LAND CLAIMS' BILL.

New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 51, 12 February 1842, Page 2

LAND CLAIMS' BILL.

We were considerably amused, on the decease of the late “ Land Claims’ Bill” in Council, at the strenuous manner in which the AttorneyGeneral took upon himself the paternity of that, his pet measure; lie really seemed to have reasoned himself into the strange notion, that in concocting that jumble of absurdity and injustice, he had done something meritorious; something, in fact, that would entitle him to a niche in the history of the Colony, in which notion, in o.ne sense, he was perfectly correct, though we doubt whether the future historian of the Colony will speak of his measure precisely in the same terms as the Hono«able Gentleman would wish to be adopted. We were informed then, that the amiable deceased had gone through the requisite number of months previous to parturition ; and therefore, it could not be considered an abortion, having to all intents and purposes been born alive, but had unhappily died from a stoppage in a vital part, soon after birth.

We admit that this explanation of the affair was good; we do not like any thing precocious, either in “ brats” or Land Bills, both seeming to us to require some previous preparation. But in these march of intellect days, we sadly find our old-fashioned notions sadly shaken. In less than half the number of days that the said deceased was months in being brought to maturity, Mr. Secretary Shortland has conceived, and it has been announced, that he will bring forth a brother to the dear deceased on Monday next. The Attorney-General, shocked at this kind of illegitimate birth, in the Council Chamber on Thursday last, emphatically declared that he had no hand jn the expected bantling, that it would not resemble him in one feature, and that, in short, he would not own it. The sole paternity resting with the Colonial Secretary, who at once admitted that it was his own offspring. There can be no manner of doubt, that the Attorney-General has, in this disclaimer, acted wisely; it is quite enough to father one’s own mistakes, without acting as dry nurse to those ot other people. However, be the father whom it may, we are exceedingly anxious to see the offspring itself; or to drop our metaphor, we are, to

use one of the Colonial Secretary’s favourite expressions, anxious to see “how the hon. gentleman’s arguments will lay /” we shall then be in a condition to tell him whether they are likely to hatch ! !

But here we are again metaphorizing about hens and chickens. We beg our reader’s pardon, but our ideas being somehow or other altogether in the family way, we find it difficult to set to work in sober seriousness. We will try again. We have heard from various quarters that the Official Members of Council are exceedingly angry at what they please to term our “ personal abuse.” We have never given them credit for knowing any thing about political matters, so we inform them now, that it is a perfectly well understood axiom in politics, that as soon as a man ac-cepts a public office of any kind, his political character becomes the property of the public. The public pay him for using his talents and acquirements for their good, and if they find out that he possesses neither talents nor acquirements, or if he do, that he makes use of them to their injury ; why then they at once proceed to fulfil their part of the bargain with him, and let the world know the capabilities or incapabilities of their servants. The mistake which the Government officers seem to make here is this, they do not consider themselves amenable to the public at all, but imagine that they are a species of sucking Sultans born with the power of cutting off heeds and tails at their sovereign pleasure.

We have never spoken of these gentlemen in any other than a political sense; we should scorn to speak of the private life of a public man, be it what it may, but it is our determination to maintain our right as conservators of the public interest, to scrutinize the motives and actions of every public man within the Colony, whether official or not. There is no manner of doubt that Mr. Willoughby Shortland, as a private gen-

tleman, is in every respect a most estimable man ; but that is no reason why, if it is our opinion that Mr. Colonial Secretary Shortland is incapable to fulfil the duties of his highly responsible office, we should not inform the public of the fact. In

the same way Mr. William Swainson is, no doubt, when he is at home, every thing that can be desired, but we are not therefore to pass over the absurdities and despotic measures which Mr. Attorney-General is constantly attempting to thrust down the throats of the Legislative Council. Certainly not, whilst we may be among his admirers out of the Council, we cannot even give him the merit of being a civil lawyer in Council. We feel it our duty to put the colonists on their guard against sundry parties, who, hoping no doubt to pick up a few of the crumbs that fall from the government table, are busily engaged in trying to promote dissension and disunion in the camp ; but let the claimants bear in mind, that only in union is strength. Their cry is, and we well know that it emanated, in the first place,from an officer of the Government, that in throwing out the Land Claim’s Bill, Mr. Earp was only playing a deep game for Port Nicholson. There can be no doubt that one of Mr. Earp’s wishes was to protect himself, and the people whom he represents - , and let any man of common sense, or common honestv, say that he would have done otherwise'. That a heavy blow was indiiectly aimed by the Bill at the Port Nicholson settlement must be evident enough, when one of its main features was to take away all the proprietors of whaling and trading stations from their present locations, and transport them, en masse, to a place in some instances a thousand miles from their present residence —thus depriving Port Nicholson of its very considerable coasting trade. Mr. Earp saw plainly enough in this the utter destruction of the coasting trade, not ouly of Port Nicholson, but of the rest of these Islands ; a trade of the utmost importance, well supplying the want of exports, under which a newly formed 1 colony must labour, The wonder is that any

government, for the sake of the ridiculous theory of concentration, should be mad enough to attempt the destruction of its only legitimate branch of trade ? But the way in whichg Mr. Earp met this folly was, by asserting and energetically acting on the broad and honest principle, that the British Government have acknowledged the right of the Colonist to the actual possession of the lands they had fairly and equitably acquired, the Government of this Colony had not a shadow of a right to remove them from their lands. Had this despotic Bill passed, not Port Nicholson only, but Auckland, and the whole colony, would have been involved in one general ruin. It might have brought to districts named in the Bill a slight increase of population, who having nothing to do, and knowing nothing of any business but the one they had been engaged in on the coast, would have literally lived on one another as long as their means lasted, and then the whole woulc? have become paupers; whilst the Colony would have found out that the coasting trade had been destroyed for the purpose of ing a deceitful appearance of population, and

could never be recovered. The fact of the matter is, that the Government parly cannot forgive Mr. Earp for having outgeneralled them; with all fheir self-complacent sagacity, they did not perceive the meshes of the net in which he was enclosing them, till it was

too late to withdraw, and having been thus caught, and their measure in consequence defeated ; with all the petulance of childish disappointment at losing a favorite plaything, theyseek to misrepresent his motives.