THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.
[From tliu " Times."
Of all the services which Sir William Molesworth has rendered to the British colonies, none is more creditable to his courage and research than his attempt, though unsuccessful, to rescue New Zealand from the ruinous incubus of a mortgage over her waste lands, in favour of a company which has long trifled with her bests interests and seems destined to be an insuperable obstacle to her progress. The statement of the case amounts to something more than an accusation, for, though the evidence on which it rests is not yet printed, the accuracy of the (acts is proved' by the "nature of the defence set up, and we therefore call the attention of the people of this country and of New Zealand' to the train of circumstances
which have resulted in transferring to a trading company upwards of half a million of public money through the instrumentality of the Colonial Office and of Parliament, by means of representations and suppressions whose best exposure is their simple relation.
The autumn of 1846 found the New Zealand Company in .great embarrassment; their money was expended, and they had received £160,000 for the sale of land at their Nelson settlement under contracts which they were unable to perform. The purchasers becoming clamorous, Lord Grey lent them £100,000 in August, 1846, but that was almost immediately expended. Under these circumstances they set themselves to procure a settlement with the Nelson purchasers and a fresh loan from the Government, together with a consent in case of their dissolution to take their liabilities upon itself. For these two purposes—the arrangement of the settlers' claims and the transfer of their liabilities to Government—it was obviously advisable to obtain an opinion favourable to their position. With this view they laid a case in 1846 before Mr. Buckle, one of "their largest shareholders, and wrote out at the same time to their agents in New Zealand, stating they had laid a case before counsel, and that they would be guided by that advice, invited communication on the part of the settlers, and expressed a wish to identify the settlers' interests with their own. On the 4th of December, 1846, they received the opinion which they had announced, by which they were informed .that they had broken their contract, and were liable to refund the purchase money, together with such other damages as the nature of each case might suggest. This opinion, doubtless, placed the company in a critical position. They had bound themselves to disclose it to the settlers, for whose benefit, as well as their own, they declared it to have been taken, and they were equally bound to disclose it to the Government, which was at that moment entertaining the question of taking upon itself contingently these very liabilities, and, through the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was proposing to the company searching questions as to their amount and nature. 'J he company extricated themselves from this dilemma by a manoeuvre to which we know no parallel, except the exploits of those generals who have contrived at the same time to maintain a siege and beat off an attacking aimy. They obtained, early -in January, 1847, an opinion precisely contrary to the first from a person who, though still a member of the bar, is forbidden the public practice of his profession. This opinion the company sent out on the 26th of January, 1847, as the opinion which they had announced themselves as taking, for the benefit of the settlers, in the autumn of 1846. The settlers, ignorant of the trick which was put upon them, destitute of counsel, and mistaking the changeling—as well they might—for the true offspring, were driven into disadvantageous compromises, and accepted readily any satisfaction for rights which they were informed they did . not possess. Had the company merely sent out the opinion to them, they might have treated it as an ex parte document; but the announceiinent. in a previous letter that it was intended to take it for their common benefit threw them effectually off their guard. Thus was the invading army of litigants beaten off.
In the meanwhile the siege of Government was not neglected. The company, in December, 1846, evaded the queries of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, assured Lord Grey in 1847, that counsel of eminence had advised that they had not broken their contract, and presented to Government in April of the same year a statement of their affairs, in which all mention of any claims for breaches of contract was suppressed. Thus was Lord Grey as effectually deceived as the settlers, and the result was the act of 1847, by which Parliament lent to the company £136,000 more, without interest, and in case of the company ceasing to carry on business released all claim for this sum and the £100,000 already lent, undertook to pay all liabilities to the Nelson settlers, and to give a mortgage over alii New Zealand to secure £265-,000, more to the company. A k\v months after the passing of this act, into which he had been so unworthily trickled, Lord Grey was informed, by the commissioner appointed under it, of the deceit practised on the settlers and the suppressions by [which his assent had been obtained. He was placed in a painful situation, but one in which no man of honour should have hesitated for a moment, It might
be'painful to his pride to admit that he had been deceived into entering into engagements of uncertain amount, and into advising Parliament to make itself liable for claims whose nature and extent he has been too negligent to ascertain. Unhappily it is too often the nature of fraud that those who begin by being its dupes end as its accomplices. In an evil hour Lord Grey was prevailed upon by the importunity of the company to give his sanction to the continued concealment of the adverse opinion from the Nelson settlers, to refuse to clear up the discrepancy between the two opinions by laying the case before a third counsel, and to dismiss the commissioner for merely doing his duty in reporting a transaction so fatal to the colonists and so injurious to the character and interests of Government. Thus has Lord Grey combined with the New Zealand Company to deprive of the knowledge of their rights those colonists who ought to have found in him a guardian and a protector, mixed up a department of Government with the lowest arts of trickery and chicane, and, rather than admit an error and retract a false step, has tarnished a name which the people of this country have so long delighted to honour. Do we, then, maintain a Colonial Department that our money may be recklessly squandered in supporting the credit of a company with nothing to recommend it but the possession of a few votes in the House of Commons; that our Exchequer may be embarrassed by the assumption of unknown and uninvestigated liabilities ; and that, finally, we may be parties to transactions from which any respectable attorney would recoil ?
The only defence set up on behalf of the company is that they have been acquitted by the judgment of Lord Grey. There is not a single fact we have mentioned which one of their advocates has ventured to deny. What weight can there be in such an acquittal ? Lord Greymay acquit the company, but who is to acquit Lord Grey ? Who will say that it was worthy of an English Minister or an Englishfnobleman to refuse to enlighten himself as to the real nature of the.liability incurred, to sanction the suppression of information which the company had voluntarily and deliberately bound themselves to reveal—and which Avas of the greatest value to those for whom he was bound to act —or to dismiss his subordinate officer for doing the duty from which his superior shrunk ? Lord Grey must disengage himself from all complicity with the accused before we can accept his verdict of acquittal. The results of all this are sufficiently disastrous. W^e have given to this company a quarter of a million of the public money, and we have bound ourselves to pay whatever demands the Nelson settlers may have upon them. All settlement of claims obtained by fraud is void in law, and we can have no doubt that the publicity given to these dark transactions will raise up a host of claimants with demands only too well founded, which as fast as they are substantiated against the company must be paid out of our Exchequer. Certainly the same fraud ought to lead to a repeal of the act of Parliament upon which these claims are founded, but instead of taking this view the House of Commons has given to the company terms more favourable than those originally secured to them, and cannot spare time for the investigation of charges whose truth would entitle us to have our quarter of a million refunded and our contingent liability cancelled.
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Bibliographic details
Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 96, 6 November 1852, Page 4
Word Count
1,504THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY. Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 96, 6 November 1852, Page 4
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