Dunedin, Saturday, November 20, 1852.

Otago Witness, Issue 79, 20 November 1852, Page 2

Dunedin, Saturday, November 20, 1852.

The receipt of the signatures to the petitions forwarded from Ofngo in secret, with the plausible statement of the Governor that " they are the signatures of the most lespcctable class in Otago," obliges us again to notice this matter ; and our readers will, we trust, excuse oiuwepeating arguments which have already been used. The arrival of strangers amongst us, who are unaware of the details of former transactions, and whose minds are sure to be biased to a certain extent by the statements they will hear put forward as truths in the hotels and other public places, by the enemies of Otago, who are mostly found in these places, the more steady and thriving portion of our community being otherwise and better employed, is an additional excuse for our wearying our readers with a tv ice-told tale. In the first place, Me will explain what in modern clays is meant by a Class Settlement. It is not for a moment to be supposed that it aims at establishing a settlement exclusively of one denomination of Christians; but as the advantages of Churches and Schools from the outset have been universally admitted, and funds have been set aside to carry out these objects, the great difficulty has invariably been, how were the funds to be divided fairly ? — the attempt at such a division immediately loads to endless and urtyrofilable disputes. At Nelson, where the funds were placed on this footing, they became useless from the impossibility of making a satisfactory division ; they have remained locked up to this day, and will in all probability be devoted to other objects than those fo; which they were originally subscribed. The simple, — in fact, the only remedy for the evil, was to name the particular Chui eh to vshich thpy should be applied. This was done «t Otago : a body of Yrea Churchmen desired to try the experiment ; but they did not exclude, or attempt to exclude, other denominations pf Christians, — all were muted to join, the only restriction upon thorn bring, that they should sign the terms of pu c.'iaie, as evidence of their acquiescence in the scheme. Many of various bodies of Christians did so join the rettlemen'!, and we cannot see how any man of honour, who. purchased land under those conditions, can so far forget what is duo to his character as to turn round, immediilcly on his arrival in Otago, and endeavour to break the bargain he made at home. — Were his engaged servant to do so to him, he would loudly complain. — We, however, should not object so strongly to these parties expressing their wishes upon the subject of the discontinuance of the scheme were those wishes stated in an open and manly manner, but the method of smuggling petitions out of the settlement — these petitions, making averments so utterly without foundation, as are the statements contained in the two Memorials lying before us. and the method of obtaining signatures, or rather, putting down names without obtaining the signatures — and Mr. Adams' is not an isolated case — must be distasteful to every man of common honest)'. The names of the petitioners to the first Memorial, which, will be found in our present number, and which will be recognised by most of our readers, will at once explafn the motives for concealment. What right have runaway seamen, squatters amongst the natives, or the residents up and down the coast, to express an opinion upon the ■ distribution of Church funds, to which they never contributed, — or object to a ministry, of which they never avail themselves : the dislike of these people is a compliment rather than otherwise. No doubt the promoters of the petition felt that it would be far from agreeable to have their names appear publicly in such a i motley company. The snesis which the exj posure of the efforts they had made to gather | every thing in the shape of a signature would I have called forth in the colony would have had an injurious effect on the petition, — Sir George Grey's illusion of the most respectable portion of the community would have vanished in a moment. It would even appear, from the petition being laid by for ,12 months, that its promoters were ashamed of it. Well might they | say it was "too dirty a piece of paper (even) for the Governor." We would ask, what would have been the fate of a memorial to Sir George Grey from the bona fide settlers of Otago if it had not been verified by original signatures ? We may safely affirm it would never have been forwarded home with one of Sir George Grey's complimentary remarks on their being the most revspectable portion of the community. Of the second petition — having 40 signatures, not 39, as stated in the Blue 800k — its getting up is yet more discreditable than the first. The promoters endeavoured to keep it a profound secret; and although it was 12 months later, than its predecessor, yet its promoters, finding

they could not get more than 40 signatures to it, obtained the former document and forward- i ed them together, evidently with the object of giving them the appearance of being coeval expressions of opinion, when, in truth, the 40 petitioners were the whole number of persons in the settlement whose opinions were then avowedly opposed to the scheme of the settlement, — shewing that, if the signatures of the first document were genuine, there had been a vast change of sentiment upon this subject. It would be a waste of time to follow the petition through its details, when it is selfevident to the whole settlement that it contains scarcely a word of tiuth beyond the first paragraph ; and the statement, 'that the petitioners are the most respectable class of colonists and chief landowners, is perfectly ridiculous. The following is a table of the quantity of land held by them out of 18,000 acres sold, shewing the absurdity of their assumptions : — 17 Resident proprietors, holding in all 10o4^ acres. 7 Non-proprietors, but the sons and nephews of Absentee proprietors, to the extent of . . . . 1144| do. 16 Having no land whatever on the 15th July 1850. 40 Signatures, 2199 acres, of which not 40 in all iverc under cultivation. IteUyion. — Anglicans 27, English Dissenters 2, Itomaiiists 2, Church of Scotland 2, Church of Otago 3, Making no profession 4, =40. Since the above date, 1 of the resident proprietors has left the colony ; 2of the young gentlemen are understood to have received powers of attorney; 4 that had no land, have acquired in all 100 acres. There are but three of them members of the Church of Otago, and who alone have a right to express an opinion on the alteration of the class character of the settlement. But the class character of the settlement has nothing to do with the subject. The first four names on the list are those of 1 applicant for office, and 3 Government officials, all Justices of the Peace ; with them the question is not Free Church or No Church, but Despotic Government, Patronage, and Place. They know that if the revenue and the land funds were to fall into the hands of the settlers, there would be little chance for them ; hence their activity in promoting the petition, and they will as actively oppose the petition for a Charter. The course to be pursued by the settlers evidently is to obtain the Chaiter for the Otago Association, and let them hand over their powers to the Provincial Council ; we can then settle all these matters for ourselves. "We would recommend our readers to peruse attentively the extract fiom the very able despatch from Mr. J. lU^Glashan on the advantages to be derived, and the evils to be avoided, by obtaining a Charter ; and having- satisfied themselves on the subject, make every effort to get the petition put forward by the Otago Settlers' Association, numerously signed, and at. once.