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

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 587, 19 March 1851, Page 2

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

We have extracted from the New Zealand Journal, of October 5, a despatch from Mr. Hawes, Under-Secretary for the Colonies, tu Captain Cargill, Agent of the Otago Association, in answer to an application from that body “to be put on a footing resembling that of the Canterbury Association,” in which that gentlemen is informed that, in consequence of various legal difficulties arising out of the position of the New Zealand Company, it is doubtful whether their request can at present be acceded to. With the generality of readers these official documents are often passed over as uninteresting, but we deem it advisable to direct attention to this application, and that its nature and import may be the better understood, it may not be inexpedient briefly to state the powers granted to the Canterbury Association. That body has been incorporated by an Act of Parliament (published in the Government Gazette, Jan. 22, and in the Spectator, Jan. 25), by the provisions of which they have, subject to certain stipulations as to the price to be paid for lands, and the appropriation of the purchasemoney, an absolute control over the lands of that settlement, which are excepted from the operation of the Royal Instructions relating to the disposal of lands in this colony, and from the obligation to contribute towards the payment of the debt of £268,000 to the New Zealand Company, saddled on the rest of the colony, with interest at the rate of 3| per cent. The Canterbury. Association, consists of a body of persons in London, and have established an expensive machinery in London, with their agents and other subordinate officers in the colony. And the Otago Association desire to be invested with similar powers. All the objectionable features which were to be found in the New Zealand Company, and which so materially contributed to its failure, are to be repeated in these Associations, the. settlers have no

voice in the appointment of these self-con-stituted bodies nor any control over thenproceedings, while if they fail, the debts incurred by them are chargeable on the colony. The interests of the colony have suffered so materially from the extensive powers delegated to the New Zealand Company, that it was to be hoped the Government, profiting by experience, would have been careful for the future in granting such powers to similar Associations, which only tend to embarrass the operations of the Government while the settler is precluded from having an opportunity of influencing or controlling, the acts of the Association. It has been said of the Whigs, that they were fond of building walls to run their heads against, and if one Company, now happily defunct, should nave created so much embarrassment and inconvience to the Government, and so much injury to the settlers, the multiplying of these Companies, by establishing them in connection with each settlement now formed, or hereafter to be formed, seems needlessly to complicate and increase the embarrasments of the Colony.