NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Wednesday, May 18, 1853.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 813, 18 May 1853, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Wednesday, May 18, 1853.

We have great pleasure in publishing the following answer which has been received to the memorial to the Governor in 1852, referring to questions that, through the interference of Messrs. Wakefield and Sewell and their coadjutors are even now agitating and harrassing the colony. The memorial, as our readers will no doubt remember, was presented to his Excellency in consequence of the mischievous operationof theN.Z.Company'sSettlementsAct, then recently received, which revived certain terms of pasturage of land issued by the Company (those very terms on which such stress has been laid in the recent proceedings before the Supreme Court) and virtually put a stop to the issue of Crown Grants. The memorialists prayed that they might be relieved from the serious evils rewriting from the operation of .that Act, that the settlement of the land question might be proceeded with under the arrangements of the New Zealand Company's Land Claimants Ordinance, that a uniformity of management of the Crown lands should be established throughout the colony ; and lastly they protested against the provisions made in favor of the Company for the payment of the debt alleged to be due to them from the colony, to which they were in no way consenting parties. The memorial was the most numerously signed of any that has ever been presented from the settlement, having received the signatures of seven hundred and seventyseven settlers, the great majority of whom were landowners and stockowners. Similar memorials were presented from Nelson, Wanganui, and Otago. In the despatch accompanying the Act, Lord Grey stated that in the opinion of Her Majesty's Law Advisers "Her Majesty's Government did not consider it to be competent to them to get rid of, as fully as might perhaps have been desirable for all parties, the impediments to the uni-

formity of management of the Crown Lands of the colony which those contracts created, without the assent of the other parties to the contract, namely tlte Land purchasers ;" and directed the Governor to ascertain the assent of the settlers in such manner as he might think most advisable. The Memorial sent home by the Midlothian was the answer to this appeal, and Sir John Pakington in his reply admits it to be conclusive as to the sentiments of the settlers of Wellington on this question. But farther, while the Colonial Minister entirely approves of the course adopted by the Governor "in obtaining the strong expression of public opinion manifested in the Memorial," he adds that he " had already become so satisfied from other evidence of the general inclination of the colonists, that he had felt himself justified in already giving directions to his Excellency to place the land affairs of the different settlements on such a 1a 1 footing aphis] Excellency might find] advisable." Comment on this would be superfluous, after this answer of the Colonial Minister all questions, connected with the injunction, although it still jrejnains undissolved, are virtually set at rest, and Mr. Stephen must begin to feel the false position in which through his indiscretion he has placed himself. I^the meantime' it will be observed, by. a notice^ yesterday's Gazette, that the Land Office will be open this day for the reception of applications for the purchase or selection of land under the Land Regulations.