THE NEW CONSTITUTION. [From the Times, June 2.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 442, 27 October 1849, Page 4

THE NEW CONSTITUTION. [From the Times, June 2.]

The change which of late years has shown itself in the popular mind on all colonial subjects gives an interest to all reports ieceived from our distant dependencies. There is no longer the same sluggish indifference or stagnant ignorance upon the site, fortunes, and progress of any far-off settlement of English men and women which prevailed a few years ago. Ordinary people associate with their own and their families' welfare the prosperity of their friends who have braved a four months' voyage. Others, who look to colonies as offering somewhat more than a fortuitous provision for a score or so of scattered adventurers, identify with their progress the development of English resources and the extension of English greatness. In whatever way it is regarded — whether as concerns individuals or the empire, the advancement of a yonng colony cannot but excite the deepest feelings of interest, sympathy, and solicitude. The appearance of the annual report of the New Zealand Company is, therefore, no unwelcome- or indifferent matter, on general grounds. But its present appearance derives

additional importance from its conjunction with a manifesto in the New Zealand Gazette. New Zealand already exhibits the nucleus of a constitution, nut indeed in the most complete and liberal form which even a new colony might claim, buc with such attendant circumstances, and under such conditions, as promise the speedy and mature development of institutions similar to those which the mother country enjoys. It is a matter of wonder, in the first place, that the New Zealand Company is still in existence. That it has not been wrecked and dashed to pieces by its contest with the Colo-nial-office, colonial embarrassments, disputed land sales, and native chiefs, is itself a singular proof of inherent vitality and native strength. It has withstood assaults and dangers enough to have upset a dozen modern companies of the usual pattern. Whether Mr. Roebuck's prejudices against a colonizing company be or be not founded injustice, it is tolerably clear, from an examination of the history of New Zealand, that the patience of this company has been the mainstay of the infant settlement. It has undoubtedly been a borrower from Government even to four times the amount that the colony of Georgia was ; but when we compare its present condition with its condition four years ago — its poverty, its hopelessness, its bankruptcy, its cessation of all colonizing operations, with its present energies, renewed activity, increased i colonial population — we must question wheI ther the loan has not been most prudently advanced, and also whether such a loan would have been repaid by any other kind of society but such an one as the company which has colonised New Zealand. We are living in railroad days. We compress the usual results of years into months, and of generations into years. We are not content till we have appended the emphatic " done 9 ' to our most comprehensive designs. Our colonizing is like our other projects. We scheme a settlement in one year, and expect to see it grow into a colony within ten years. The miscarriages, rebuffs, and long-suffering of our early colonizers, would weary the patience rather than dismay the courage of the present generation. ' Men would not now-a-days make up their minds to undergo the distress and anxieties which cowed even the spirits of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England, and which tried the invincible courage and hardihood of Smith in Virginia. Had New Zealand been left to the unassisted enterprise of individual adventurers, we do not think Englishmen could have acquired a footing in the islands at all. We are sure that they would not have made head against the difficulties of their position, and the hostility of the natives, under fifty years. So far the experience of the Company appears to have been an indispensable preliminary to success, according to the prevailing estimate of the period within which it should be realized. The two important topics mooted at the Company's meeting on Thursday were the resumption of the land sales, and the initial form of a constitution. The first speaks for itself. It tells of difficulties removed, of disputes adjusted, of speculation resumed. The second presents wider and more serious matter of reflection. The Governor-General has summoned certain of the members to compose Legislative Councils of the separate Provinces to one General Legislative Council for the whole colony. On the 21st of December, A.D., 1848, the first meeting of the General Legislative Council was held at Wellington, when the Governor introduced to the consideration of the members various points of domestic and political importance. Among these was the prospective concession of free representative institutions. The members replied to the address of the Governor in terms which expressed a strong desire to know the nature of the proposed constitution, and hinted something very like disappointment at the time which was to intervene before it was granted. This drew from the Governor a more detailed account of the recommendations which he had transmitted to the Colonial-office in London, and which, we presume, will be the basis of the proposed polity. They are at follows ;—; — " 1. A complete system of representative government will be introduced into the colony at a distance of not more than three years and a half from the present time. " 2. A General Assembly will be constituted for the whole thiee islands, consisting of two chambers, one appointed by the Croirn, the other chosen by the pepple of the Provinces, according to the proportion of their respective populations. ",3. Each Pxoyince is .also to have a separate Assembly, sitting in one chamber, and composed partly of persons named by the Crown, partly of members elected by the people. " 4. The General Assembly is to have the usual powers of a Colonial Parliament, but the Provincial Legislative Couucils to retain the powers already given them by the special Ordinance.

" 5. Municipal institutions are to be given to municipal districts, if they ask for them. " 6. The right of franchise is to be given to such colonists as are small freeholders, or householders paying a small annual rent ; and also to such native subjects of the Queen as are possessed of property to the amount of £200 in Government securities, vessels, or tenements, or who may have obtained a vote certificate from the Governor-in-Chief." Such are the main provisions of the new constitution ; and we think they are liberal enough to satisfy the most ardent friends of liberty and the warmest enthusiasts in colonization. Of course in this, as in every other scheme, it is easy to pick holes. There appear to us to be two points open to objection. One is, that a species of government which should in a colony precede every other is pe*imi t ted rather than prescribed, — hinted at rather than delineated, viz., the municipal. Now, this is the first and archetypal form of all self-government. It is the simplest, the most natural, and the most necessary. It comes home to the business and wanti of every inhabitant in every district. Men who are indifferent about the grander subjects ~&f general policy feel very strongly and think very much, even if they do not think very profoundly, about assessing themselves to deter the parochial burglar, or to remedy the provincial drought. Bridewells, chapels, schools, dams, reservoirs, all are needful; and all require money for their construction. Each man, therefore, in the parish, the district, or the town, has an interest in seeing that he himself does not pay too much, and that his neighbour pays enough. The little corporation or the parish vestry is the normal school for legislation. It teaches men to discuss matters of business in a practical and sensible way. It teaches them the knack of public business and the courtesies of public discussion. Men who go into great public assemblies without this preliminary discipline often begin talking like schoolboys about freedom, duty, tyranny, martyrdom, &c. Anybody who remembers having been present at a schoolboys' debating society must remember how very much more hearty, earnest, and mii telligent were the discussions on the colour of a carpet, or the pattern of a tablecloth, or the imposition of a fine, than on the character of Rienzi and the comparative merits of monarchy and democracy. It is the same with men as with boys. Had France been trained 'by a series of municipal assemblies, the National Assembly would have been spared hours of turbulence and volumes of nonsense. We do not, indeed, apprehend that our countrymen at the antipodes will diverge from a debate on the salary of a civil officer, or the modification of customs' duties, into rhapsodies about Harmodius and Aristogeiton ; but we are convinced that two or three years of municipal would have admirably prepared them for a great futurity of political self-govern-ment. The clause which gives the Governor the power of conferring the elective franchise upon any natives he may choose is open to abuse. The power, to be useful, should be guarded by limitations. There is not a word said in the Governor's speech respecting the limits of the Colonial Assembly's functions, — what questions are to be deemed colonial, what Imperial. This can hardly have been overlooked in a colony the antecedent history of which so strikingly demonstrates the collision of Crown, Company, and individual interest?. To prevent future embarrassments and collisions, we trust that it will be clearly and definitively laid down on what questions the usembly is to legislate, and from what it is jto be precluded. Unless this be done, there will be reserved for New Zealand the same causes of vexation, jealousy, and vindictiveness which have warped the administration Df other colonies. Ere we conclude, we would join with the Directors of the Company in offering a tribute of praise to one whose life and labours have been devoted to the cause of Christian colonisation. Of Bishop Selwyn we can only say, that he gave up literary leisure, elegant and refined society, the companionship of many and devoted friends, the prospect of high ecclesiastical position at home, to plant the church by the waters of the Henui ; apd that his zeal has been well rewarded by the result. Those who are solicitous for the fortunes of our youngest colony need no better augury than the energetic labours, as those who are curious about its progress need no clearer details than are supplied by the journal, of its " Missionary Bishop."