NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, February 5, 1853.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 784, 5 February 1853, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, February 5, 1853.

In our present number will be found (extracted from one of the last BlueJBooks) Lord Grey's Despatch, enclosing a report from the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners, on the Duppa Compensation Job. These official documents will he found to confirm the correctness of the account of the transaction which we gave at the time (January 7. 1851), and as this affair is not yet, we believe, concluded, and may still lead to farther discussion, we may take the opportunity of offering a few remarks on some of the points' raised by these official papers. \\ia jfty&rftom the Commissioners* report thai there was nothing in the circumstances to establish any difference between Mr. Duppa's case and that of any of the other original purchasers of prelinunary land oWers. from the New Zealand Company; his claim to compensation rested on the same ground* as theirs, and even Mr, Fox, in attempting to justify his conduct,' in connexion with this affair, in a, letter published in the Independent oefore leaving the Colony, admits he " may have erred in judgment in having agreed to make it a special case* Mr. Duppa. was originally a Wellington settler, and under the Wellington Scheme of compensation Jie would have received, 1200 acres of land as compensation on his eight land orders, or including his country land, 2000 acres of land in all. It suited Hr« D,uppa's interest to remove to Nelson, and he we^Hsirious of obtaining his land in that settlement, and &s the exchange was a concession on the part of the Company to Mr. Duppa, and evinced adisposition to promote his views, it might have been expected that this readiness to meet his wishes, would have had the effect of abating somewhat of the rigour of his demands; we certainly should not be prepared to find the 2000 acres under {he Wellington scheme of compensation (including the original purchase) swell into 8000 acres of land at Nelson, besides . 200 acres of suburbanlandat the Waimea, particularly when it if remembered that the land in this settlement was sold by the Company at 20s. an acre, while at Nelson the price originally paid was 30s. an acre. Lord Grey, in transmitting to the Governor, the report pf the Emigration Commissioner*, who, as will be seen, express themselves in strong and decided terms •gainst the arrangement, directs that the •ward should on no account he cwjirnwd, unless ft further investigation of the ehcumstances should establish stronger reasons mits&vourthanhewasthenaware of. A further investigation, we believe, did take place at Nelson before the Crown Comuisifoßer (Mr. Dillon) «n«i the Crown Solicitor (Mr. Poynter),who confirmed the award ot £2000, but did not consider Mr. Duppa entitled to the 8000 acres of land selected by him in respect ot that sum, and so, it is laid, the matter remains ibr the present. Mr. Fox's conduct in this transaction is certainly most extraordinary. The Commissioners very properly animadvert -on the my unusual nature of the arbitra-

tion, which seems to have been merely to give a sort of sanction to Mr. Duppa's demands, for it appears Mr. Fox had not "any authority to bind the Company for whom he was acting to accept the arbitration," and he went to the arbitration fettered with conditions which virtually left nothing to arbitrate upon. When Mr. Fox^previous to the arbitration acceded to Mr. Duppa's stipulations, that compound interest at £10 per cent, should be allowed him on his original purchase/ and that he should be entitled to receive the money value of any award mode in his favour in land at ss. an acre, all that remained for the arbitrators' to do was simply* to calculate the amount of compound interest, and make their award accordingly. And yet Mr. Fox in his letter to Lord Grey, with these admitted facts, asserts that the arbitrators " could, if they chose has& awarded ;tfre claimant ten times as much as they did, or have refused him any compensation at all /" Again it is to be noted, that when the j bona ./fofe purchasers of the Company in the Nelson settlement, who had paid beforehand at the rate of 30s. an acre, are to choose their lands, a portion of this very land is offered to them for selection, but whenaperson,betweenwhomandMr,Foxa " commercial connexion" existed, is to be compensated, Mr* Fox declares the land could <c not be sold at Is. an acre, possibly not at any price," and & would not be actually sold at 6s. an acre at any time ugthin. the next, hundred years? If Mr. Fox believed the land to be so worthless why did he offer it to bona fide purchasers, as an equivalent for the money they had paid, at the rate of 30s. an acre? If, on the other hand, the land is really as worthless as Mr. Fox represents it to be, it is not very probable, that Mr. Duppa, who cannot be accused of neglecting his own interests, would be so anxious to take it at the rate of ss. an acre.