The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 309, 16 May 1849, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

Be just and fear not: Let all tlie ends thou ainis't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 1849.

By the Government brig, "Victoria," which arrived from Port Nicholson on Sunday, we have received files of the Wellington journals to the sth instant. Copies of the "Nelson Examiner" of the 14th and 21st ultimo; and also of the " Otago News" of the 21st of March and 4th of April. There is nothing very remarkable in the Wellington intelligence. The Council assembled in session on the Ist instant ; a guard of honour, with the band of the 65th Regt., being present to do reverence to Her Majesty's Representative, and to impart character to the ■ imposing ceremony.

Governor Eyre delivered a long address, (which will be found in our next,) from portions of which, (and of which we shall, hereafter, make use,) it would appear that emigration is a want as keenly and as ruinously felt in the South as in the North ; that the Waken" eld self-supporting delusion does not furnish that all essential element of colonial prosperity. That it hut plants colonists with a mighty tintamarre, and leaves them to settle themselves as luck wills. The Legislative address of Governor Eyre casts, we regret to say, no cheering ray of hope to brighten the present stagnant fortunes of New Zealand. She is to be left, it would seem, a victim to the Company's mercenary experimentings in the South, — to the sordid attempts at Colonial Office exaction in the North. To look on in helpless inaction, and to behold shiploads of emigrants flying to foreign shores, where land is of possible acquisition ; and to maik the whole frame-work of her society shaken, far less by an inordinate thirst after Californian gold, than by an oppressive conviction that the country which men had fondly chosen as their own, and whose unquestionable resources they had hoped to have beneficially developed, is to them and their means a sealed book. This, we grieve to say, is Fact. We paint no one-sided view of the case. It is not the idle, the dissolute, or the mere lovers of change, that are moved to abandon a land in which they are permitted to have no portion. The thoughtful and the reasoning, among our population, earnestly and apprehensively discuss the question. They are startled by the universality of the movement that is astir. They cannot be blind to its consequences. The immediate permanent prosperity of the colony is doubted, and debated ; and, unless the Local Legislature shall adopt some prompt and efficient measures — in which a very great relaxation of all the trammels upon land must form one of the most prominent features — they may be prepared to see New Zealand at a fearful discount in the field of colonization, and the prosperity, which a movable Commissariat expenditure has fostered, flare and flicker away. This, however, is far too momentous a matter to be hurriedly discussed. We, therefore, leave it for the present, to return to it in our next, with all the energy we can command. Of this subject we may most emphatically assert, " This is not the cause of faction, but of every man in New Zealand ! " To return to the Port Nicholson news. Having delivered his initiatory speech, Governor Eyre arljourned the Council for a week, to afford time for the members from Nelson to arrive. It is to be hoped that the amalgamation of so much collective wisdom will not be in vain. Maroro, the native murderer of Branks and his family, had been tried, convicted, and executed. In the first instance he accused a native policeman of the crime, but eventually made ample confession of his sole individual guilt, — he, likewise, penned letters to his sister and to his tribe, acknowledging the justice of his punishment. They are singular documents, exemplifying the peculiar train of native thought and action. Dr. Fitzgerald, upon occasion of presenting a picture of the Queen (transmitted by Earl Grey) to the Native Hospital, had entertained several chiefs at a banquet. Much cordiality between the races prevailed. Toasts and pledges were passed by either party, and the Maori was quite as energetic as the Pakeha in the hip, hip, and hurrah, which the several sentiments elicited. Lord Grey's " Exile" iniquity has evoked the expression of as much indignation in the South as it has in any other quarter where the abominable proffer has been made. At a public meeting at the Britannia Saloon, it was carried by acclamation — That the Settlers of Wellington, in Public Meft'ng as t-mbled, hiving carefully const lewd Earl Grey* de patch, in which his Lordship proposes sending ExiU s to this Colony, deem it tkieu duty to protest against Earl Giey'sicheme in the itrorg st terms— at a°nreach of the pledge upon wh eh this colony was founded— *« fraught with the nnst disastrous coneequeacet bo h to the Natve population and to the While sculpts in their prebent struggle for the immediate introduction of Representative Institutions;' ard that a copy of the preseui reiolution be forwarded to the Governor for transmisiion to the Secretary of SiteS ite fjr the Colonies. Our exti acts will be found in another page. The Nelson papers are almost exclusively occupied wjth the subject of Representative Institutions; — the petition to Parliament against the detested system of Nominee Councils occupying three closely printed columns. The first anniversary of the settlement of Otago had been celebrated on the 23rd and 24th of March by two days of fete. The first dsjr was devoted to Marine — the second to Equine sports. These, together with a Ball, at which the votaries of Terpsichore appear to have mustered strong, passed off with much propriety and spirit. We shall copy into an early num-» ber the result of the first year of Otago 's experience, as furnished by the News, — a task which the Editor seems to have fulfilled with honesty and fidelity. An example of the Stop my paper principle, amounting almost to an invasion of the liberty of the Press, has been played off against the publisher of the Otago News by Captain Cargill, the Resident Agent of the New Zealand Company. The crime of the Publisher appears to be in having not only an opinion of Ms own,,

respecting the capabilities of the Otago Settlement, but the independence of spirit to express that opinion, without leave asked and obtained of a functionary of such striking impuissance as « Captain Cargill, R. A. N. Z. C. !" We give the gallant Captain's charge under his own hand : — Dunedin, 6'h March, 1849. q- r j t ;, w jili 80rroir and disappointment I have to inform >ou, on the part of the " Tiusteei for Religious and Educational Uses," that they withdraw their sub" .cription for 20 copies of the Otago News. These copies were intended for circulation amongst leading ministers of the Free Church at home and in India, but they cannot be so used becau«e of the capabilities of the Ota »o block and its settlers being so grievous'y misrepresented in the editorial articles, beginning with No. 5. No one could read that article— and believe in its statements— beiauie of its being published in the Settlement— without an impression altogether contrary to the facts of the case, and mcli ai must at once deter him from the investment of a shilling |m the Otago Settlem-nt. The resident Trustees, therefore, cannot be parties to the circulation of that which is erroneous in itself, and damaging to their fellow-settleis; and they have reason to believe that the same feeling is very g«neral among the settlers of all classes. Id like manner, and lor the same reasons, I have to withdraw my subscription for 2> copiei, on behalf of the New Zealand Compimy, and which are intended for transmission to influentiul laymen. Had the Editor been intelligently alive to the intere»ts of the Settlement,--incliiding, of course, his ownhe must hate milked Well thu only 200 out of its 2400 properties had yet been taken, and that the parties looked to for taking up the remaining 2200, and bringing capital into the settlement, had bern waiting the r suit of a year's exper encs on the part of tieu pioneers; and, therefore, that the most scrupulous and careful accuracy as to every fact should have been exercispd nt such * crisis. But neither in respect of a paiustakin? grasp of tlie sound and practical opinions of the settle™ themsdv s, and the results of their industry at shown on their several locations, nor in p iut of common forethought, has the intelligen c of the p<o,>le been duly reflected and dealt wi'h. And, with respeitto parlies at home, experience convinces me «hat no future ai tides by the same Editor could possibly t edeem the mischiefs mil cted by No. 5. I am, sir, &o , W. Cafgili.. To the Publisher of the Otago Ncivs. A more barefaced, or a more indecent allusion to the properties for sale, we think, we never saw made by any public Officer. Upon this interesting point Captain Cargill proclaims himself to be so "\intelligently alive," as, apparently, to be little scrupulous whether sales be effected by deceit or delusion : — else, wherefore punish Mr. Graham for representing " the capabilities of the Otago block" after the manKer his conscience and his conviction dictated? And with an accuracy of which men, of as " painstaking grasp" and quite as piactical intelligence as this residentiary centurion, have already ascertained the truth ? Captain Cargill has clearly and conclusively demonstrated that the Otvoo Nfws is no seivile tool of the New Zealand Company. That it will not pander to its insatiately selfish purposes, but give to the world a fair and faithful statement of the truth. The censure of the paid Agent thus becomes a testimony to the credence to be attached to the evulgations of the censured, and it is, therefore, to be hoped that the Otago News may teach this man " dressed in a little biief authority, " that, in a just cause, the Press has a voice all powerful in exposure of paltry trampling and tyranny. The following extract from the article which drew down the vengeance of Cargill will demonstrate the justice and the intelligence which led to its application :—: — On looking at the map of the Otago district, It cmnot fail to Urike the eye of every unprejudiced observer, that our prosperity as a town mutt entirely deppnd upon herds of cattle and flocki of sheep; in fad, that we do not possess, in part of the district, land suited for the eucre«s of agricultural pursuits. The subuiban »ections, in nine rases out of ten. will be worthless as faims for yeart to come, and then only after an immense expense in the shape of clearing, draining, and fencing : whilst for grazing we have a wide, extended field, waiting only to be filled with " stock." W« rate the advantage! and disadvantages of the country as follows :— Tlie Taeiri district— though possessing a few good sections, and having the advantage of " contiguity" to the town is allowed by all to be nothing but a lake in winter: and even weie it otherwise, a few fl)cks of sheep would fill it. The Tokomairiro di.-trict is in some places extremely narrow, but offers greater advantages for p>sturaice than the Taeiri, by opening into the Mclineaux district, alon? the shor • of the Tuakitoto Lake. Crossing the Koau river, we enter, not on'y the real, but the most extensive and valuable grazng countiy in the Otago block, and to these plaim must we look for the future source of our riches and commercial prosperity. We are not interest d in the success of one part of the Otago district more than another, neither have we anything personal to gain by it; but we would willingly add our influencs (small though it may b() to induce the land purchaser to settle down at once, and UVt his stock with him. Let him begin to turn his capital to account, imtead of allowing day after day to pass away in indechion on his arrival in the colony ; or, what n worse, to leave his home with a wrong impression of iti capabilities. We have nothing in Dunedin for capitalists to speculate in with advantage ; their proper sphere is the rural districts, and these are not surpassed in any part of New Zealand for ■ pastoral purposes. Allowing, then, that the Otngo district is essentially a grazing district— and who can dsny it ? — why have the New Zealand Company, or Free Church Association, (if they ark dUtinct), not acted on this knowledge, and lent Buch a class of fr^e immigranti out as would have proved a va!u«blea|c<juisition to the purchaiers of land and stock ? &c. This is much too graphic and too faithful a portraiture for the craving appetite of this *' painstaking" New Zealand Company's agent. Yet, who can question which will be found, eventually, the truest friend to Otago— the mere puller, greedy to vend its two and twenty hundred properties— or the honest Journalist who indicates their real value to intending emigrants 1

Programme.— The following pieces of music, by th« permisiion of Lieut -Colonel Wynyard, C. B , will be performed by the Band of Her Majesty's 58th Regiment, within the enclosure of the Government ground*, to morrow, from half pait three to half past five o'clock, p. m.— Grand Overture Op. " Haydee" „..,.. Aube r Wallz " Les Benutei di Vienne" .... Prince RMetiernich Grand Selection.. Op. " La Figlia del Regimewo"., Donizettil Pong ..." The Banks of the Blue Mosselle"... Kodwel Quad'ille La Peri B irgmuUer Duetto ..Op. Nel. " Egild* Di Ptovenza"...Mercadant Song " The Land of the Wcit" Lover Qimtetto.. ..Op. <4 Bironadi Dolskein" Rossini Galop... "The Storming of Constuntine" ....Lanner