NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, September 18, 1859.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 744, 18 September 1852, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, September 18, 1859.

We mentioned in a previous number that the last Blue Book contained a correspondence with the Otago Association. This correspondence consists chiefly of a report duly prepared for the purpose, of a meeting got up on the occasion of Mr. Valpy's being offered a seat by the Governor in the last Legislative Council, and published in Captain CargilTs paper, when the latter affected to exhibit a show of reluctance, a " coy reluctant amorous delay" in taking the chair on that occasion. The management of the whole affair is so well understood I at Otago that we need not refer to it further; the truth seems to be partially known or suspected by the Committee of ,the Association, who in their letter addressed to Captain Cargill, in reference to these proceedings " hint a fault and hesitate dislike " at the course pursued. They think " it would not have been advisable to go so far as to request" the person who had been .offered a seat in

Council "not to accept the Governor's nomination?] and deprecate anyj'further opposition at the present conjuncture "when if a law shall not have been already passed conferring powers of local legislation by representatives, the most important business of the existing Legislative Council will relate to the framing and passing of such a measure, which, be it observed, can only be done by the Imperial Government, or by the Governor, with tile advice of his Legislative Council, as at present constituted." The Association saw that the Governor after much and careful deliberation had framed the draft of the Provincial Coun-, * oils Ordinance, that he had circulated copies of it through the different settlements of New Zealand with a view to ascertain the sentiments, and- elicit the opinions of the settlers on the measure. He had in effect said' -Si quid novisti-rectius istis, -- Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecnm. But instead of jhe^ting^he Governor in .< this spirit, instead of fairly and temperately stating objections if any existed, and cordially co-operating with liim in framing the measure, or attempting to improve it, which as is properly observed can only be done by the Imperial Parliament or by the Governor with the advice of his Legislative Council as at present constituted, a factious opposition was raised which could only have the effect of injuring the settlement by. throwing impediments in the way of legislation, and of lowering it by such proceedings in the estimation of impartial unprejudiced persons. A long homily on economy on the Government expenditure by Mr". M'Glashan follows, a fit prelude to a modest request by Sir James Forest on the part of the Association that the Government would appoint, " as- a great boon to the settlers !" Capt. Cargill to be Governor, and Mr. M'Glashan Secretary of the New Province of Otago. In other words, the Association being about to break up, wishes to provide for its servants and has no objection to perpetrate a job in their favor at the expense of the settlers, — by quartering them on the public. • That the Otago Association is a sham and" delusion Hie its predecessor the New Zealand Company,. ,that it is like the Canterbury Association an admitted failure, is so evident as to require no demonstration. The scheme of ' religious class settlements, as propounded in New Zealand, like the Socialist organization of labour, has been fairly brought to a reductio ad absurdum. The Association in its correspondence with the Government can refer to no sales of land as evidence of its vitality, or of the confidence of the public in the scheme ; the ostensible object of the correspondence is to obtain a loan from Government to be spent on the roads, the real motive seems to be a desire to quarter" its 1 servants Captain Cargill and Mr. M'Glashan, for whom it has nothing to do, on the settlement before the Association is defunct. That the attempt to bolster up the peculiar features of this scheme by demanding £2 per acre- is scouted in the settlement is proved by the fact, to which we some time since adverted, that the Agent of the Association has never sold a single rural section of 50 acres since the settlement has been established, "and that those settlers who have paid in the mother country £100 for fifty acres of rural land at Otago, are glad to get £45, which Captain Cargill acknowledges to *he "the average market price in the settlement." : Thig great reduction in price any plain ; man of business .would consider to be a . serious loss ; not so Captain Cargill, he 5 triumphantly refers to the fact in his paper t as a proof " that land has risen in value' . at Otago;" and though it would not be 5 clear to Cocker, it is clear to Captain » Cargill that the reason why rural sections i which cost £100 are. sold for £45 is— we % • quote his own words — " because they can i, be sold at that price and yield' a profit.'' s By parity of reasoning he. may prove to t his own satisfaction that his receiving I £300 a-year for doing nothing is a gain to - the settlement. But we are greatlymistaken r if this nuisance will he much longer tolerf ated, it is hardly possible that in the - establishment of the new Constitution ; Captain Cargill's mischievous and expenL sive sinecure can be continued. * The . great majority of the magistrates^ all the ■ ministers of religion save the minister. of ; the Free Church, the members of the other i professions, and a decided majority of the

large landowners ajad stockowners, storekeepers andishqpkeepers are all against the continuation of the scheme, and desire that the sanke' uniformity of management in the Crown lands which obtains in the oldef settlements should he extended to Otagfc. The objectionable Free Church tax on the consciences and purses of their neighbours must be given up, the land iniist.be sold at a reasonable price, and Captain Cargill's useless sinecure must be abolished; for though it would be hard indeed on the settlers to.pay him for doing \ nothing, it would be harder, still to maintain him, as they do at present, while his dnly employment, when not pacing the Otago jetty, is throwingilirt at his neighbours, by the continual publication in the columns of the .Otago Witness of scurrilous attacks on those gentlemen who do nbt belong to. the " family compact," or do not happen to look upon him as an infallible oracle.