New Zealand Spectator AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, February 19, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 579, 19 February 1851, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, February 19, 1851.

We have been obliged to defer to our present number the few observations wc wished to make on the amusing report, which appeared in last Wednesday’s Independent, of the parting dinner given to Mr. Fox by his supporters. If “ the persons calling themselves a Constitutional Association” were content to play their fantastic tricks in private, for their sakes we should be disposed to pass them over in silence, but they invite criticism by the publication of the silly after dinner exhibition which they make of themselves. In vino veritas, and we presume we may accept the published report in the 7hdependent, with all its bad grammar and superlative nonsense, as the genuine effusion of the little knot who delight to honor Mr. Fox, and that on their authority we are to regard Mr. Fox and Mr. Weld as the Castor and Pollux of the Constitutional Association, who are to bring Parliament to their senses, and compel them to adopt their Resolutions. We may be excused for obvious reasons if, in our notice of the dinner, we only briefly allude to the observations of two of the speakers. Dr. Dorset, we are told, magnifies his office, and his head appears to be so completely turned by the surprising circumstance of his being Chairman of the Constitutional Association, that he is quite at a loss to conceive what next may happen to him. Many no doubt will be inclined to think that, having displayed a kind of alacrity in sinking, he has nearly fathomed the lowest depths, that it is impossible for him to sink much lower than he has already done. And though he may not be able to see it, his own conduct is quite sufficient to account for the contempt which he takes care to inform us the natives entertain for him, without supposing, as he coarsely insinuates, that any sinister influence is directed against him. Mr. Fox, by a sort of fatuity, made the Wairarapa district a prominent feature in his address. It was, he said, the scene of his first rambles when, in company with the chairman, “ like two greenhorns,” they visited the district; it was a source of gratification to him that it had now become “the depot of large and extensive cattle stations.” And yet Mr. Fox, while professing to rejoice at the successful occupation of that district, actually applied to the Government, as Agent of the Company, to turn off the owners of stations there, as squatters who interfered to prevent the purchase of the district. And the Company, in their letter to Lord Grey, 18th June, 1850, complainthat, among the other minor hindrances which have conspired to prevent them from availing themselves of the means of repairing their losses, “ the laws against ‘ squatting,’ and prohibiting the dealing of individuals with natives for land have not been' enforced, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the Company's Agents ; and thus they have been baf. fled in their efforts to purchase valuable tracts (as the Wairarapa plains), and the demand for the land at their disposal has been proportionately diminished.”* So that, while professing to promote the interests of the squatters, the Company and their Agent have secretly been urging the Government to turn them out of their runs. And if the Government had acted on “these remonstrances,’ no doubt Mr. Fox would have been the loudest in inveighing against the injustice which he had recommended, and by

r *^ ette \°T th j ® ecretar y t 0 New Zealand port l 7 t 0 L ° rd Grey pubhshed in their last Re-

which his employers hoped to profit; a 8 j j formerly complained that the Company Were * ready to pay for other districts besides I Rangitikei, but that the Government woulj I not enter into the necessary | for purchasing them, well knowing a j ' time that the Company were unable to I pay the instalments on the purchases which i had been effected, and which, when they became due, the Government was oblige I to discharge. And in answer to the appli, | cation of the Government to know the nature I of the arrangements between the | and the squatters, Mr. Fox has declined to E give any information whatever. So much f Of B his professsions of regard for the squatters’ H interests. By the way, can Mr. Fox imaging his vindication (republished in our last num. B ber), the publication of which was delayed B the last opportunity before his sailing, will b e & looked upon in any other light thau m B Old Bailey quibble ? No one when his affairs are all arranged, and h p himself is on the paint of embarking [ ot |? England, that he is still Mr. Duppa’spart.P ner. If he had said “I am no partner dp Mr. Duppa,” nor have I been at any time his partner, particularly at the perish when it is stated, “1 have colluded with hi® to secure him an exorbitant amount of com/ pensation for his claims on the New Zea. & land Company,” such a vindication might l| have been entitled to some attention. But K Mr. Fox could not, and therefore did not, I say this, and as we before observed, it would i have been better for him to have remained I silent altogether than to have ventured o: @ such a vindication of his character.