The New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 411, 23 March 1850, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

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

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1850.

The arrival of the Clara, which reached our ' harbour yesterday, with an unusually large mail, has placed us in possession of a number of newspapers, &c, which will furnish abundant " English Extracts " for a week or two ; but as the latest date which has come into our hands, is the 1 3th of November, — while we had already, via Sydney, received English intelligence to the 18th of that month, — we have nothing of sufficient novelty to induce us to set aside the articles on the engrossing subject ■ of the state of California, which we had previously in type, and which occupy so large a portion of our present issue. In political circles, the chief topics of discussion were the bold step of the French Presi- j dent in dismissing the former Ministers and i replacing them by members of the UltraConservative party, — a proceeding in which, arbitrary and hostile to Republican principles though it seems, he was receiving a large amount of popular support : — and the intelligence that a manifesto had been prepared at j Montreal pleading for the national independence of Canada and its annexation as a soy- ' ereign state to the United States of North America, which had been signed by about twelve hundred persons, chiefly of the trading and mercantile classes, including representatives of the several parties, religions, and races. Nothing definite had transpired respecting the Russo-Turkish question, but the opinion gained ground that it would be amicably adjusted, if the Sultan would consent to the Czar's lowered requirement " that the Hungarian refugees should be expelled from Turkey." There was intelligence from India to the be* ginning of October. The renowned Fort of Mooltan, which had held out against so many ! assailants, had yielded to the heavy rains and floods, building after building having fallen in I rapid succession. Cholera had been raging in Bombay, where it carried off 708 victims in a month. It was reported that the salaries of the clerks in the Government service in Scinde were to be reduced twenty per cent. The important commercial intelligence had been received that America had resolved (contrary to the prediction of the Protectionists) to imitate the canduct of England, in the change of the Navigation Laws. From the Ist of January, British vessels, from British or other ports, with cargo from any part of the world, were to be admitted on the same terms, as to duties and imposts, as vessels belonging to the United States. Dr. Ollivant, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, had been nominated by the

Crown to the Bishopric of Landaff. The Rev. H. H. Milman had also been gazetted as Dean of St. Paul's. Sir H. L. Bulwer had been appointed British Minister to the United States, and was about to proceed immediately to Washington to enter on his new diplomatic duties. The New Zealand Company had advertised their intention to dispatch a ship from London for their settlements on the first Monday in every alternate month. The Lady Nugent, 668 tons, was to sail on the 3rd of December. Cholera lingered on in the country parts of England and Scotland, but it had so nearly disappeared in London, that returns were no longer issued. Dis. Baly and Gull — a Subcommittee appointed by the College of Physicians to investigate the "fungoid theory" of the origin of the disease (which had excited much attention) , had delivered in a report entirely negativing the conclusions arrived at by the announcers of that theory. Public meetings in connexion with the Peace Congress, and the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association, respectively, were being held in various parts of the country. The general state of Trade was good, although no speculation was going forward. — The reports from the manufacturing districts were satisfactory. We shall in our next give various extracts from the journals now received.

It is with lively gratification, in which our readers generally will participate, that we are enabled to announce that the apprehended hostilities between the contending Native parties at Waingaroa have been happily prevented, and that there is now every probability of a final amicable settlement of the dispute. We have just been favoured with an account of what has taken place since we last referred to the subject, which we cannot do better than give in our informant's own words — merely premising that the statement proceeds from a quarter on which the most entire reliance may be placed. " Since the last account given in the New Zealander, the attacking party have on two occasions, fired into the other pa, but without effect. " On Saturday last the Rev. Mr. Wallis and the Rev. Mr, Ashwell accompanied Mr. Ligar, the Surveyor-General,tothePaofthe Waikatos and after much talking, and an interruption caused by some of the people indisposed to an amicable arrangement firing at the Waingaroa pa, it was finally arranged that the attacking party should leave the ground, which they all did to a man on Monday morning. Mr. Ligar then with his own hands closed the entrance to their stronghold, and they departed with him to their homes on the Waipa. " The attacked party were only waiting to see them fairly off the place before they dispersed also to their homes. " It has been arranged that the whole question as to title to the land &c, shall be referred to the Governor* in-Chief on his return. " Much gratitude is due to the two Reverend Gentlemen for their unwearied exertions. It cannot be doubted that nothing but the influence of religion has prevented, ere this, an almost universal native war : such a question, formerly, would in the same time, have involved several thousand men in war. The attacked party under the teaching of the Gospel have been enabled, with Divine assistance, to bear all the insults heaped upon them without coming into conflict with their enemies ; while the latter have felt certain that their cause would suffer much in the eyes of such of their allies and friends who had a knowledge of the scriptures, if matters were driven to extremities ; so that after all, more is attributable to God, than to the weak effort of man. " May every future attempt, on the part of the evil disposed natives, to a recurrence to old heathen habits, be thus checked and shortened by the spread of God's word and commandments !" Mr. Ligar arrived in town yesterday evening, after having thus been instrumental in bringing to so gratifying a termination this important matter in which he has for some time been exerting himself with the most devoted and praiseworthy earnestness*

The verification of our frequently repeated predictions respecting the disappointment and suffering awaiting many of the emigrants to California which is now before us, affects us — we trust we need not assure our readers — with emotions the very reverse of gratifying. Gladly would we have borne the reproach of being alarmists needlessly, and false prophets of evil, rather than be compelled to record such fulfilments of our gloomiest apprehensions as we published in our last, and continue in our present number. But facts already accumulated, and we fear destined to accumulate still more largely, exhibit the true state of tbe case in a light which none but the wilfully blind can fail to see ; and we can only fall back upon the consolatory consciousness that, in whatever sphere of influence we were privileged to occupy, we strove rather to deter than to stimulate those who abandoned the pursuits of slow and toilsome, but safe and ultimately sure, industry at home, for a glittering but delusive prospect of rapid aggrandisement in the " Land of Gold j" and that— .(except in so far as the

transference to our columns of statements which it would have been inconsistent with our duty as faithful chroniclers of passing occurrences and opinions to omit) — our journal cannot be charged by any of those who are now remorseful, mortified, and destitute in California, with having encouraged them to a step of which they have learned the folly only — as the real character of folly is too generally learned — by its consequences. But, has not gold been found in abundance 1 Are not new and even richer mines continually discovered ? Have not individuals bounded, as under the touch of a magician's wand, from comparative poverty to affluence ? Undoubtedly. We have always said that such was, and still would be, the case. We have, over and over, described Californian adventure as alottery , in which there were some large prizes, the fortunate holders of which would be made men. But we also said that in this, as in other lotleries, there were numerous blanks, which would leave those who had, it might be, risked their all in the speculation, ruined men. Let even, the modicum of expei ience which has now been reaped, attest whether or not we wete right in this opinion. Want of lodging ; — want of food ; — unpitied desolation in a land where the fountains of human sympathy are so dried up by the auri sacra fames — the accursed love of gain —that, while a conflagration is destroying the city in which they live, men stand to huckster for the payment they are to receive for helping to check the fire, and pass by dead bodies in. the streets leaving them to putrify there because they are not to be paid for burying them ;— disease stalking as an Angel of Destruction through the highways, without the possibility of a sufferer's obtaining even such remedial aid as Californian " Doctors" can afford, unless the " ounce for every visit" be forthcoming j— death, under every circumstance of loneliness and neglect ; — are not these the sad consequences which many have already realised from their " Off to California !" mania? We confess we write with strong feeling, be« cause we cannot look apathetically on the numbers — the men, the women, and the little children — who are leaving the colony in this wild chase after an ignis fatuus which we are persuaded will lead the majority of them into such misery as that which the accounts in our other columns pourfcray. Could our wishes secure their prosperity, they should be prosperous. Should their future success be better than our fears, we shall sincerely rejoice. But, in proportion as we wish them well, we must desire that they should not encounter what we believe to be a terrible peril. What will, according to all human probability, become of some of those who are, even while we write, leaving our shores'? We are quite prepared for the cold, or censorious, reception these remarks may meet with. There are in our days, as well as in the days when the Cities of the Plain were destroyed, many who treat as " one who seems to mock" the monitor who raises a warning voice against an object to which pleasure or profit invites. We have heard in private within the last day or two the question proposed, " Can these accounts be depended upon ? Are they not contradicted by private letters ?" We can only say that the testimonies are, in our judgment, too strong and numerous to leave any reasonable doubt of their credibility ; and that, so far as we have learned, all private communications (however varying as to minor matters of detail, and necessarily tinctured with the hue reflected from the writer's personal history) give substantially corroborative statements. Persons who, without any definite and ascertained object, go to California after such monitions as these, will have only themselves to blame for the results. It will be seen, no doubt, that these remarks apply to tradesmen, labourers, and other parties who emigrate to California, with an intention of taking up their permanent residence there, but not to those who export from our colony articles of our own produce, and, who thus, in a legitimate manner, bring Californian gold into New Zealand. We have from the first maintained that the true way in which we might derive advantage from the wonderful " world's mart " presented in the Gold Region was by supplying it with articles of our own growth, such as timber, potatoes, &c, which are greatly needed there, and which we are well able to furnish to a larger extent than has yet been ventured on. We are confirmed by every day's information in the belief that the opening of the Californian market will greatly benefit the agricultural interests of New Zealand, and we rejoice to know that our farmers in this neighbourhood are intelligently alive on the subject. Our conclusion then is,— let our workmen stay here, unless they have something more of certainty than vaguely " going to seek their fortune in California;" and let our timber merchants, sawyers, and agriculturists, bend their energies to the work of the products of New Zealand more extensively still into a country which will thus confer wealth upon them, even while it is beguiling to ruin many who are tempted to choose it as their home—but who find it their unlooked for and untimely grave.