New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, August 20, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 631, 20 August 1851, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, August 20, 1851.

Sheridan v/us .upplicc; to oy his creditors to insure his life, he asked a friend to certify that he lived more regularly than usual. You certainly get mare regularly drunk than usual was the rejoinder. And .so with the Independent in the personal

rancour (the rancour of a disappointed placehunter) which animates its present conductor, the follower (but with unequal steps) of his coadjutor Mr. Fox, who has left him singly to wage an unequal strife. No contradiction is too great, no absurdity too gross, if it only be directed against the Governor or a Government officer. As the drunkard with eager but trembling hand clutches the fatal potion which is consigning him to slow but certain destruction, and in the intoxication and delirium of the moment fancies that all around him reels while he alone is steady, so this unfortunate. —bewildered, maddened with mental excitement, —staggers in his devious course, and is reckless of the contradictions, the absurdities into which he is betrayed, if he can only gratify his ruling passion. We intended to direct the attention of the public to the present state of the land question in connection with the New Zealand 'Company’s' Land Claimants Ordinance, but before doing so we will offer a few observations on some subjects that have been mixed up in the discussion of this question, having especial reference to the remarks in the JWe/ieWewf on the Attorney General’s speech, and. Sir George Grey’s ‘‘conspiracy’’ (as the Independent alleges) “to crush the Canterbury Association, and to upset the whole scheme of the settlement.”

It is unnecessary to follow the Independent in its long and rambling attack on the Attorney-General; dismissing at once its personalities as unworthy of notice, we will confine ourselves to one or two of the charges brought against him, from which a conclusion may be drawn as to the value of the rest. The Independent describes Mr. Swainsori’s speech as an “elaborate and carefully worked up, but most dishonest defence of the Government at the expense of the New Zealand Company,”—and attempts to “vindicate the Company from the charge of having adopted a fixed and unalterable system in the sale of land, and then with having departed from it to the serious injury of the fdouista.” Any one who has read Mr. Swainsonß speech will see that he' does not in any way pretend to defend the Government at the expense of the New Zealand Company; he attempts to prove, we think successfully, from reports of the Company or documents published by them, or addressed to them by the settlers, “ that the work of colonization cannot, consistently with the honor of the Crown, the the character of the nation, the rights of aborigines, the interests of settlers, and the welfare of the colony at large, be safely intrusted to an irresponsible body of private individuals associated together for the purpose of buying, selling, and making a profit by the sale of the waste lands of the Crown.” When Dr. Featherston, in his letter to the Company, told the Directors “ You cannot and dare not deny that the immediate and proximate cause of our ruin has been the non-fulfilment by you of the contract formed with us seven years agowhen the same writer accused the Company of “ treating the settlers as beggars used the squalid children they borrowed, pinching them till their cries attracted the attention and excited the sympathy of the whole world, and then—quietly pocketing the half-pence—-leaving on the settlers the marks of pinches which it would require years to efface ” — we cannot but admire the coolness, the intrepidity manifested in his recent panegyricsOMhat body, but we must admit his charges against them to be much stronger than any made bythe Attorney-General. In attempting to vindicate the Company the Independent first mistakes and then misrepresents the Attorney-General’s argument, who complains that “it is unjust and injurious to the bond fide settler,” on the part of the Government (not of the Company) “to put forward a system, as a fixed and permanent system, on the faith of which the settler is' encouraged to rely, and then to depaftfrom it, in order that some distant body of sponsible projectors may have the opportunity of making New Zealand the field of some crude and impracticable undertaking.” How unjust and injurious to the colony-, how expensive to the Imperial Government,

this has been, the history Zealand Company, th e pr U the colony affords ample eviden < must reserve, this part of the another opportunity. ” I W

A few words will suffice in . ? jfl alleged design on the part of HE norand Attorney General (as the Independent) to crush the -jg Association and upset the scheme* I settlement. In referring to the C B scheme Mr. Swainson “ drew a E tinction between its projectors and the actual settlers; o f the ] B speaks in the kindliest terms and a them every encouragement and '•"“’'E on the part of the Government l scheme itself, arguing from the e • I of the New Zealand Company, h E the failure—" that as a great lonization in its entirety it never E and never could be carried into full B and he gives as conclusive reasons tertaining this opinion that, after all fi?£ E of time and after the most unprej? I efforts, not more than twenty thous< I have been disposed of at £3 an acr3 I that the Association have already ai I to Parliament to alter their scheme and I raise money by the issue of debentures I any one will take the trouble to turn toth» Independent of the 30th April and 3rd (three short months since) in two artij referring to a rumoured extension of tb Canterbury block, we find all this and a great deal more asserted in much strong terms. It is there asserted “ that it was incumbent on the Association, in making thia application , to have shewn that their regu. lations with respect to the disposal of land were such as might reasonably be expected to promote the rapid settlement of the ter. ritory to which they advanced a claim, and that the success which had attended tU scheme justified them in asking foranei. tension of their territory,” but that it would “be impossible for the Association to est» blish either of these points.” An elaborate argument is entered into, and the experience of each of the southern settlements referW to, to shew that the higher the price of land the smaller the amount sold, that with al the peculiar advantages and baits” held out by the Association, “ aple the last accounts they had only sold 14,000 acres,” (the very words and italics of the hdependent.) It is then broadly stated, "that as far as the sale of land is concerned, the scheme of Canterbury must not only be considered to have been a complete failure, but there is not the slightest reason to imagine that the Association will be more successful in future”—that “ it is difficult to conceive upon what grounds the Association now claim to have the greater portion of the Middle Island placed under their control’’- “ that the attempt to ‘taboo’ the whole of the outside territories, simply’ because the Association have not succeeded in purchasers for their land at £3 an acre, look to us nothing short of an act of suicide oo the part of the Canterbury settlers,” and would “ involve the old settlers in ruin, “ that the settlers in every settleme 8 ! would protest against the Government ceding to the present claim,” with more to the same effect, which we shod, weary our readers with quoting — writer concludes by asserting it to be preposterous” that he cannot bring hinn “ to believe that either the Home or Government will listen to it.” All this W® B published in the Independent just before t * meeting of the Council. Compare his with his present altered tone ! Surely s inconsistencies are too gross to remain u 8 noticed, such palpable contradictions cieany oetray tne personal influence and animate such a writer.

According to the reports of persons who have recently returned from Wairarapa, along the coast, the beach from the Muka Muka rock is strewed with fragments of the wreck of a vessel, supposed to be the Raven, which left Fort Cooper in company with the Maria, and which must have gone on shore in the same gale. It is greatly to be feared that all on board must have per* ished. 1