New Zealand Spectator AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, May 14, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 603, 14 May 1851, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, May 14, 1851.

In one of the Nelson Examiners (April 26) recently received is an article professing to be an answer to our observations (January 22) on the Nelson compensation, in which we referred more particularly to what has been commonly called the Duppa Compensation Job. As our observations were published before Mr. Fox left the colony, and as neither he nor any of his friends have in any way refuted our statements, as his letter referring- to the arrangement with Mr. Duppa by its disingenuous evasions was considered at the time to be a virtual admission of the charges against him, we may consider the facts we advanced to be fully established, more especially since the writer in the Nelson Examiner after an interval of three months, during which no doubt the subject has received his earnest and attentive consideration, far from disproving them in effect admits them to be true. At the time we directed public attention chiefly to two points, “first—-that those who had previously been compensated by the ex* change of their rural for suburban land, the latter being in all cases of greatly superior value, were allowed further compensation in land scrip ; secondly—that the compensation was not, as in Wellington, stated to be an so many acres, but in so many pounds wortn of scrip.” We then showed that the land at Nelson had, in many instances, been parted with by the Company’s Agents, in exchange for compensation scrip, at the rate of five shillings an acre, or one-sixth the original price of land in that settlement, and one-fourth the lowest price for which, oy Act of Parliament, land may be sold i® New Zealand,, and that Mr. Duppa’s claim for compensation for six country sections originally purchased in this settlement £6OO was satisfied by a grant by Mr. of £2OOO of land scrip, which Mr. D U P“ pa was forthwith allowed to exchange the lattei' (in his capacity as Pt’ ll '' cipal Agent of the New Zealand Company) for a compact block of thousand acres of land at Wairau. may as well observe that our statement® referring to the compensation of the resident ’and purchasers, were founded on inf° rllia tion furnished by the Company's Ag ellt a Nelson; and we shall be happy t 0 P ub '* S '

[for his information, if the writer in the Examiner wishes it, a table derived from this Authentic source, with the names of the [purchasers, and the amount of compensation received in each case. However, fas we said before, the facts advanced [by us are not disputed by our opponent, [on the contrary he says—“by all means Het it be admitted that, as for instance Kn the consolidation there were gross violations of justice and truth committed, and scrying evils allowed—and in the compensations, many a man got too high an award, too low an assessment.” With such admissions we may well rest satisfied, seeing they jidmit even more than we contended for. | But what he cannot defend in detail, our is desirous of justifying in the gross fcy a “ general comparison, as the thing to go |by,” between the amount of money paid and fthe amount of compensation in land received [by the purchasers in Wellington and Nelson. can be more irrelevant or inconclu|ive than his argument. In Wellington the price of the land was twenty shillings an |icre, of which sum three fourths were to be Spent in immigration. In Nelson the price |>f land was fixed at thirty shillings an acre, Ind out of this increased price the trust gunds were to be provided for religious and educational purposes, for steam and for |ther objects. And though, through the

of the Company, the settlers at Nelson have as yet received little or no beSefit from these funds, now that the liabities of the Company have devolved on the lovernment they may hope for speedy repress. But in this comparison, however ioud at other times in his complaints of the Company’s conduct with regard to the Trust Funds, the Examiner does not on the present occasion make the slightest allusion to [hem. Again, in comparing the land of the two settlements, he says “the best land (in can bear no comparison in value, perhaps £lO an acre, with the best in Wellington, while it may be doubted whether there is any of the worst land given at tvel/ington so bad as the worst land given Bt Nelson.” We may simply state, in answer to this assertion, that we believe no incleared land in this settlement, not even a the valley of the Hutt has been sold, or ralued, for agricultural purposes at so high i rate as £lO an acre. But the strangest fgument (if it deserves that name) adduced •y our opponent is his reference to Mr. Tolnacheas an absentee purchaser at Wellington, Contrasting the amount of land obtained by |im (including compensation) with the [mount obtained by purchasers at Nelson. I would have been more to the point to b have compared the amount of land held •y that gentleman at Nelson, some 4700 cres for which he paid £7OOO, scattered in ifferent districts and in separate sections acprding to their order of choice, with the pnsolidations as they are termed, of some of be resident land owners, or with the compact block of 8000 acres awarded to Mr. juppa by the Company’s Agent for £6OO Hginally paid to the Company. We have fiefly and hastily referred to one or two |>ints in this statement, we may probably jke another opportunity of returning to the Inject, more especially as our contemporary Jpmises “ to throw some further light on ! e subject,” when we hope to profit by his lamination ; at present we must confess he

| es not appear to us to see his way very gearly. 7 O f nda > r m en-of-war on this stall left the harbour ; the Havannah, with j/ii c er th* 2 Bramble, and the Flv. for _ JCK. aud . the Acheron for g d calling her way thither at Taranaki. It is retb 8° i t la t the Havannah will proceed on a Sydney, and on the arrival of the Calliope I leave the station for England ; the Fly, IftvU 1 ’ Y’ U remain at Auckland until reLi, y the Fantome, when she will prolav V nCe m ° re visit Port Nicholson on her Ils j. O / 110 ' T he departure of these vesId’nr erruptln g ma ny agreeable friendships Irs 3 a ’2 tances formed between the setlets • i ° . ce . rs > has occasioned general re£e imnn^-fJV 8 On to acknowledge L bv t-H nt ? er X ices rendered to the Colee Th em , du^ n S the period of their serin ' ne valu able survevs of the be "<* to the future | Mtonand commerce of New Zealand;

while the frequent visits of Captain Erskine to the neighbouring islands in the South Seas north of New Zealand, and his humane and conciliating policy, will tend materialiy to promote the future civilization of their inhabitants, and facilitate the gradual spread among them of the Anglo-Saxon race.