OUR INDEPENDENT MEMBERS.

New Zealand Herald and Auckland Gazette, Volume I, Issue 52, 16 February 1842, Page 2

OUR INDEPENDENT MEMBERS.

We are sorry, that after having throughout the Session remained true to the 'cause of the Colony, Mr. Clendon appears to have thought fit to desert the settlers in their “hour of need,” and to have been gained over by the Government party. Mr. Clendon has doubtless his reasons for this, though we must confess we cannot see what those reasons are. He has now got his land in exchange for the hopeful township of Russell, therefore he can have nothing to fear from the Government; and if he imagine that he has anytning to hope from them ; his faith in them is infinitely greater than ours, His grant of land ought to have made him in every sense of the word an independent man ; ten thousand acres of good land immediately adjoining the Capital is no bad exchange for three hundred acres of inaccessible rock at the “ Governor’s Folly.” Surely the Hon. Gentleman is not afraid, that if he do not support the Government upon the land question, the Home Government will refuse to ratify Captain Hobson’s bargain with him. There is no doubt that the good people of Downing Street will stare not a little, when they see land worth £20,000 given in exchange for other land not worth the same number of pence, and it isj ustpossible that they may even venture to ask his Excellency, Why such things be ? Still Mr. Clendon has nothing to fear on this account, inasmuch as before their pleasure on the subject can be known, Mr. Clendon will hold his land upon that most valuable of all legal tenures, possession ; and the Governor, not Mr. Clendon, must stand the brunt of the enquiry, for enquiry there will certainly be, Having a considerable respect for Mr. Clendon, in his private character, though we cannot help placing him among the incapables in his public one, we ask him to pause before he fall into the ranks of a Government who have admitted in Council that the whole population of the Island, from one end to the other, is hostile to them. Let him choose whether he will metamorphose himself into -a post to prop up a party already “tottering to its fall,” and so for the remainder of his life be pointed at by his fellow colonists as having aided in destroying their interests; or whether he will boldly stand up against tyranny and imbecility, and so spend the remainder of his days, proud in the gratitude of those around him, and of their children’s children. Will the lifting up of thef benign countenances of Willoughby Shortland, and Co. upon him, be an adequate compensation for the position into which he must at once descend—a position so emphatically described in Scripture—- “ Men shall shake their heads when they pass by his dwelling.” ? Of Mr. Forter we can only say, that he has hitherto well stood up against the tyrannical measures of Mr. Attorney-General, having more than once, when alluding to that Gentleman’s peculiar mode of reasoning, told him that the only force he could see in his arguments was, that they were certainly “knock down arguments,” for he would never permit any one to answer them, if he could help it. But we must confess ourselves considerably surprised to find Mr. Porter inclined to favour their Bill, notwithstanding that they have confessed that it is worse than the last; that it is unjust towards the old settlers; and that even the Attorney-General himself openly in Council delared, he had' nothing whatever to do with the concoction of it. Mr. Porter’s reason for favouring this abortion appears to be, that it will give him an opportunity of introducing a landjobbing-crotchet, which appears to have

taken possession of him; viz., seeing that the Bill now proposed will not put the claimants in possession of their land for the next fifty years, he considers that the object would be attained by immediately giving the claimant a land scrip, setting forth his title to the land, when he had got it, which would at once become a marketable article on the Auckland Stock Exchange; and could be bought and sold much in the same way as an Exchequer Bill. We are afraid Mr. Porter is more conversant with speculation than with the works of one Adam Smith, which works are held in some estimation by political men. He would there have found that land even when in possession is of no intrinsic value whatever, till labour has been employed on it, and then only to the extent of the labour ; much less can land be of any value when not in possession ; even the prospective possession being infinitely distant. These are truths which no rational man ever dreams of controverting, and we should like to ask Mr. Porter, what is the value of a land scrip which represents the above valuabe possessions, held on the above tenure. But it is idle to attempt to refute such a proposition. Our best safeguard is : that the Government with all their faults, are not quite so far gone in ignorance of political matters as to admit it; or if they were to admit it, that it would not more effectually injure the Colony than it would themselves, when their “ Bill for the furtherance, of Landjobbing' 7 reached the Home Government. The only independent member who has remained consistent in his opposition to the destructive measures of the Government, is Mr. Earp -and we are convinced that had it not been for that gentleman’s determined perseverance, the late atrocious Bill would have been at this moment law. We cannot but say, that previous to our arrival in New Zealand, we had been led to expect that weshould have found Mr, Earp a partisan of the Government; such was the impression in Sydney, from the representations of the New Zealand Company’s paper, at Port Nicholson. But we were not a little gratified at finding him a strenuous and consistent opponent of whatever was evil in th# Government; offering no factious opposition to what was beneficial even in Mr. Attorney General’s measures themselves. To him chiefly the colony owes the having rendered a dead letter the vile Corporation Bill, which Mr. Attorney General was endeavouring to cram down our throats, and which the Government had not the grace to withdraw as they did the Land Claims’ Bill. We well recollect the correspondence which took place between Sir George Gipps and Mr. Earp, on the subject of the Land jobbing among the Government officers at Auckland, and we find him still the same determined enemy of so disgraceful a proceeding; and if the Government, as we have been given to understand they are inclined to do,lean towards Mr. Porter’s intended Land jobbing motion, we do not wish for any thing better than to hear Mr. Earp’s expose of the effects which will ensue from it.

The Port Nicholson people do not seem to have understood Mr. Earp’s motives in accepting the office of Member of the Legislative Council. His aim appears to us to have been to preserve the same consistent opposition to Government tyranny as he had set out with; accepting office, as well knowing that his opposition would tell better when clothed with power, than coming from himself as a private individual. We were guided in our previous opinions of the hon. gentleman by the Port Nicholson press, but on reviewing his acts since the sitting of Council, we cannot but see that he is as determined in opposing that which is vile, as he ever was. As we said last week, we thought when we petitioned Her Majesty not to remove Capt, Hobson, that both Mr. Earp and his party were factious, but we now see that they knew the intentions of the Government better than ourselves, and we cannot but confess they were right.

Having found that from the above causes * impressions of Mr. Earp in Sydney were unfavourable, inasmuch as they considered it a capital stroke of policy on the part of His Excellency to win over his most influential opponent to his side. But we imagine that the Government here have not had much reason to congratulate themselves on their policy, that policy appearing to have been adroitly turned by Mr. Earp to his own advantage. We deem it only an act of justice towards the Hon. Gentleman to set the people of New South Wales right upon this head. The great hostility of the Port Nicholson people to Mr. Earp’s acceptance of office appears to be that Mr. Earp would not tell the course he meant to adopt in the Council, and very wisely too, for had he done so, it would have been immediately circulated, and the Government party would have been prepared for it. As it was, they did not even expect it, till Mr. Earp’s opposition came upon them unprepared, and the consequence is, that the only two Bills of primary importance to the Colony, that have been duced, he has defeated, from tfleir being based upon the principle of throwing all power into the hands of the government and rendering the people powerless. We suspect that whatever policy there has been from first to last, is on Mr. Earp’s side, and that the sagacity of the Government has been nowhere except in their own imaginations. A good Chess-player never tells his moves to the people looking on. We think Mr. Earp has shown good policy, and for the sake of the Colony, we hope that he will be successful in the forthcoming struggle, though we are afraid that in this he will be deserted by his two independent coadjutors, and will have to fight the battle himself. We do not envy these if they do desert him, but we think the position of Mr. Earp is an enviable one, a single arm lifted up against tyranny and incapacity. May the right win.