New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, August 23, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 632, 23 August 1851, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, August 23, 1851.

In our last number we shewed the miserable contradictions into which the present conductor of the Independent has been led in his impotent opposition to the Government. In thus flying from one extreme to another, in thus unsaying all that he had previously said, within so brief a period, he has either formed a very moderate (and so far correct) estimate of his own powers and influence, and supposed his arguments and assertions to be traced on sand, and so speedily effaced from remembrance, or else he has calculated on such an amount of credulity on the part of bis readers as to render him perfectly reckless in his statements. Passing, however, to the main subject of our consideration, we invite the serious attention of the settlers to the present state of the land question in this Province,—such as it has been left at the dissolution of the New Zealand company, and as it remains to be adilisted under the operation of the Land Claimants Ordinance. This bill provides for the effectual and final settlement of all claims to land—whether by absentee or resident purchasers—under the New Zealand Company,

and from the nature and complication of many of these claims, and from the liberal terms offered by this measure, it will be seen that a more complete, and therefore more satisfactory adjustment of these claims will be arrived at than could possibly have been effected under the Company. One of the principal features of the bill, the issuing of scrip to land purchasers in satisfaction of their claims at the rate of one pound per acre, and the permission to exchange land for scrip which shall be a transferable security, and be received at Government sales of land as cash, will especially conduce to this end, and also have the effect, we hope, of ridding the colony in a great degree of an incubus which had been fastened on it by the Company, we mean the absented land owners-

And now, on dissolving the connection between the Company and the settlers, in striking the balance between them, it may be well to consider their relative position. The Company in their last report acknowledge to have disposed of upwards of 270,000 acres; the amount of land granted or to be granted in compensation to their purchasers is estimated at 200,000 acres; these two amounts together, at the minimum upset price of land, may be taken at £470,000 abstracted from the land fund of the colony for the purposes of the Company. The Company have received from the British Government the sum of £236,000, advanced to them in the first instance as a loan free of interest, and converted, on the surrender of their charters to the Government, into a free gift. They are further to receive (and this should be especially remembered by every settler) the sum of £268.000, with interest at the rate of 3|-per cent. (£9400 a year), until this amount is paid. And these sums are secured to the Company by Act of Parliament, and charged on the land fund of both Provinces until principal and interest are discharged. It is further to be observed that so far as appears from the Act of Parliament, or may oe gathered from the Company’s reports, no deduction is to he made on the score of compensation granted to the land purchasers, or expenses (caused by the Company or their Agents) to be incurred in issuing the grants. They claim the whole amount without any abatement, and appear to consider this and the grant of £236,000 already received as, to use their own words, but " a petty fraction of the reparation” to which they conceive themselves to be entitled.

The especial grounds on which the Company rest their claims to consideration and compensation are, that colonization, and consequently the prosperity of the colony, will be more effectively promoted through their agency than by any other means. This is the burthen of every report, it is repeated on every occasion, in season and out of season, it is a topic on which the Directors are never weary of expatiating. If they are asking anything for themselves, they profess to be only actuated by a desire *to promote the prosperity of the colony and the interests of their settlers. They stretch forth their hands and cry give, and ground their appeals on the necessities, or injuries, or wrongs of the settlers. They have received in land and money from New Zealand (reckoning the land at the upset price of £1 per acre) the sum of £974,000. And what has been the result ? According to their last report they have conveyed 11 680 persons to New Zealand. But, as has Uen shewn in the Address to the Crown by the Legislative Council, if the sums expended on the Company had been applied to the purposes of colonization (including only half the proceeds of the land at £1 per acre) 65,24! emigrants (one-third adults and two! thirds children) would have been introduced into the colony, estimating the cost of their passage at that paid by the Commissioners tor emigration, or ahnni 4:1*7 tc —- —*, u g aUe Xl we attempt to calculate the actual cost to ‘ h,! emi S ra “ ta introduced by the New Zealand Company, taking them in »w„ S . a t“ e ? r^, OrtiO, ‘ ( one "^ l *rd adults and two.th.rdn children) it wfll amount td about

£9O per head! This f acl j-TTS to establish the efficiency o f ' 88,1 % as a colonizing body, and th . / C °> riority over the spect!- By the same report w while the expenses of their e J. ? nd were upwards of £ll,OOO a ye _ Fox received £lOOO a year, an /’ While Mt. and expensive staff of officers was maintained in Wellington’d ’ the land sold by the Company^" and principal settlement actaallv to 2 j acres I ' In referring to the compe nBati „ to the land purchasers, the Com for themselves the exclusive healing measure they boast of th* < nal reparation of injustice” and "4 fice of land which it has involved ” most indisputable proofs “of sympathy with the wrongs,” " anxious care for the interests of til I tiers. ” But without dwelling on I diation of these claims after I ceived compensation from the Go Ve * I without adverting to Mr. Comm'?' Cowell’s recort or 1. ... . / ’“‘S settlers asked for reparation of their* their applications were rejected, andj themselves taunted with bad faith; account at present stands it seems toM clear that this compensation will be for,—not by the Company,—though in last application to Government they this as a principal ground for pensation to themselves but, out of fund of the colony. The Act of P ar li amea overrides every other interest, and eh. blishes the claims of the Company as pan. mount to ail previous existing Deducting the outlay for surveys, andtif proportion appropriated to the pmp® of emigration, the land fund is absolute mortgaged to the Company, andifwei to the sum of £268,000, the value of 1 200,000 acres of compensation land, i expenses of surveys, &c„ caused by I Fnx’c oonJuat, tko crjKK of issuing the Crown grants, the adjs ment of the claims of the Akaroa settle the satisfaction of Mr. Scott’s claims; 1 these and many other items, amountin’i a moderate estimate to about half a mift of money, stand as charges to the debit; the colony. The very springs and soon! of improvement are dried up, themes even of acquiring fresh districts fromti natives and removing any further difficl ties with them by the equitable extincte of their claims are taken away, the v.| pledges by Government to the natives dl certain proportion of the proceeds of til land sales to be devoted to the improve® of their social and moral condition K broken ; the claims of the Company lilti desolating torrent have swept all bd® them, leaving only a barren waste behind ana our chief hope of redress must rest! the representations and exertions made I Sir George Grey to the Home Governing And while this wholesale spoliation 0 going on, while “ these pinches were 1 dieted, the marks of which it will years to efface,” did those who so great a regard for the rights O' ts settlers,—the self - constituted of popular liberties, the self-elected 1 ers of the people,—ever raise one w®* ing voice, did they ever enter one b nant protest against the arrange® 60 ' Did the Faction in this Province, or allies in the North, ever once disclaim most unjust and grievous imposrt® 11 ’ denounce the authors of it? Their knowledged leader, the man of their 6 •’ he whom they delighted to follow, Principal Agent of the Company, tl l ® ( out of compensation slices; and the nial to character on which the Comp oo / 8 most confidently to rely while apP ea the Home Government for j pensation and more extensive P a resolution passed by “ certam P , calling themselves a Constitutiona ation,” who merely acted as c y’i and obedient servants” of the 0 ' Agent in passing it, —the said Ag e doning his adopted country the r°° *

ceased to draw his salary, and leaving his deluded followers to cherish the vain belief of a future Avatar of their idol. Instead of offering any opposition to this wholesale jobbing, from the course they have pursued they have been guilty accomplices ; —and it will excite no surprise, on> some future and convenient occasion, when the growing indignation of the colonists at being saddled with this enormous debt and interest becomes louder and louder, when their heavily taxed and patient endurance refuses any longer to bear the burden which crushes all their energies, to find the consistent writer in the Independent, on whose shoulders Mr. Fox’s threadbare mantle has fallen, and who volunteers “tomarch through Coventry” with the recruits his leader (absent without leave) has collected,. joining in, the general outcry, and claiming credit for the part which throughout these proceedings he has so consistently taken.

Last Thursday’s Gazette contains a Proclamation, bringing into operation, within the limits of the Town of Wellington, the provisions of the Town Roads and Streets Ordinance, passed by the Provincial Council of New Munster in 1849, which will be found in the fourth page of our present number. In last Saturday’s Spectator we published the third and fourth clauses of the Ordinance which declare the qualification of voters (universal suffrage), and prescribe the time when claims to votes are to be sent in (on or before 1 st September in each year.) We subjoin the form of claim to vote and advise all those who are desirous that the streets in this Town shall be kept in proper repair to lose no ; time in registering their claims. To Henry St, Hill, Esq.. Resident Magistrate, Wellington. I hereby give you notice that 1 claim to have my name put upon the Roll of Electors, to vote for Commissioners for the town of Wellington. Dated the day of 1851. f Place of abode and business I of Claimant.

The following is an extract of a letter received yesterday by the overland mail from Manawatu, giving an account of an accident on the river, by which two lives were lost: “Three men, named John Richardson, — Major, and M’Nally, a discharged soldier, upset their canoe just after leaving Mr. F. Cook’s, at the Awahou, late on Saturday sight last,, the 16th inst. Richardson returned to Mr. Cook’s, having swam on shore, but the others have not since heen heard of, nor has the canoe been found. The canoe must have gone out to sea, and there is no doubt the two missing men were both drowned.”

We understand there is every reason to believe that the fragments of wreck alluded to in our last number are portions of the Maria that have floated out to sea, and afterwards drifted into Palliser Bay.

On Thursday evening a lecture was delivered at the Wellington Athenaeum, by Mr. Catch pool, on the Origin and Art of Printing. The lecturer commenced by alluding to the probability of the Babylonians being the first who attempted the impression of characters from one body to another, as exemplified in the bricks which had been found among the rums of their capital, and which bore evident marks of having been impressed and not engraved ; that the Chinese had practised the art of printing from blocks of wood for centuries previous to its introduction in Europe : he then took a rapid glance at the value of manuscript works before the art of printing was introduced into England, and exhibited a very elegant modern specimen of the manner in which the ancient missals were illuminated, as also some diagrams of machine presses. Mr. Catchpool then entered into a detailed description of the modern system of printing, with interesting particulars connected with the newspaper press, particularly of the Times and other leading journals of the present day, and concluded a very interesting lecture with the following appropriate re-

I have now endeavoured to give you some general idea of the Art of Printing, an art to which we are mainly indebted for our present moral, religious, and political freed nm~— «n ar t that gives stability to thought—-forms a dbinet for our ideas, and presents, in imperishable colours, a speaking portraiture of ];,?, Without it, of how comparatively nr U f e be the wisdom of past ages, the history of former states ? While the guage of the lips is fleeting as the breath

itself, the language of the press enjoys an adamantine existence, and will only perish amidst the ruins of the globe. Before its mighty powers time and space become annihilated ; it joins centuries to centuries, and pole to pole; it gives unity to the works of Creation and Providence, and enables us to trace from the beginning of things to the end. It is the great sun of the moral world, that warms, and stimulates, irradiates, dev’elopes, and matures the best virtues of the heart, and the best faculties of the intellect. But for this, everything would be doubt, and darkness, and death-shade ; all knowledge would be traditionary, and all experience local; civilized life would relapse into comparative barbarism, and man would have to run through his insignificant round of existence, the perpetual sport of ignorance and error. “May we not then justly characterise the art as one of the noblest inventions that ever emanated from the mind of man.”