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New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 50, 9 February 1842, Page 2

The following report of the speeches delivered by Mr, Brewer and Capt, Clayton, at the meeting held at Wood’s Royal Hotel, on Friday last have been kindly given to us by those gentlemen, and as we consider the opinions of both to bp entitled to great consideration in the settlement of claims to land, we publish their opinions, as given to us by themselves, without change or comment. — Editor, Captain Clayton, in rising to move the third

Resolution, would beg to offer a few remarks fore doing so. The very able manner in which the Chairman opened the business of the meeting, and what other gentlemen had submitted to them in moving the preceding resolutions left little for 1 him to say, and deeply did he regret, that the position in which the people in the northern portion of the island were circumstanced, should compel him to bring forward the present one. Some two years hence, when his Excellency the Governor arrived, he was received with open arms by the olden settlers ; to their congratulating address, he replied in the most gracious manner, every thing bid fair to go on well, he found the people in the Bay of Islands, sober, correct, and industrious, not the loose and vile people as had been represented to the home government; the harbour full of ships, and an extensive coasting trade, independent of that which existed between them and the islands to the eastward. Shortly after the arrival of His Excellency, his unhappy and protracted illness, threw the reins of government into the hands of individuals whom, God help us, possessed neither the talent or desire to advance the interest of the colony ; that necessary ingredient, temper, was not the least. I believe it is generally admitted, that he who cannot govern his own passion, is unfit to controui others. At this period we had no quarrelling with the Natives, and the bearing of them towards the female portion of our community, highly respectful; now see the difference, or which is more to the pur->-pose, read the Ladies’ Petition, calling the attention of His Excellency to those matters. Thus in two short years affairs are so completely changed* that individuals arriving at this present time would doubt if they ever existed. Ships have forsake.i. our harbours—the coasting trade has ceased in consequence—and those engaged in the whaling fisheries, abandoning the same ; let me look which way I will, I see nothing but ruin. It was admitted by His Excellency the Governor, as also the Colonial Treasurer, that the Treasury Chest was at so low an ebb, that they could not afford to print a petition from the Bay of Islands people in consequence, althougii the same was moved and seconded in Council by the Independent. Members, Now my friends behold the monstrosity of the thing, the Treasury is so low, that the Executive Council cannot allow a petition to be printed, which would have a tendency to open the eyes of the people, but they can enter into a lavish expenditure of the money accruing from the laud sales, to ornament ana embellish a building that was considered by the authorities at home quite sufficient for all the purposes for which it was” intended; here then we see thousands upon thousands expended upon a building admitted sufficient in itself, and which now only excites ridicule and despair in the minds of those who have suffered in consequencs of this egregious folly, for be it borne in mind that the Timber used in these misnamed improvements was never purchased either from the Natives or the Europeans, who purchased from them, No ! in the most cruel and arbitrary manner this timber was taken from myself and others ; from me sixty trees were marked by the Government and cut down ai on, for which I have never received one sixpence, my respectful remonstrance treated with contumacy and my person threatened with imprisonment, these trees it was alledged for Government purposes and this out of a 1 clump not exceeding in all one hundred and twenty trees, and which had cost me some hundreds of pounds to make availabe. In England when Timber is required for Government uses, it is distinctly understood to mean for the uses of the Navy or the Board of Ordinance, either for building or masting Ships, or the erection of Forts or means of defence certainly, not to ernbelish Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, is this the way an enterprising and industrious people should be treated ? What would .Lord John Russell say after recommending the most rigid economy to be adopted, to see a Gim-crack concern costing thousands of pounds when a"* quiet plain building would have answered every purpose, why it exceeds in costliness and expense far more than the building which has served so many years the very able men who have administered the affairs of New South Wales, and who for years were satisfied with a framed tent. Are these things to be submitted to without complaint or remonstrance ? You say no, and so do I. There is an admitted exhausted Treasury—no agriculture in progression—not a plough in the ground ; the ships have forsaken our ports ; and w.e have no money. With this before and around me, and feeling deeply the calamitous position in which we are placed, I move the following resolution. (No. 3.) Mr. Brewer said, the second resolution having been entrusted to me, I shall first make a few observations on the objects of this day’s meeting, namely, first to express our disapprobation of the present “ Land Claims’ Bill” and its Amendments ;” secondly to attempt by every constitutional means in our power to get a bill passed less p fatal and ruinous to the claimants of land, and thirdly, failing so to do, to adopt measures of

forwarding to England our solemn Protest against the arbitrary and unjust piece of legislation which the Government is now attempting to force »v<Jown our throats. I cannot agree with the re--mark which fell from the Honourable AttorneyGeneral a few days back in the Council, that the mode of obtaining the sovereignty of these Islands could not now be brought into question. On the contrary I think this is the most fitting time for taking that question into consideration ; this Colony is claimed neither by right of discovery or conquest. The sovereignty of it was ceded to England by the confederated native chiefs, who ere that had been fully recognized by Great Britain as an independent Power, and a British Consul sent to New Zealand to protect the interests of the British subjects resident in that colony. Now when Great Britain negotiated with the chiefs of New Zealand for the Cession of the Sovereignty of their Islands, it acknowledged that the Sovereignty of those Islands did up to the period of such cession reside in the native chiefs —according to the laws of all nations. No man can grant or sell more than he is actually possessed of. consequently the New Zealanders, in ceding the Sovereignty of New Zealand, could only cede it subject to all their acts and contracts previous to such cession.—And that that was their intention is fully shewn by the anxiety which they all evince to have the original purchasers of land confirmed in their purchases. The Government by claiming in the name of the Queen all the lands validly (a term used by themselves) put chased by any Europeans from tiie Natives is guilty of a violation of the spirit of the Treaty of Cession and of the Laws of Nations. Upon what principle do they found this claim ? Why upon a fiction of law, the remains of the most arbitrary and tyrannical system that ever existed, I mean the feudal system —or the system ot holding lands by military tenure. The feudal system was introduced in England by William the Conquerer (before that all lands were allodine, that is, perfectly free) ; it was finally, after many bloody struggles, almost entirely abolished about the time of the Revolution. Cou d our ancestors, who so nobly wrung from their oppressors the rights and liberties of the people of England,— could they, I say, have foreseen that this miserable remnant of the arbitrary and unjust system, for the demolition of which they fought and bled, would be made the pretext actua.ly of robbing (I can use no milder term) a set cf industrious and meritorious individuals—the pioneers of - colonization in New Zealand, of their lands and 1 tenements often acquired at the peril of their lives, and scarcely ever without great hardships and, privations, surely they never would have allowed it to remain as part and parcel of the law of the land, however insignificant and harmless it miffht then appear to them. The Government themselves are perfectly aware of the justice of our claims, they acknowledge that some of our purchases have been validly made. If the purchase is a valid one, why in God’s name deprive the purchaser of any portion of it? But no : this Colony having been founded upon that absurd and impracticable system called the Self-supporting System, Government not only requires for its support large tracts of land, but also the absolute (or at least almost absolute) monopoly of all sales of lands. To grant the land claimants the lands they justly claim, would at once he creating competition in the land market, Government could no longer keep up its upset price of one pound per acre, the Treasury consequently would soon empty, the salaries of the officers remain unpaid; in fact, under the present precious system the whole of the machine of Government would be at a stand still. Look at the Land Claims’ Bill, from beginning to end it is drawn up entirely upon the system of making every concession made to claimants subservient to the interest of Government. Towns and districts are to be laid out, and parties having made valid purchases are to receive alternate suburban allotments and country sections, in such districts, in lieu of their valid purchases. Should the lands cleared by them, however, be situate in any part of such districts, then, as the retaining such lands would not interfere with the plans of the Government, they are generally allowed to retain them. All this is NOMINALLY done with the avowed intention of carrying out the system of concentration —a system strongly contended for by Government, on interested principles, but totally inapplicable to this Colony. Their (the Government’s) real object, however, is very (different —concentration is only a cloak for this jhidden object. The plan, 1 must say, deserves {SO m accredit for its ingenuity, but is easily detected. In the first place, by these means Government will have the sale, and consequently obtain the proceeds of fojar townships; to which some extra .value will already be attached, by the settlement, on every alternate suburban allotment of some of the land claimants; in the second place they will have the sale of eyery alternate suburban allotment greatly increased in value by the settlement Olathe land claimants on each other alternate

allotment; and thirdly, they will have the sale of . the country sections, one half of which would no

doubt, under this system, be located upon giving of course additional value to the unsold sections. Thus you will perceive that the interest of the colonists has not in the least been consulted, and that the Government cannot concede to their just and reasonable wishes without completely abandoning this ingenuous and interesting scheme. However objectionable the Bill may be, the Amendments are still more so, as they shew a fixed determination on the part of the Government not to depart in toto from the spirit of the Bill notwithstanding the general disapprobation of it by the colony at large, and the numerous petitions presented to the Council against it. The most objectionable of the amendments are the introduction of clauses 20 and 21, which although they at first sight appear as concessions to the just remonstrances of the pubiic, are, in point of fact, the very reverse ; these clauses are entirely framed upon the same basis as all the rest of the Bill, namely, the fostering of the interests of government at the expense and with a total disregard to those of the colonists. Under these clauses no man would be foolish enough to choose a lease of the land he is entitled to, when, after he has spent both capital and labour upon it, and made it a valuable estate, government at the end of the term, may resume the land with all its improvements, without giving him any compensation whatever. He is therefore forced back upon the original Bill, and these two clauses become inoperative. The Bill, gentlemen, we never can give our consent to. It is useless, for the reasons I have already laid before you, to expect any thing more favourable from the present government. Our only remedy, therefore, is to represent our case to Her Majesty, and trust to her for relief, and thank God her present advisers were never favouraole to the self-supporting system; and from them we may reasonably hope for some modfication of the Blue Book, in whose magic pages our doom is at present recorded.