THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Wednesday, January 28, 1846.

Wellington Independent, Volume I, Issue 48, 28 January 1846, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Wednesday, January 28, 1846.

We published in our last paper a full report of a speech of Mr. Roebuck, containing suggestions with regard to tlie Government of New Zealand which are well worthy of attention. We are far from concurring in all his views, but even in those which we regard as erroneous, there is much that is valuable. It is the speech of an independent ihinker, who does not allow himself to be fettered by the conventionalities of any party, and who at least endeavors to look at things as they really are, instead of blindly following in the beaten track. °

Two things in that i=peeeh have especially struck us—the implied censure upon the New Zealand Company for their attempt to create separate,'which eventually might become hostile, Governments in these Islands, and for their policy in attempting to establish sectional communities, distinguished by peculiarities of religion or of rare, as in the proposed Church of England settlement and the Scotch settlement—and the assertion of the inutility, and possible misohief, of such municipalities as those which that Company has demanded on our behalf. It is indeed for unate for tho ul-imat' inter, sts of ,he colony, that the pr .posal to establish two * ovirniiicii s was rejected by Sir Robert

Pe ,| Had it l»«o.i al.poJ. romh l; 3 , hav lJ bee il thecivan».i'>ftw od,^tMUi0d,^tMUi Zmtnitios -cnposed of different race, and havi.!" d ILrent laws, dilfere it cus,for the christian fa.tl. among a pcop.es > ignorant and superstitions as tho Mao «., iould bJ in reality a .lilK-re.it loligia.i from what it is anion* an ins tract d ana enquiring population. Willi s.>cl <-I moats of discord, it wouldbe «U to lio c fur the subsequent |vacrlul ddioii oilh.two communities tinder one lorm ot Uovernmen', and difficult, if not impossible, to'preveat disputes which mi-iht seriously embarrass the proceedums of each separate administration. The immediate benefit, even to thc-s* settlements, of such a measure, would have be n problematical, and its ultimate evils inevitable. With regard to municipalities; wg were among those who at first-strongly urged the adoption of the Municipal Corporation Ordinance, but experience and reflection have made us doubt the justness of tho views which we then entertained. It is not that there was anything in the proceedings of our Town Council which we considered wronjr, or which led us to anticipate evil from iis continuance-, but that its powers were of ii« t c worth, and that we-saw sons to believe that any extended powers might in the positron of die colony prove injurious. And this we imagine to be now the opinion of the majority of the inhabitants of this settlement. The power of a parish, or county in England may be well exercised here, but the administration of justice, the making of bye laws which would be binding upon the community, and the exercis- of the other functions of the gen-'ral government, which it was proposed to confer upon the intended municipalities, would not only impose upon us additional burthens which we mivjlit find it dificult to bear, but would tend io aggravate the evils resulting from th-separa-tion of the settlement, by loosing that bond of union which results from the pursuit of common objects by common means. Upon this pc/int also we are therefore disp-sed |to ai>ree in the views of Mr. lioebuck.

We must leave for future dis>ussion the,' plan which he suggests for the gen-ral government of the country, only now-re-marking that recent occurrences will probably have convinced him, that he has made too little account of the natives. But we must deprecate the opinion which Mr. Roebuck so strenuously inculcates of expecting this, or any other infant community, to defray the expenses of its own government without liberal aid from England. And we do this, the rather because of our agreement with his opinion as to municipalities. If each separate s-tlleraent were a separate community governing itself like the old corporations, 0 or even like an American townsbio, the expenses of its government might bo' easily provided for. But there does not exist in this colony, nor in any modern colonies, that spirit which in the corporate towns of the middle aj-es, made every member of the guilds regard his own welfare and almost bis own being, as identified with that of the body to which he belonged, and all those guilds look with the same feeling to the united corporation Still lessis there that severe simplicity ol manners, and that felt equality arisinofrom their fellowship as members of the same church, which bound together tho New Engenders, and enabled them to realise their-simple and frugal scheme of government. There is nothing in the principles upon which this colony was founded (o combine the population into one body. On the contrary the mere desire of individual advancement, which was the motive for emigration with almost all is for tins purpose a dissociating principle And in a community like this—the mcml bers of which are perpetually sl.ifiin., there is no prospect f r many years of th' growth of any such feelings or habits, as would supply the .place of an original bond ot union. We have consequently no prospect of having a government at once cheap and effective. All functionaries must be paid, and if their services are worth retaining they must be paid upon a scale proportioned not to the circumstances or ilus colony, but to the returns which they might hope to derive from the exercise of their talents i„ England or in the other colonies. > Our establishments to be worth maintaining cannot but be expensive beyond th« the colony, and either with the boon of independence, to compensate for the withdrawal of support from the parent state; or 6UC J contributions should be furnished to are really adequate l„ our wants It is not m .rely, however, the" expeuc s

of Government to whi.'h the mother, eotintry should contribute, if it is con s j, dered a part ot the national piliey t „ en>v»urng-a colonic\tiott. Wo say, de'hb:». ritely and emphatically, after smie experience, that it v a grievous wrong-on tho i)ar t of the II >mo Government t> lend ii ß sanction to the emi_.ration of tliousa-ids of its subjects to a place where nothing h as been dune to prepare the way for their reception, and nothing is to be done to aid thriii in their inevitable struggles. And this wrong is ajsg.av.lted whan, as in th,} pivs'in case,acbmnu<reialbody is allowed to derive a profit from lha expenditure of the emigrants, as an inducement to it to fulfil the functions of tjia Government, [nstead of assistance being rendered to those persons whose emigr.tion is encou. raged as pait of a syst-m fraught, or sup. posed to bo fraught, with national a 1 v* n . ta<rc, they havo had t> pay from five to ten shillings per acre, and in other settlements tho amount may be yet higher, to the New Z alaid Company, for mismanaging that which a Government Commit. sioner might do at a t nth of the cost, and could not do worse. We aro no admirers of Government CommL-sioners in general, but wo would match tho "New Zealand Company in England, and their AgertU in the colony, against any commissioner that ever existed for ignorance, ind'denco, incapacity, and a propensity to interfere wherever meddling could be mischievous. Emigrant capitalists in fact appear to be regarded as a people to'be pidaged and fie-'Ced without mercy. Thi-y are to pay tor tbe land —then to pay tor roads to make the 'and accessible, then to pay for the capital which the New Zealand Gem. pany has wasted, then to pay a profit upon that waste, and when after all the pay. ments they roach the land they have purchased, tiny probably find th ir capital so far exhausted as to bo comp lied to borrow money upon it, and thus t > bind themselves t<> labor for the b-nyfit of some on; who has had suffi dent sagacity not to b) a purchasr of la-id. Sur/ly, however, this need not be the ease. I- IhU were a necessary result of the Wakefield system of c-donizition, better far the old plan of giving away land with all i;s evils. But it is no p irt of the syst m. It is an abase sanctioned by Mr. E. <*-. Wakefield at first aud now obstinately maintained because ho his ton proud to admit himself to have been wrong, and too confident in his 0 \n resources to anticipate the utter failure which thise on the spot kni;\v to be inevitable, without some change of system. Tho Government, however, has no inter st in permitting the continuance of this practice, and every motive to adopt a new and more liberal jilan, and though in the conflict of paries in England it is difficult to obtain a hearins; for a small and uninflu- ntial body, who woiild willingly never be heard of" in England, except as exportors of produce and importers of manufactures ; yet we should not despair of success, were our claims onc;e fairly brought before the English public and legislature.

Our wants are not much. Less than the Government is understood to have agreed to advance to the New Zealand Company, to *« modify the rancour of their tongues," in the next session, would, if judiciously applied, prepare the way for the emigration of more than the whole number of emigrants s nt out by that Company. And we -do not ask this as a gift. By the Government it might be borrowed at little more than 3 per cent., and die increased prodnoti , n occasioned by its gradual expenditure in pubic works, would enable the cohmy to pay that interet wiihout /belin°- it as a burthen.