New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, December 20, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 666, 20 December 1851, Page 3

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, December 20, 1851.

In referring to the proposed arrangement between the British Government and the New Zealand Company which has recently reached us by way of Sydney, and which fortunately for the colony has been most opportunely prevented from being carried into effect, we cannot but wonder at the assurance displayed by the Company in this fresh attempt to grasp every disposable fund in the colony and appropriate it to their own purposes, and the wonder is not diminished by the apparent facilities which seem to have been been afforded them in the accomplishment of their nefarious scheme by the Home Government. Without any reference to the amount of compensation or other claims which the colonists have -*«■•- them, and which they ought to be made to discharge, the Company fix the amount to be paid them, with interest on an ascending scale, and try to confiscate to their own use every shilling to be raised in the colony either from the land fund or from the general revenue after defraying the expences of Government. After this it might be supposed they had done their worst, but by one of their proposed conditions they ingeniously reserve to themselves, for no plea or ostensible reason that can be conceived, the power of increasing the debt 160 per cent, by changing their debentures of £lOO into debentures of £268, getting for each acre of land for which they are supposed to surrender their claims rather more than two acres and a half, or, in other words, of converting the amount of £200,000 into ! The first question one naturally feels disposed to ask is, why are the New Zealand Company to be allowed thus to shift and change the conditions of their agreement just as it their own convenience without the slightest reference to the CoLnists whose interests are so materiajy affected by these arrangements ? Every thing is to be Se upon terms of their own l d '

dictation, and no information reaches the Colony, not a syllable is heard until the whole affair is finally concluded. The terms granted to the Company by Lord Grey three years ago were considered by every one to be extravagantly and profusely liberal, and such as the Company had no reasonable grounds for expecting would be granted them £236,000 in hard cash, and a reversion of £968,000 secured to them by Act of Parliament. If an alteration is to be made in these terms it surely ought to be made in favour of those who have to pay the debt without being in any way a party to the transaction. But if whenever it suits the cupidity of the Company, the terms of their agreement are to be modified oraltered at their dictation, the affair becomes perfectly hopeless; since we have no guarantee that at an interval of every two or three years new terms will not be granted to the Company and fresh exactions imposed on the colonists by Act of Parliament, while these exactions and burdens will be further increased and rendered still more intolerable by the debts and obligations arising out of the transactions of other Associations.