Untitled

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 7, 6 June 1848, Page 2

We have received files of southern newspapers up to May 6, and have likewise some private advices of the state of affairs in that quarter. They had been anxiously waited for in Auckland, as being likely to contain matter of much interest, and, so far, they have given no disappointment. The two principal topics upon which they dwell, are the suspension of the constitution, and the ever-memorable Report of Mr, Commissioner Coivell upon the letter of

land purchasers to the directors of the New Zealand Company. With regard to the latter subject, the Southrons appear to be almost beside themselves with anger, and are not at all delicate as to the terms in which they express it. " Terms, names!" says Master Brook ; " Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are devil's additions, the names of fiends;" but for the report, every one are insufficient expressions of indignation and wrath. " A scurril production," says the Independent, " the like of which we hope will never again disgrace an appointment made in the name of Her Majesty." " An unseemly and vulgarminded document, a prostitution of office for the purposes of calumny," say the Wellington purchasers iu the replication : " the claims of this rapacious body, the Company," says the Spectator. Neither can they reasonably be blamed. The Commissioner's letter—which, although some time since in this settlement, had been very prudently kept close, and is only now at last made public—is beyond endurance, filling up the measure of ill-usage which the luckless early settlers have received at the Hands of the unprincipled body which he represents. We had ourselves intended to devote some time this week to examination of the points at issue ; but have been compelled to give precedence to another subject of more absorbing local interest. With regard to the suspension of the constitution, it seems, so far as can be gathered from the general tone of the southern press, to have been taken much more philosophically than might have been supposed; in fact, New Munster, although still in great trouble, is. as well as can be expected. The sop thrown to Cerberus by Captain Grey, in the shape of that very seasonable piece of flattery, that there never were a set of colonists to whom powers of self-government could be more judiciously entrusted, coupled with the slur upon the character of their northern rivals, seems to have acted like oil upon the waves; to have been of almost magical effect in allaying the ferment which could not but arise. They have found balm in Gilead. We are given to understand, however, that the Cook's Straits settlers are not quite so resigned to the loss as their accredited organs would have us believe. Among many signs of deep-felt dissatisfaction we mention one which has come to our knowledge—we do not vouch for perfect accuracy in details—that Mr. Fox, the newly constituted Attorney-General, has signified to Government that when he accepted office, he supposed it to be under the constitution, and that until some satisfactory arrangement shall have been substituted to the institutions now suspended, he must likewise " suspend" his own acceptance of office. It is said that he stipulates for a representative council, to which two-thirds of the members at least shall be returned by free election. Before quitting the subject, it may be as well to notice a proposition which had been seriously mooted at Nelson, and had seemingly found favour there ; to remunerate the represent uives sent to the colonial legislature by allowing them ten shillings per diem from the public revenue of the colony, and that the borough of Nelson should embrace the whole district, and consist of five wards, to be represented by sixty-eight common council men! Let us hope that such a leaf may never be taken out of the American book. Such an arrangement may work well in the United States; we know nothing to the contrary : but it is for us to preserve our own nationality as long as possible ; and the notion of hireling legislators must always grate upon English ears. The northern settlements are not the only ones in which the land claims are giving trouble ; the difliculty;and inconvenience of settling this question seems to have been severely felt at Wellington. The tenure by which the settlers hold their cattle runs from the natives, especially in the district of Wairarapa, is the awkward point. Two commissioners have been sent direct from England to enquire into, and to settle these claims, and the Independent is willing to believe that they are settled; still going on, however, to furnish us with proofs of all being in confusion still. We are told that feuds and dissentions are fast springing up between the settlers and the natives; that the natives will not sell at any price ; that the competition among Europeans for the obtaining of leases from them is so great that the natives will make fresh and perhaps most exorbitant demands upon the settlers, without any kind of redress. To us, at this distance, there is something incomprehensible about the complaint; the natives cannot oblige the Europeans to pay more than the real value of a run ; and why they should be content to take less—why prices should not be suffered to find their own level, there, as elsewhere, it is hard to say. We speak with insufficient knowledge of detail; but can venture, nevertheless, utterly to repudiate the Spectator's proposal of cutting the Gordiau knot—of " extinguishing the native title !" Captain Grey's dispatch of the Ist of July, 1847, on the subject of the Wanganui disturbances, had called up many bitter reclamations. " We have never read a dispatch," says the Independent, " which afforded us so little pleasure, and never one in which can be traced such a cold callousness to circumstances as the one referred to ;" * * but such is the confidence in Captain Grey, that the Government

and the press of England were firmly convinced that the disturbances were effectually suppressed at the date of Captain Grey's dispatch." * * " 'Tis idle, 'tis worse than folly, to cloak the truth, and assert things to be facts when the contrary is the case. After perpetrating a variety of enormities, which ought to have been stated when Captain Grey wrote the dispatch, the rebels fought the troops under Colonel M'Cleverty at St. John's Wood, and were not defeated. For some little time after the battle, the enemy remained in force within a short distance of the stockades, and ultimately retired up the river, for the purpose of planting a crop of potatoes." And the opinions of the press with regard to despatches are backed by correspondence from some of those more immediately concerned in the operations alluded to; very notably by Mr. Henry Shafto Harrison, the whole of whose letter we cannot bring ourselves to quote, but who " respectfully passes on to record his humble tribute of praise at this display of a most fertile imagination in thus pleasingly describing things as they ought to have been, and ingeniously avoiding one allusion to those families who, driven from their hardly-earnd homes, were left in penury and degradation to seek a precarious shelter-as best they couWf' *" , Mr. Brown, likewise, of Kapiti, in reference to the robbery committed on his premises by Rangihaeta in April, 1847, makes some strong observations—of which we purpose, so soon as information shall be obtained we can rely upon, to ascertain the value—in a letter addressed to His Excellency himself. The letter, to which we invite a reference, is evidently written without any feeling of hostility , towards the writer of the dispatch, but lets fall one unlucky paragraph, which seems to clinch the misrepresentation. "It is true," says the writer, "that your Excellency subjoins by way of salvo, that you cannot absolutely vouch for the truth of your statements, not having heard my account of the transaction. But this I can hardly receive as sufficient, when I inform you that my report was made to Mr. St. Hill, the Resident Magistrate, two days after the occurrence, and that your Excellency might, and ought to have known it, before risking an assertion seriously affecting the character of a humble individual." We have now additional reason to congratu- j late ourselves upon having re-established a journal in the native language, in the exam- I pie having been followed at the south. A Maori newspaper has been announced to be published from the office of the Independent, at Wellington, which " is intended not only to impart useful information, but will be open to receive from the maories themselves any letter or local news they may have it in their power to offer." The difference of feeling towards the : native race has been hitherto one of the raost ; remarkable points of distinction between the northern and southern settlers ; and we have : therefore double pleasure in assisting to give i publicity to a project,which we trust may pr we a harbinger of unanimity upon the most important question connected with the colony. ' One observation we may be perhaps allowed to ! make, relative to the price of it as advertised, s which we fear may be a hindrance to its gene- : ral circulation. That of the Auckland Kai- ■ Whakamataara has been purposely kept down ! to the smallest amount that could be reasonably t expected to cover the expenses incurred, in the • hope of rendering it more extensively ueneri- ; cial to the race for whose advantage tht under- - taking has been made. 5 We cannot conclude without expressing i our regret at the surly tone which is to je observed in the south whenever the su'-hct of r New Ulster is touched upon. They may be assured that the feeling is by no meansieciprocal , here ; there is no jealousy felt towards the ; Cook's Straits settlements, and little rivality ; . the opinion being general that the interests of r the two provinces—mercantile and commercial at all events can hardly be said to clash. We ourselves have never lost an opportunity of holding out the olive branch—for whatever diatribes may have been in- . dulged in, were invariably directed against the Company, never against the Company's settlers—and are still not without hope of at last seeing it graciously accepted.