THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Wednesday, December 31, 1845.

Wellington Independent, Volume I, Issue 44, 31 December 1845, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Wednesday, December 31, 1845.

The recent arrangement between the Colonial Office and the New Zealand Company, intelligence of which has been brought by the Nkisok/'cbo hardly be called as amicable, and certainly is not a final settlement of their differences. On the contrary, the Company give notice that they shall still urge all their claims, which Lord Stanley with equal distinctness announces his intention,to resist. No principle ie conceded on the part of the Governmeatof which the Company can avail themselves in future disputes, since no lands are to be granted to them but such as hare been declared by Mr. Spam, either as Commissioner or Arbitra. tor, to belong to the Company by right of purchase. No part consequently of the twenty minions of acres claimed to have been purchased by the Company will be conceded to them, but that which has been Obtained by payments made since the commencement of Mr« Spsrta'e investigation. We may therefore anticipate, that the next session will witness a renewal of those discussions on New Zealand, which have occupied so large a portion of the last. There is one result however which is involved in this arrangement of a somewhat doubtful com-plexion—-the implied undertaking on Ihe part of the Government to employ force iv order to drive the natives from, the Hutt, and from Taranaki. However the ultimate consequences of luch proceedings might be, we cannot'quite divert ourselves o/ a feeljng of un-aah ess at the prospect of a colK»ipn with the natives in these settlements. ' If indeed the measures now inprogres« in the Bay of Islands should result in the defeat and destruction of the r«b. 1 natives, there is but little piospect of any such collision, eince , the nativei would probably in that case abandon their pretensions without striking a blow. If, however; the rhoultl'sustain nrtother check', 5 or if Kawili sudd's, party, when driven frpin their ibotild retreat wtb littb:i<»»g, we jhuuld appre- .

hend a struggle,-which, however terminated, cculd not but inflict serious injury upon the settlement,— were , it only fiom the circumstance that few fnmilics would venture to remain unprotected in the bush while such a struggle were in progress. If the i present Governor canisucceed in re'«establishing that! 'moral influence' over the natives, resulting from iheir belief of our military superiority, Avhich recent events hare done bo ntutfh to weafken, or if he can concentrate and maintain in'each of the settlements an overwhelming force, no lactoal employment of force would be neceeeary. Ip. that cese ; however, the present agreement would have been needless, so far as this settlement is concerned. Failing, however, any of these conditions, a collision appears to be as probable as it cannot fail to be injurious. Our apprehensions of the immediate results of such a collision do not, however, arise from any belief in the intrinsic superiority of the natives, but 'from our-perception of the: wsaknesa of our posi- ; tion,arising from the dispersion of the settlers, both in the town and in the country. The plans of "the New JJealand Company, with regard to the 'allotment of land, were based upon an assumption of the un form maiatenance of friendly relations the settlers and the New Zealanders. Had they contemplated even the possibility of hostilities, they could hardly have proposed to scatter the po. pulation over eleven hundred acres of town, and, at internals, Over nearly as many square miles of 'country, since they must have felt that the annual expense of defending them would be nearly equal to the'fee simple of the land to be defended. There are we believe five or six families at Ohwo; thirty in K*rori; twenty or thirty along the Porirua and Ohariu Roads ; eighry or ninety, in. the Hott-; and a few in the Wai-nui-o«mate. These could scurcely "be comprehended in any one plan of defence, but each would require the protection of a separate force, which could hardly under any Circumstances be detached for other duty. But as we imagine that no commander would consent thus to weaken Ms force, and as there is, we believe, not one of the districts mentioned in which the military could effectively or safely operate at the present time, it it probable that all of theae settlers, excepting perhaps those on the Hutt, would be,called.in, uod r pain of v unprotected -should they be atacked. We havejaid nothing, here at to ihe •ettlerton the Manawatu, and those at Wanganui, nor of our •heep.kolders in the Wairarapa, But we-thirrk we have shewn sufficient reasons for the apprehension with which we regard an actual collision. If necessary ; a.U must be dared and risked; but when the risk is so great, the necessity should be palpable and imperative before it is encountered.

We must postpone to our next number the remarks we had intended to make with regard to the grant of Municipal institutions; stipulated for on our pert, bat without our sanction , and embodied in the arrangements between the Company and tie Government. Nor cm we new do more taan glance at the easy but decided tone in which t*e Company disposes of the claim of the settlers to compensation. It is clear that from the Company we have nothing to hope on -this score. So Ion? as they can make our safferinge or our claims an effective weapon in the warfare in which they are engaged with the Government—d warfare which £ratifies the pique of one, the ambition of another, and the party spirit of a third, and to which all look as the means of retrieving the heavy losses which their own mis-ma-nagement has occasioned, —so leng will they give us their sympathy. But when we cease to be useful to them in this respect, we shall be thrown off without a scruple, with a cold recommendation of our claims to the considera'ion of Government. These friends of the colony are something like the friend of humanity in Canning's Anti-Jacobin Sapphics, end their answer to Dr. Evane, though couched in different language, v in spirit—" 1 give tbee sixpence 1 I will see thee datnoed first." This however, is a subject, not to be thus summarily dismissed', and we shall take an early opportunity of recurring to it.