THE SOUTHERN CROSS. Saturday, August 17, 1844.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 70, 17 August 1844, Page 2

THE SOUTHERN CROSS. Saturday, August 17, 1844.

LUCEO NON URO. "li I have been extinguished, yet there rise A thousand beacons from the spark I bore." Tub Effects of the Failure of the New Zealand Company on the Colony generally. In our last we shortly noticed the intimation contained in the Sydney Newspapers regarding the New Zealand Company, and from various circumstances we feel disposed to believe that as a Colonizing body the Company has ceased. It has been for a considerable time losing credit with tho English public, and as a speculation has been far from profitable to thoso concerned in it — so that it does not appear surprising that such an event as its failure or dissolution should take place. Like every other person or persons who have suffered from imprudence or folly, the Company is desirous of imputing its misfortunes to any other than itself, and as tho Government is tho party most convenient and most likely to be believed as having inflicted injury upon the Company, the Government is, as a matter of course, blamed as the author of the dire calamity. Tho Old Panama Company and the South Australian Company in a similar manner accused the Government, and perhaps with much justice, as being the cause of their failure. It is not at all surprising that the New Zealand Company should do the same. And while wo arc far from, saying that tho lato Government .of this Colony behaved well to the New Zealand Company, wo arc still persuaded that under any circumstances no other result than loss to the shareholders could havo been expected from a Company conducted as that of New Zealand has been. It is not in tho nature ol tilings that it could have succeeded. As a general principle it may be asserted that no large Company can succeed, even the East India Company itself, with all its plunder, rapine, bloodshed and oppression, is not an exception. Independent of the great expenso attending the management of tho affairs of a Company, there is always wanting in a number of persons one essential element of success, viz. unity of purpose. It is the same with a Government — a despotic Government is under equal circumstances much nioro effective than either a mixed or a republican Government. It is more powerful, whether for good or evil, just because tho same undivided power conceives and executes. — Over and above the ordinary causes from which the 'failuro of a Company might be predicated,! thero were peculiar circumstances attending tho New Zealand Company which made its failuro inevitable Constituted as it was, and operating as it did, it was morally impossible that it could havo succeeded. However high the character of some of the parties connected with the Company, as a whole it was not deserving of any better name than that of a band of reckless adventurers, — for certainly any party who obtains money under false pretences is not deserving of any other character. How many hundreds of persons in this Colony and in England havo found this to be tho true character of tho Company ? We believe that all the settlers with ono voice would join in tho assertion. That the Directors have been much deceived by tho reports of their agents in this country is most likely, for we are convinced that they have been very much led astray by accounts, of purchases of lands that never had been made. Colonel Wakefield perhaps in order to shield himself appears to have kept them in the dark regarding tho state of affairs in tho Colony. To him, and not to the Government of this Colony, is justly due tho credit of having ruined the Company and the Company's settlers. He it was who purchased its lauds, and he it was who should have put the settlers of the Company in posssssion of the lands purchasod by them. That gentleman obtains a name for shrewdness and sagacity, but we ask himself or any person to look at his management of the Company's affairs in this Colony, and then to select his name. Who could have blundered more than he has done ? Who could have been more unmindful of the interests of his

" ' I am confident the largo majority of j tho shareholders will place the utmost con- ' fideucc in their executivo body, and leave with the greatest safety their affairs in tlio hands of a Court of Directors who have so constantly and deservedly merited their thanks. lam exceedingly vexed I shall not bo in Broad-street Buildings to express this personally, and have no doubt a small delay of timo will be cheerfully acceded to by those who are present. " 'Evor 3'ours, " ' Russell Ellice. "'Joseph Soamos, Esq.

der the necessity of borrowing a very large sum of money. Tho Scottish settlement will, wo suspect, bo knocked in the head. " New Zealand Company. " The following report will convoy to the public the information that tho fate of tho New Zealand Company — and, wo say, of the British settlements in New Zealand — is at this moment trembling in tho balance. The next fortnight will decide whether British colonization and colonial interest aro to I suffer a heavy blow and great discouragement, or to receive a new impetus. "Pursuant to advertisement, a meeting of tho Company was held at tho New Zealand House, yesterday. The following Report was read to tho meeting : — " ' Tenth Report of the Directors of the New Zealand Company. " ' When tho advertizement calling this meeting was issued, your Directors anticipated that it would bo their duty to submit to you to-day a statoment of tho condition of tho Company's affairs, and to recommend to you, in consequence, tho adoption of certain proceedings. Thoy have now to inform you that it is not in their power to fulfil any part of that intention, and to acquaint you briefly with'tho grounds of their present reserve. When they call your attention to tho fact that this Company has been engaged for five years in forming settlements whoso population now exceeds 10,000 souls, at a cost of abovo £500,000 (besides a much larger sum by the settlers' themselves), but that its title to land is yet unsecured by tho grant of a single aero from tho Crown ; and whenyou reflect on the consequences, as respects safety of property, and even life, of recent events in New Zealand, you will not require any further reference to tho causes of this calamitous state of things in order to understand that tho Company is at this moment deprived of all means of usefulness as an instrument of colonization, and in great danger of becoming a total wreck as respects even the property of tho shareholders and the settlers. Under thoso circumstances your Directors havo been campelled to suspend entirely the proceedings of the Company as a colonizing body, and they have made representations to her Majesty's Government of the actual state of your affairs, in the hope that some arrangement may be mado by which the confidence of tho public in tho Company's powers and usefulness may bo restored both hero and in New Zealand. It is this confidence, your Directors feel perfectly satisfied, which is alone wanting to enable the Company to carry out tho objects of their incorporation on a continually increasing scale. With this confidence the most sanguine of tho views of the founders of tho Confpany may be realized ; but without it you must, of necessity, retire from an enterprise, the further pursuit of which, unless the causes of its present failure be removed, can only result in more extensive disappointment and ruin. Your Directors anxiously trust that tho representations which thoy have mado to tho Secretary of State for tho Colonies on this subject may bo favourably received ; and they suggest to you tho propriety of adjourning this meeting for a fortnight, without asking further explanations of them, or adopting any other resolution until it shall bo in their power to lay before you tho final result of their correspondence with his Lordship. " ' New Zealand House, March 15, 1844.' '* " After the reading of this report, tho following resolution Avas moved by George Lyall, Esq., seconded by Goorgo Hibbert, Esq., and carried unanimously:-— " *■ That tho Report now read bo adopted, and that this Court be adjourned until Friday, the 29th instant, to bo then held at this house, at one o'clock precisely.' " " Tho following question was put to tho Governor by Mr. Currie : — " ' Having good reasons to know that the proceedings of this meeting are viewed with great anxiety by the Scotch colonists and others, who havo resolved on joining the expedition announced, to found tho colony of New Edinburgh, many of whom havo already made considerable sacrifices in preparing to embark. lam desirous of knowing whether, in tho communications which the Directors have had with Her Majesty's Government anything has occurred to lessen tho confidence which the intending settlers repose in the security of the undertaking?' " "Mr. Somes: "'The Directors decline to answer any question until tho 29th instant.' " " The following letter from Mr. Russell Ellice was read at the commencement of the proceedings : — (Copy.) " ' Portman-quare, Thursday evening. " ' My dear Somes, — Nothing but the necessity of leaving London to-morrow, in order to rejoin my sick wife at Ramsgate, would havo induced me to absent myself from your New Zealand meeting to-morrow.

employers, or more insensible to tho sufferings of his own and their victims ? Wo know of nono — and wo aro astonished that he should have been so long permitted to niisi manago their affairs in this colony. As respects the colony generally, the failure of tho New Zealand Company will be immediately injurious, but eventually beneficial. Emigration to tho southern settlements will, as a matter of course, immediately cease. Tho Company and every thing connected with it will bo in such bad odour in England that no man would for ono moment think of emigrating to any settlement formed under it, and for a time tho whole colony will suffer from the general feeling of distrust. Few persons at home are aware that even Auckland or any settlement in New Zealand lias not been formed by the Company. The organs and agents of ,the Company have carefully kept tho British public in ignorance of every settlement and every matter in Now Zealand excepting what pertained to their own settlements. And it will at least take a year or two before parties are undeceived in that respect. But Auckland and tho northern settlements can sustain very little injury oven in this general view of the matter, inasmuch as wo havo novor received tho slightest benefit, but on the contrary much injury from tho Company and the Company's operations. To them aro we mainly indebted for tho 20s. per acre system, as well as for tho restrictions on tho sale of nativo lands, and the dissolution of the Company is unquestionably the removal of one great barrier in tho way of introducing a new and a better system. By the time the resolution passed by tho Legislative Conncil on that subject shall have reached home, the British Government will bo fully informed regarding the valuo of waste lands in New Zealand, and fully prepared to enter into a plan by means of which a more favourable result might be expected. To the Company's own settlements, Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, Wanganui, and the projected Scotch settlement, its dissolution will be a deathblow. — The capital and operations of the Company havo from the first maintained in them a sort of artificial vitality by the periodical transfusion of foreign blood whenever the symptoms of langour and decay became manifest. That a fatal syncope will now take place, it wore absurd to question. Whatever may bo tho advantage or disadvantage of the southern settlements, it is quite certain that tho private settlers, at least such of them as have not been put in possession of their lands, must now leave in disgust and despair. They can no longer hopo for any thing from the Company, and it is even doubtful how far the Government may interfere to do them justice, provided the Company has certainly failed. So long as it might bo expected that the Company was in a condition to refund tho Government, it might be safo on tho part of tho Government to interfere and to give compensation to the natives for lands disputed or not purchased by the Company, but we imagine tho Governor will now act with very great caution in such matters. As a matter of policy and humanity at least we would, however, earnestly hope that His Excellency would still feel bound and disposed to make an effort to put tho Company's settlers in possession of their lands, if not at their own respective settlements, ,-.t least in the neighbourhood of Auckland ; and whatever reluctance they might havo had formerly in exchanging the Company's strongly patronised settlements for thoso of tho Government, wo aro quite convinced that they will now regard matters in a very different light. They will gladly and cheerfully come to tho despised northern settlements. Whilo wo should be very sorry to see tin's place advanco on tho ruins of any of the other settlements of New Zealand, we aro nevertheless persuaded that such will bo tho case. Auckland will materially gain by tho disorders and disasters in the Company's settlements, but Auckland fortunately requires no such unhappy aid, it has hitherto surely (it may be slowly) progressed without any assistance from tho Company, and it would do so still ; and whilo we really believe that an impetus will be given to it in consequence of the misfortunes of tho Company, let not our southern friends for ono moment think that we rejoice on that account. However much and honestly we have ever been opposed to tho Company itself, we have always been most anxious for the prosperity of its settlements, and we are at the present moment extremely sorry for the trials and troubles of the Company's settlers. Since the above was written we have been favoured with tho following extract from the Colonial Gazette of March 16th, by means of which our readers will be enabled to perceive how matters stand as regards the Company at Home. That it indicates an approaching dissolution, wo believe there can be little doubt, considering the former embarrassments of the Company, and tho fact that a very short time before they wero un- \