NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, 10 August 1844, Page 89

NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

[From the Colonial Gazette, March 16.]

The following report will convey to the public the information that the fate of the New Zealand Company— and, we say, of the British settlements in New Zealand— is at this moment trembling in the balance. The next fortnight will decide whether British colonization and colonial interests are to suffer a heavy blow and great discouragement, or to receive a new impetus.

Pursuant to advertisement, a meeting of the Company was held at the New Zealand House, yesterday. The following report was read to the meeting : — " TENTH REPORT OF THE DIRECTORS OF THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY. " When the advertisement calling this meeting was issued, your Directors anticipated that it would be their duty to submit to you to-day a statement of the condition of the Company's affairs, and to recommend to you, in consequence, the adoption of certain proceedings. They 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 the grounds of their present reserve. When they call your attention to the fact that this Company has been engaged for five years in forming settlements whose population now exceeds 10,000 souls, at a cost of above £500,000 (besides a much larger outlay by the settlers themselves), but that its title to land is yet unsecured by the grant of a single acre from the Crown ; and when you 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 the causes of this calamitous state of things in order to understand that the 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 the shareholders and the settlers. Under these circumstances your Directors have been compelled 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 made by which the confidence of the public in the Company's powers and usefulness may be restored both here and in New Zealand. It is this confidence, your Directors feel perfectly satisfied, which is alone wanting to enable the Company to carry out the objects of their incorporation on a continually increasing scale. With this confidence the most sangune of the views of the founders of the Company 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 the representations which they have made to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on this subject may be favourably received ; and they suggest to you the propriety of adjourning this meeting for a fortnight, without asking further explanations of them, or adopting any other resolution until it shall be in their power to lay before you the final result of their correspondence with his lordship. ' " New Zealand House, March 15, 1844." After the reading of this report, the following , resolution was moved by George Lyall, Esq., seconded by George Hibbert, Esq., and carried unanimously :— " That the report now read be adopted, and that this Court be adjourned- until Friday, the 29th instant, to be then held at this house, at one o'clock precisely." The following question was put to the Governor „ by Mr. Carrie:— " Having good reasons to know that the proceedings of this meeting are viewed with great anxiety by the Scotch colonists and others, who have resolved on joining the expedition announced, to found the colony of New Edinburgh, znany of whom have already made considerable lacrinces in preparing to embark. lam desirous of knowing whether, in the communications whieh ; t6« Director* have had with her Majesty* Gqrerturrept» anything has occurred to lessen the confidence . which the intending; settlers repose rn the secufxty of the undertaking?' , ■■ '.• u-f ■ :~: ~ ; Mr. Somes : " Tb* Directors decline tortintter "-. anj question until thi 29 thinitaat." , r