THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

Colonist, Issue 75, 9 July 1858, Page 3

THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY.

_ {From the Southern Cross, June 22.) On Friday last, a debate of some interest arose on the question that the Land Orders and Scrip Bill be read a third time. An amendment in favor of a re-committal of the Bill was moved by Dr. Monro in a speech of some length, on the ground of its injustice towards the Province of Nelson. This led to rejoinders on the part of the Representatives of Canterbury and Otago,

and altogether the question drew out a considerable quantity of " tongue-fence." In accordance with our usual rule during Session, never departed from unless in case, of urgent necessity, we refraiu from obtruding our own opinion, pendente lite. It is the duty of the fourth, estate, unless in troubled times, when there is a call for " all hands" on deck, to give place to the third. The province of the fourth estate, during Session, is to supply general information, and to chronicle facts. The facts of the case, in few-words, we believe to be these. When the New Zealand Company surrendered its charter in 1850, the Government, in virtue of an arrangement made in 1847, became the owner of the New- Zealand Company's estate in the colony. This estate consisted of 1,072,000 acres, and the price agreed upon being five sbillings per acre, the original Company's debt waa fixed at £268,000. In the first instance, this burden was a third charge upon the land revenue, coming in after emigration and surveys; but when the control of the Waste Lands was by the Constitution Act handed over to the Colony, Parliament, moved thereto by the New Zealand Company, consented to make this burden a first charge upon the land fund; and it was fixed accordingly at a fourth part of the proceeds of the land sales throughout the whole colony. In the first Ses- { sion of the General-Assembly, it was declared that Auckland was unfairly burdened with any portion of the debt: but of course the law remained unaltered by this resolution. • j The next grand fact as regards the Company's debt was the adoption of the financial resolutions of 1856, coupled with the giving effect to them by the guarantee for the repayment of the loan given by the Home' Government. Under those resolutions the whole burden of the repayment' of the Company's debt was laid upon the Middle . Island, aud the amount (,£200,000) was divided into three equal shares, one third to each pro-, vince. . : The Company's debt, we have seen, was the purchase money of a surrendered estate; and that estate consisted partly of land actually selected, and partly of an unexercised right of selection which ran oAfer the whole of the former province of New Munster. When the British Government bargained with the Company for the purchase of the estate, it was assumed, upon the representations of the Company itself, that this estate should be handed over without any liabilities of a serious character. But it has since appeared that this was untrue. A host of claimants for compensation (principally purchasers resident in England) arose; and in 1849 to satisfy those claimants, Sir George Grey passed the New Zealand Company's Land Claimants Ordinance, which provided for the issue of scrip iv satisfaction of those claims; the scrip being exercisable in the purchase of land in any part of the colony of New Zealand, save only in the neighbourhood of Auckland and New Plymouth. While this state of things continued, the Company's liabilities might be distributed over the whole colony, although in fact the v/eight of them fell chiefly upon .Wellington and Nelson. But the financial resolutions introduced a new element into the consideration of the matter. By those resolutions, the Company's estate was assumed to have been received by the Middle Island, exclusively, and the Company's debt was imposed upon that Island, as before stated, in three equal shares. It is contended, and with considerable shew of argument by some of the members for Nelson, that the operation of the Land Orders and Scrip Act is injurious to that province. They say,— you compel us to pay a third part of the debt, upon the assumed ground that we have got a third part of the estate: and now, by the operation of the Scrip Act, under which scrip can be exercised only in. the province within which it is issued, you compel the Province of Nelson to bear all the Company's liabilities. Because it is well known that the only claims upon the Company which arise in the Middle Island are Nelson claims. And the demand is this; — either give us credit for the amount of scrip we issue, which is in point of fact a deduction from our share of the. estate, or allow the scrip to be exercised in any part of the Middle Island, so as to distribute the burden as fairly as possible among the parties who have received the benefit. They S:ty, these are no liabilities of ours:— therefore why should we be compelled to bear them exclusively on our shoulders ?

The question appears to have been raised with more regard to the principle, than to the absolute amount ; for the quantity of scrip as yet uoexercised is not supposed to exceed £6000 or £7000. This, indeed, so far as we learn, is little more than matter of surmise; but the quantity cannot be large ; for the Superintendent of Nelson informed his Council that the whole of the scrip right of selection had been exercised.

The land order question at New. Plymouth must not be confused with the Nelson question, although in common parlance they both alike came under.the general heading,—Scrip. The New Plymouth case assimilates more closely to that of the Manawatu, (in the Province of Wellington), so well developed in the House, a few days since, by Mr. Clifford. As in the Manawatu, many holders of land orders have selected lands of which they have never been able to obtain possession through failure to extinguish the native title, and claim to enter upon those lands so soon as that object shall have been accomplished. .

Against this claim it is m'ged, that the New Zealand Company made an offer which was aocepted by the holders of land orders,—namely, of re-selecting them among lands to which the native title had been extinguished, and of compensation for not having obtained possession of the lands first selected. As was stated by Mr. Bell in the last session, the acceptance of the offer involved the surrender of any claim to the original selection.

It does not however appear that the Provinces of Wellington and New Plymouth offer any •material objection to the equitable right of reselection being exercised, regard being paid, to the interests of the provinces by securing to them the right of reserving town sites, or townships. This is claimed on the ground that the provinces cannot in equity be called on to purchase town sites, to be given in satisfaction of claims to rural land. In this view the House has so far legislated as regards both Wellington and New Plymouth, the only difference being a limit to re-selection, of two years in the former, while as regards the latter, the small size of the province has been considered as limitation equivalent to that of two years in the former case.

The scrip part of the question, Wellington and New Plymouth seem well satisfied .to leave in accordance with the settlement of last session: that is to say that each p-oviuce should satisfy its own scrip and no other.

We have endeavoured to indicate a few of the leading.points in queslim which has assumed such formidable dimensions, in a documentary

point of view, that comparatively few of the Representatives, we apprehend, have gone through the labor of mastering it. But it is, in fact, when the more prominent features are brought into relief, more simple than it would otherwise appear to be. '' \