THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, February 1, 1845.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 152, 1 February 1845, Page 190

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, February 1, 1845.

Journal* become more necessary as men become mor* equal, and indWidualisra more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve only to secure liberty : they maintain civilization. Dk TocauxyiLLK. Of Democracy in America, vol . 4, p. 209.

Captain Fitzßoy, as we all know, has greatly signalized himself since his assumption of the government of these islands, by his chivalrous defiance of acts of Parliament and instructions from Colonial Secretaries, in the pursuit of one of his great purposes, namely, the ruin of the owners and cultivators of land, in the southern settlements

particularly. We know with what wonderful coolness he undertook to waive the Queen's right of pre-emption, and set aside the provisions of the Land Claims Act with respect to the price of land and the size of grants. It is curious to observe what an irresistible temptation to all sucking Governors is that of making grants of land. The disease attacks them all, and in the very infancy of their administration — a kind of official measles or small-pox. Captain Hobson passed an ordinance to do away ■with the limi.ation, and was severely reprimanded by Lord Stanley. Captain Fitz Roy, catching the complaint, was equally restive in the hands of his physician. He would not follow the prescription — the Waste Lands Act ; but, not thinking it advisable to try Captain Hobson's plan of writing another, he only directed the Land Commissioners (the apothecaries who made it up) Jo pay no attention whatever to its provisions. They, knowing thsir business better, refused ; so he took the matter into rJlfr.own hands, and immediately begun Magnificently distributing his tens and twelves of thousands of acres, we suppose to pets and favourites. Unfortunately, the land was not to be got ; his Maori Boards of Control withholding it. So he gave orders for as many pounds on the Treasury as acres granted ; which orders (the Treasury hot being able to honour them) were sold for 2s. per pound, and in some cases for a_ pot of beer. This was his most notable scheme for reducing the price of land about Auckland, and eventually elsewhere. His other plan, to allow any one to purchase of the Maories on payment of a ■ penny an acre fee to Government, was a more direct one. Perhaps this was the most reckless act ever performed by a colonial Governor. With all the incalculable ill consequences of unrestricted purchase from savages still perniciously active around him, after all the care and trouble taken by the Home Government in its enactments, after all the tedious toil of the Court oi Land Claims for years to put an end to

these consequences, as far as possible disentangle this imbroglid, reduce to something like order the chaos of. claims, Captain Fitz Roy, by one rash act, does his best to bring back the old confusion and reopen the closed-up sources of such indescribable difficulties and dissensions. Major Richmond, rightly enough, immediately issued a counter proclamation, preventing the operation of that of Captain Fitzßoy within the Company's territories, and so rescued them from still further confusion ; but he could not prevent the natural consequence of lands being thus obtainable in the north, namely, the depreciation of those in the south. This second plan to injure landowners and cultivators in the south will of course ultimately fail, and bring with it its own punishment ; for of all the resolutions of the House of Commons' Committee, the very one on which there was no dissentient voice among them, no difference of opinion whatever, was that which declared that the price of land should be kept up. . The penny-and-pot-of-beer system, in opposition to the Wakefield system, is already doomed, and will pass away like the spending of the penny, the quaffing of the pot, whence it takes its name.

But we have only been alluding to these plans to ruin the land cultivators, that they may be seen side by side with those adopted to harass and overthrow the storekeepers and tradesmen. The last news from Auckland announces it as the intention of Government to introduce a " General Dealers' Licensing Ordinance " at the next sessions of the Council. Every dealer in imported goods is to pay £2 a year for a license, and about 3 per cent, on the amount of goods sold, or compound for the latter by paying £20. Fines of £50 for dealing without license or making false returns.

They are still to be liable to the present Property and Income Tax of one per cent, on all their stock as well as profits. As most of them compound for this tax for £12, we think, with the £22 aforesaid, they will be paying rather high for the benefits they are likely to get from the present Government.

Merchants and storekeepers are to make the returns every quarter, stating the amount of their rate. Their names and returns are to be published in the Government Gazette. Everything is done to make the tax odious as well as oppressive.

But this is not all, for Government gives notice of another bill, for " raising the rate and composition " under the Property Rate Ordinance. If this is to be allowed, we may have every year a similar bill, till the rate rises to the whole of one's income. They had better at once declare all our property to belong to Government.

But this heavy and grinding tax is the more intolerable because, as far as we are concerned, totally unnecessary. We get no benefit from its imposition. The present Property Tax in this district raises about £600 a- year, which, with licenses and fees, will be increased to between £800 s and £900. Now even this sum we maintain is sufficient to afford us as good government as we get at present ; and, if insufficient, should have been increased by other available means before these oppressive ones were resorted to. Our constables and sheriff would cost about £400 a-year ; all the police work might be done by unpaid magistrates, had the Government been such as not to have disgusted so many of the most respected and influential inhabitants. One court might perform all judicial functions for £200 or £300 more; and the Post Office would pay itself; at all events, respectable storekeepers would undertake i; for £40 or £50 a-year. All the officers of the general Government of any use to us are paid by the mother country. Nor ought we to pay for protector* of aborigines when we want but cannot get protectors from aborigines. Now it would certainly be more proper to reduce the establishment to something like the above scale than to

grind us down with taxation in the way proposed. Had it not been for the Government's own wretched policy of everlasting concession to the Maories, the settlers would have long since been in possession of all the lands they claim, grants would have been issued, and a nujreh larger sum have been paid upon them, - - < Bie Nelson settlers, to their credit as we ftik, included the lands they are actually iHpossession of in the last returns of properjß^ To their credit they did so, for it shows they were not actuated by any facttj^Hesire to defeat a Government measure|^^Kv might have [eft out these lands— fo»^^Bpa\ ernment, in spite of all right aflfl^Becisions, has hitherto given no graK^^Bid the Wellington and, we bel^HlHl Auckland settlers. And these nave De6tl returned at a higher r^^^B^Khese grants been given, or had n^^^H^V nt not ren ~ ciercd property and ij^^^^^Hnotoriously insecure in this C 9||^^^^^BP tne Wairau claims have neveaj^^^^^^Hgated by the Commissioner. By whose authority has tl^^^^^^^mer abandoned them ? If by we ask what right the Gov^^^^^^Hd interfere in the matter. The^^^^^^Hed, and the Commissioner vvaJ^^m^^Kstigate and decide upon nil c ]^^^BHvwith what justice, with what as^ us *° r more money, w fl|^Bi&B9r^ not even g' ve out these ull^flßHoW> t ' ls ' u P on wm( -'h we should BpSPIaKF' P ay tlie tax already A^alHiEroraiKioney be wanted, how is ie the^BmylStin from putting the tax to wh^QE^Bßß^ands are subject, upon the lands of atwlntees ? In the present Property Rate Ordinance it seems that these lands are omitted by an oversight, although one can never tell in the ordinances passed by our Legislature lu.w much is to be attributed to carelessness or imbecility, how much to intentional bias or ill-will. Such a tax is expressly recommended by the Committee of the House of Commons in their 7th resolution, and TiOt only by them, but by common sense and good policy and justice. Are they afraid of being too hard upon thousand-acre grantees and others — some of whom are already absentees, we hear — or is it in tenderness for the exhausted finances of those who have paid exorbitant pots of beer for their land ?

Let them reduce their expenditure — let them give us Protectors from Aborigines — let them, by issuing grants and protecting life and property, increase the value of the lands we have— let them, by obeying acts of Parliament and home instructions, withdraw the restrictions on the sale of land down here — let them decide the Wairau claims — let them tax the lands of absentees — let them do a thousand things they are bound in justice and good policy to do, and they will get money enough to govern us wisely and well without having to resort to this odious, inquisitorial, oppressive, and unnecessary tax.

You should have a representative Government — you should have a check upon these pilferers of the public, these Artful Dodgers of the State. But do not send a mock representative— do not take a voice in the universal mismanagement, without any power of checking it or setting it to rights. Do not send a helpless Oliver Twist, to keep in countenance by his company and presence the awkward or skilful pickers of the public pocket, whose depredations and peccadilloes he is utterly unable to prevent, whose hang-dog and vagabond air he is only expected to cover end whitewash with his more honest and reputable appearance. Do not suffer them to get elsewhere the character and credit of a Representative Assembly until you are enabled to make them one actually, effectually, essentially.

There is to be a meeting on Wednesday. Come all of you, resolved to petition the Home Government for a recall of the Mis-Governor who is ruining us and New Zealand. Come to pass resolutions insisting on that and nothing less than that. Come prepared to undergo any difficulties rather

than not carry your point. Resolve that the people of Wellington and Taranaki shall be invited to join us hand and heart in one determined effort to get rid of this incubus. Let all the settlements join in drawing up one firm and temperate and unanimous petition, detailing all these wrongs, demanding that simple remedy for them. Let us see if there be yet a sense of justice in the Home Government — if Englishmen are to look upon Crown and Parliament as a tribunal whence they may obtain protection and redress, or to fall back upon those feelings of despair and disgust with their native country which, when once they have taken root, will not be eradicated till they inspire posterity to renounce the connexion for ever.

The arrival of the Slams Castle on Sunday last, in the unprecedentedly short space of 01 days from port to port, has put us in possession of English news up to the 24th of October. This fine vtssel has brought

the most valuable cargo ever shipped for New Zealand. Her passengers, for Nelson,, are Mr. and Mrs. Mackay and 8 children* Mr. Edwards, Air. and Mrs. Eban, and 22 men and 3 women in the steerage ; for Wellington, Mr. F. Johnson, and 6 in the steerage. Mr. Edwards, we understand, has come to this settlement to engage in the flax trade jointly with Mr. Nattrass (whose arrival at Wellington in the Caledonia we mentioned last week), and has brought with him all the necessary machinery for the preparation of the article, including an hydraulic press for packing. The men in the steerage are flax-dressers, and are engaged for three years at liberal wages. Mr. Eban and Mr. Mackay ate also likely to prove valuable settlers. ' They both intend to commence farming immediately ; and the latter gentleman has brought out with him a Cheviot and two Merino rams, a Cheviot ewe, a Durham cow and bull-calf, a hive of bees, and several cases of valuable plants and fruit trees. He has also an iron punt, for landing cargo, capable of carrying 15

tons. The passengers speak in terms of the highest praise of Captain Dawson's conduct, and of the passage as a short and pleasant one.

We have been requested by Messrs. Beit and Son to state that " heads of families of the labouring class, who may have breadcorn which they wish to grind, may have the free use of their hand wheat mill every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from nine o'clock, a.m., till four o'clock, p.m."

The brig William Stoveld, which sailed from this port on the 15th June last, direct for England, arrived in London about the 20th of October, and replies to letters sent by her have been received by the Slams Castle. This, we believe, is the quickest interchange of letters between these colonies and Great Britain yet known, it having been completed in 7 months and 11 days. The William Stoveld, it will be remembered, took home the petition and memorial complaining of Captain Fitzßoy's manner of disposing of the Wairau massacre.