason to believe that in the course of a few months its precarious existence will be terminated. This intelligence cannot fail to give general satisfaction in New Zealand, where the Company is felt to be a grievous obstruction to the progress of the Colony. During the three years in which its existence has been prolonged by Lord Grey, the Company has spent the whole of the money advanced by the Government, has got more hopelessly and irretrievably into debt and will be dissolved, possibly, without having confirmed to its purchasers by a secure title the land sold to them ten years ago. That one tithe of the money thus recklessly squandered would have sufficed for the accomplishment of many objects of the greatest importance to the interests of the settlers there can be very little doubt. The land question might by this time have been satisfactorily settled, and the native title completely extinguished to all those lands in the Southern Province not required for their use. Steam might have been introduced, connecting the separate and struggling settlements formed by the Company into one important and prosperous Colony, converting their present weakness into an element of strength and infusing into them fresh vigour and energy. But it is bootless to speculate on what might have been done for the. benefit of the Colony, since that does not seem to have troubled the Directors of the Company. Their last act is at once significant and characteristic, having spent the money advanced by the Government, and finding their dissolution inevitable, under the plea of compensation, a considerable portion of the land is granted to the Absentees, depreciating thereby the value of the remainder, which under the terms of their agreement they are bound to surrender to the Government, and postponing indefinitely the prospect of raising any funds for immigration by sales of land, while the future sales of the Waste Lands will be burdened by a heavy debt to the Company with interest until the whole is discharged.

H.M.S. Havunnah and Fly arrived yesterday from their cruise to the Southward ; they arrived at Fort Ross, Auckland Islands, on the 13th February, having sailed from Wellington on the 7th of that month.

Lieutenant- Governor Enderby and the first settlers had arrived early in December, and were busily engaged in patting up their houses, stores, &c. One barque, the Brisk, had sailed for the Southern Fishery; the Samuel Enderby and Fancy, barques, were at Port Ross, and another ship was daily expected from England, as also one from Sydney with live stock. The settlement was greatly in want of lumber, nails, and fresh provisions, all of which would doubtless meet a ready sale at good prices. The New Zealanders who had immigrated thither some years since froni the Chatham Islands had been, and still continued to be, of great service to the settlers. The Havannah and Fly left the Auckland Islands on the 23rd February, arrived at Akaroa on the 27th, at Port Cooper on the 3rd March, and at Port Underwood on .the 10th inst., which they left yesterday morning, H.M. Steamer Acheron sailed from Akaroa on the 28th ult. for Otago.

The Lalla Rookh, seventeen days from Port Phillip, bound to California, put into this Port on Sunday for an additional supply of water. She has on board a great number of passengers.

By the Minerva we have received Sydney papers containing English intelligence to the end of October, from which we have extracted the most interesting particulars. We regret to learn that the brig Richard Dart, about whose fate so much anxiety has existed, was wrecked at Prince Edward's Islands, near the Cape of Good Hope, and fifty-two lives lost. A full account of the melancholy catastrophe, originally published in the Cape Town papers, with a narrative of the sufferings of the survivors, . will be found in our present number.

The Cornwall Chronicle, a Van Diemen's Land Paper, states that the office of Judge in New Zealand shortly to be vacant by Mr. Justice Chapman's promotion to Van Dieman's Land had been offered to Mr. Sydney" Stephen and had been accepted by that gentleman.

Programme of the performance of the Band of the 65th. Regt., at Thorndon Flat, on Wednesday, March 13th :—: — 1. Overture — Le Barcarolle Auber 2. Selection — I Due Foscari Verdi 3. English Quadrilles Jullien 4. Song — " The light of other days" "1 Balfg — Maid of Artois J 5. Pearl of England Waltz Jullien 6. Selection — Les Hugenots Meyerbeer 7. Pas Redouble Walch 8. Drum Polka Jullien