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Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 68, 24 April 1852, Page 7

H. M. Surveying Schooner " Pandora.." —From a gentleman who arrived yesterday evening from Kaipara we learn that during the gale on Saturday last, about mid-day, H.M.S, " Pandora," then at anchor off Omokoite in the Kaipara, parted with both her anchors, and was driven ashore. Much fear for her safety was entertained until Sunday, at noon, when the wind changed at high water, and she was got off having sustained no material damage.— Auckland Paper. WELLINGTON. We have received Wellington papers to the 14th inst. The Independent of the last date says, The " Oriental," " William Prowes," " Perseverance," and the " Duke of .Roxburgh" were chartered to convey stock to the Canterbury settlement. The latter vessel we understand was chartered by Mr. Sidey. The " Perseverance" was expected to sail in about a week after the " William Alfred," and after discharging her stock at Lyttelton would come on immediately to this port. Total Loss or the " Salopian."—lt is our painful duty to announce the total loss of the schooner " Salopian," of this port, which foundered off the Ahuriri on the 21st ult. The " Salopian 3' sailed from Ahuriri for Wellington on Saturday the 20th March, having about 1000 bushels of wheat on board. She had not proceeded far on her voyage before the master discovered her to be in such a dangerously leaky condition as to induce him to put back, but before he could reach Ahuriri she suddenly foundered. All hands were luckily saved, but the whole of the cargo, as well as the clothes of the crew, were totally lost. The " Salopian," and her valuable cargo, were the property of Messrs. Torr and Villars, and we fear their loss will be irreparable. The brig " Sisters," and the schooner " Rose," were both at Ahuriri the week before last, and the latter was expected to sail for Wellington in a few days. The Land Question. —A Government Gazette announces the determination of Sir George Grey to proceed to issue Crown Grants under the Local Ordinance, setting aside the Act of Parliament. The following remarks from the Independent are worth attention. For our own part, as we said before, we cannot understand what is the use of issuing illegal and invalid grants. His Excellency's issuing grants does not make them legal. They will have to be made legal if they are issued. Why not wait till there is legal authority to make them valid. If 7000 persons had signed the petition instead of 700, the case would not be altered. This is not a question with which public feeling has any thing to do. It is a question simply for the applicants for Crown Grants to consider. If they are not satisfied that their giants are worth anything in law, of what consequence is it whether Tom, Dick, and Harry sign a petition or not. [From the "Wellington Independent" of April 1-I.] Sir George Grey seems at length to have made up his mind that he must do something. Told, as he has so repeatedly been by the colonists, that after six years administration, he has not arranged or adjusted a single question, his Excellency seems at last to have felt the force and justice of the accusation. The truth of the charge has become so apparent, and indisputable, that he finds there is iio possibility of parrying or evading it. He must either do something, or quit the colony, leaving as a. legacy to his successor, the whole of the New Zealand questions in ;i more confused and complicated state, than that in which he found them, when he assumed the government of the colony in 1845. Mis Excellency, under this feeling, called his Executive Council together on Saturday last, and obtained their consent to share the

responsibility of setting aside (as far as the issue of Crown Grants is concerned) the Act of Parliament, called the New Zealand Settlements Act, and of issuing Crown Grants under the New Zealand Land Claimants' Ordinance. We of course do not pretend to state, what took place at the meeting of the Council, but we think we may safely assert, that the Council's determination was not to revive the whole Ordinance, but simply those provisions of it which relate to Crown Grants. No sanction, we believe, was given to the proposal to issue to the Absentees Money Scrip in exchange for their lands. Nor do we imagine that Sir George Grey himself has the slightest intention of doing so, until he hears further from the Colonial Office. With respect to the issue of Crown Grants under the Local Ordinance, —as we were the first to point out the extremely objectionable form in which they were to be given under the Act of Parliament, and to shew that, while under it, the Grants were clogged with so many conditions, that "all titles derived there under would be questionable and uncertain," the Grants on the other hand, under the Land Claimants' Ordinance, were both far more simple in their form, and conferred an absolute and indefeasible title ; we should be disposed to regard the decision of the Council with feelings of unmitigated satisfaction, if we were certain, that the Grants would be valid and legal; but this is what, we imagine, no lawyer will maintain. Some people have a vague notion that a Grant issued by a Governor is unimpeachable ; and that if they can once get it, whether they are fairly entitled to it or not, or whether the Governor has in giving it exceeded his powers or not, they may defy the whole world to take it from them. New Zealand ought to have inculcated a very different lesson, seeing that the Crown Grants have in but too many instances involved the holders of them in ruinous litigation. In the present case, if the Grants had been issued under the Local Ordinance, before the receipt of the Imperial Act, they would, we believe, have been good and valid: but for a Governor to issue Grants in defiance of an Act of Parliament, and of the instructions of the Colonial Minister, is so manifestly an illegal exercise of his powers, that we do not conceive, that the Grants will in themselves be worth anything, except in so far as they may constitute evidence, that the parties holding them are justly entitled to have them either confirmed and rendered legal by subsequent legislation, or to have fresh Grants issued to them. And some such course will most assuredly have to be adopted, with regard to any Grants issued at present under the Land Claimants' Ordinance. While, therefore, we have always held, that the provisions of the Local Ordinance, relating to Giants, are perfectly unexceptionable, we cannot regard the present decision of the Executive Council, as calculated to give the Land Purchasers a good and indefeasible title to their lands. With respect to the other provisions of the Ordinance, it will be remembered, that when his Excellency first suggested the recent*Memorial, he told the Deputation, " that he must either proceed under the Act of Parliament, or revert to the law as it stood before the Act was received," —"that in case he issued Crown Grants under the Land Claimants' Ordinance, all the provisions of the Ordinance would be revived, including those relating to Scrip, as the law could not he administered partially." We pointed out at the very time he made this statement, the inconsistency of which his Excellency was guilty in suggesting, that the Memorialists, while praying that he would set aside the Act of Parliament, should nevertheless urge him to carry out that portion of it which referred to the Nelson Trust Funds ; and we submitted to him, that if he could thus, according to his own shewing, dispense with one part, and yet carry out another portion of an Act of the Imperial Parliament, it was not very easy to understand, why he could not treat a Local Ordinance in the same unceremonious way —why he could not confer Crown Grants under the Land Claimants' Bill, and yet omit and set aside the provisions relating to the issue of Money Scrip—why he could not, in short, administer his own law in the same partial way, in which he was anxious to administer the Act of Parliament. And now, from all we can gather, his Excellency finds himself obliged to act precisely in the way we suggested. He is prepared to give Crown' Grants under his Ordinance, and su iar

to set aside the Act of Parliament, but he does not seem prepared to issue the Money Scrip. He will carry out certain provisions of this Ordinance, but will, at any rate for the present, leave the others in abeyance. The clue to'ttte course thus ultimately adopted by his Excellency, must, we suspect, be looked for in certain despatches which he has recently received from the Colonial Office on the subject of the Land Claimants' Ordinance. We have reason to believe that the Home Government have viewed the Ordinance in precisely the same light as we have done. We have always said, that if the proposal to give the Absentees Money Scrip in exchange for their lands was struck out, none would approve of the Ordinance more than we would ; but it is to this very proposal that Sir G. Grey has been most wedded. He has always appeared to us more anxious to carry out his scheme of Money Scrip, than to give Crown Titles. He has cared for, and used the latter, only as affording him the means, of compelling the settlers to submit to his giving the Absentees the Money Scrip. And yet, if we are not misinformed, (and we are generally as far in advance of the Local Government in regard to home news, as the New Zealand Company always boasted they were in advance of the Colonial Office in respect of Local Intelligence) Sir George Grey can have little hope of carrying out his favourite scheme. For, we understand, that, while Her Majesty's Ministers do not object to the form of Crown Grants proposed under the Land Claimants' Ordinance, they demur to all the other provisions, and have postponed giving their decision upon them. As yet they have given his Excellency no reason to conclude, that the issue of Money Scrip will be allowed. And it is quite certain, that the New Zealand Company will, unless they have succeeded in inducing Parliament to pay their debt (of which there seemed not the slightest chance) strenuously oppose Sir George Grey's scheme, seeing that under it, they could never obtain a single farthing from the Land Sales, until the whole of the Money Scrip was absorbed.

If the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Gladstone have redeemed their pledge, and brought the Laud question before Parliament, the probability is, that some measure will already have been passed, by which it is finally arranged and adjusted. At any rate we may expect to receive intelligence of the final decision of Her Majesty's Ministers, both upon the Land Claimants' Bill and the New Zealand Settlements' Act, in the course of a few weeks—pro-' bably before even the Crown Grants can be issued. The delay in the sailing of the Midlothian will unfortunately prevent her arriving at home in time for the present Session ; and therefore any representations on the question by the settlers will be too late to influence the policy adopted by the Government. Our only hope is, that Ministers may have contented themselves with conferring upon the colony a Representative Legislature, and may have'left to such Legislature the ultimate arrangement of all questions counected with the Land. NELSON. We have received Nelson papers up to March 13th. The Land Question is agitating the public mind there as at Wellington. The followingmemorials display the opinions of the opposite parties. The Examiner slily remarks— We have printed toKlay two Memorials, which have been got up by persons holdin<>- opposite views on the Land and Pastoral questions. Both, we believe, have been numerously signed, and, singularly enough, in some instances by the same persons. To his Excellency the Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand. The humble Memorial of the undersigned Inhabitants of the Settlement of Nelson, in New Zealand, Sheweth— That your memorialists are of opinion that the lerms of Purchase ot Land, issued by the late New Zealand Company on the Ist August 184." and winch have been declared by law uf be still in force, are unsuited to the circumstances of this settlement, and the same are utterly opposed to the wishes of your memorialists. „ J' lat y°Ur Inemoiialssts are of opinion, that the New Zealand Company's Land Claimant's Ordinance," passed i the last session of the Legislative Council for New Zeaiand, and which has°heen approved, of by a public meeting held in Nelson on ifouday, the Bth day of September, convened

for the purpose of considering and discussing the same, and is also approved of by your memorialists, is calculated to set at rest in a fair, equitable, and advantageous manner for the interests of this settlement, the long unsettled land question ; and your memorialists are desirous that the same may be forthwith brought into operation within this settlement.

That your memorialists are of opinion that the rules and regulations for depasturing cattle outside hundreds on waste lands of the Crown, lately issued under the provisions of the " Crown Lands' Ordinance, No. 1, Session x.," are unsuited to the circumstances of this settlement, and the same are utterly opposed to the wishes of your memorialists. That your memorialists are of opinion that the Terms for Pasturage of Land, issued by the late New Zealand Company on the Ist August, 1849, and which have been declared by law to be still in force, and have been approved of by a public meeting held in Nelson, on Monday, the Ist March, 1852, convened for the purpose of considering and discussing the same, offer a great boon to the owners and occupiers of land within this settlement ; and your memorialists, without pledging themselves that those terms of "Pasturage are not susceptible of improvement, are desirous that the same may be forthwith brought into operation within this settlement.

And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.

To his Excellency Sir George Grey, X.C.8., Go-vernor-in- Chief, <§<?•, 8(c. The Memorial of the undersigned Settlers of Nelson, in the colony of New Zealand, Sheweth— That your memorialists take the opportunity presented by your visit to this settlement to express their deep regret that, by the passing of an Act in the last session of Parliament, the objectionable " Terms of Purchase and Pasturage of Land," issued by the New Zealand Company on the Ist of August, 1849, have been revived, and are to be enforced : and to memorialize your Excellency in reference to the evil before us. That your memorialists beg leave to express their strong conviction that the carrying out these Terms of Purchase is opposed to the prosperous progress of the settlement, as they would entirely prevent the further sales of waste land, the price reserved being for the most part much beyond its worth, especially as the best agricultural portion has been already absorbed; and that the effect of the Terms of Pasturage must inevitably be to render the breeding of stock no longer a remunerating investment of capita] and labour, especially breeding sheep, which consequently could not be continued —for no sheepowner could profitably depasture sheep on commonage runs necessarily' exposed to contagion, and the country would soon therefore be left in its primitive uselessness. That the great staple export of this settlement being wool, your memorialists look upon the adoption by the Government of the Pasture Regulations now referred to with the greatest apprehension and alarm, as not only unjust and ruinous to the individual sheep-farmer who has been induced to invest his capital under the faith of prior regulations made by the Company or the Government, but as entirely destructive of their most important export; these results were so fully understood by, so perfectly known to, the Company's late Agents', that no attempt was made to enforce them, nor even to publish them in Nelson : their unsuitableness to the prosperity of the colony are in fact so palpably evident, that to enlarge upon them would be only to trespass needlessly upon your Excellency's time. That along with these unwise Rules and Regulations, your memorialists are apprehensive that the incomprehensible form of Grants, contemplated to be used by the Company, will be again brought into question, thereby practically withholding them, for your memorialists believe not a single purchaser would accept one; especially as your memorialists entertain a confident hope that your Excellency will continue to issue the simple and complete form prepared and already used. Your memorialists therefore most respectfully and earnestly solicit your Excellency to use the best means in your power to prevent the Terms for Purchase of Waste Lands, and the Regulations for Pasturage, issued by the New Zealand Company on the Ist August, 1849, being acted upon in this settlement. And your memorialists will ever pray, &c.

The "Tory," from Melbourne, arrived late on Thursday evening with 1200 sheep and about 60 head of cattle for Mr. Aitken's station. She had a fine voyage of about 3 weeks, and brings files of papers from South Australia up to the 6th of March. She has no Melbourne papers on board. One of the passengers on board informs

us, that a few nights before she sailed from Melbourne, a barque, which was then lying in the harbour, having taken in about £25,000 worth of gold, her crew consisting of but eight hands, the Captain went on shore to secure some fresh hands, and remained on shore for the night; in the course of the night, a body of twenty men, armed, got on board the ship, plundered her of /^-h the gold, and escaped ;—up to the time ofsie sailing of the " Tory," no trace of the gang had been discovered.

The " Canterbury" was taking i n her sheep when the " Tory" left, and therefore may be expected in a few days.

The Adelaide papers are, filled with accounts of the disastrous condition of the colony, owing to the sudden and rapid abstraction of men and money by the gold mania. From the following article of the "Adelaide Times," of the 6th March, it would appear that they begin to hope the worst is over.

The deposits of gold dust at the Assay Office yesterday were six in number, and the amount deposited 336 ounces, 15 dwts., and 4 grains. This is the eighth deposit day, and the gross of the whole eight days amounts'to 7945 ounces, 3dwts., 7 grains. Our contemporary of the Register, was for setting us right in our figures on Thursday last, but if he will only look To his' attempted correction again, he will find, that the " inaccuracy" was not ours, but his own. Not to waste words upon trifles of this kind, however, the thing is now beginning to assume a very encouraging shape. - Part of the stamped ingots are delivered, and others will be deliverable in the course of a few days. This will repair to some extent the damage done to the colony by the withdrawal of the circulatin<«medium in another form, and to this is to be -• added, the large drafts on the banks in Mcl- * bourne in favour of the fortunate Adelaide diggers or their families, which are now finding their way by every vessel into the colony. Already 35,000/. worth of wheat, for distinction's sake, we may call " digger's drafts," have been advised, and these, as the season for dio-o-w improves, will go on increasing. °P There is then to be added to this, the commercial bills, of which we shall be shortly in receipt, in exchange for Our produce, and for, the large amount of our imports lately re-ex-ported to Melbourne. These shipments cannot be estimated at less than from 300,0007. to 400 000, and supposing large remittances to be made to England in payment of these goods direct from Melbourne, still we cannot calculate upon less tlnn 100,000/. to 150,000/. findin«its way in the shape of bills for these goods here. All this will help, and the re-action bve-and-bye may be as sudden as was the oee'urrence of the crisis.

We are not so foolish as to attempt to prognosticate, without any sufficient data to guide us, as to the ultimate issue, but there is much more in the present aspect of things to inspire us with confidence, than to fill us with alarm. I.he lowest point we sincerely hope, has now been reached, and when things are at the worst they must mend.