THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Wednesday, August 5, 1846.

Wellington Independent, Volume II, Issue 85, 5 August 1846, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Wednesday, August 5, 1846.

We are required to fulfil our promise of i adverting more particularly to the resolu-. tions passed at a recent meeting of Land Owners, in this settlement. In order to understand.those resolutions, a few palliatory observations are requisite. The New Zealand Company commenced business upon a curious stock "in trade. It was simply moonshine. Under the influence of the Planet, or Sattelite, from whence the Directors drew their assets, they published an advertisement which we reprint. Its promises made upon the strength of their capital, were taken up with avidity by those who had only dealt in pounds, shillings, and pence, and believed that the Directors only dealt either in those articles, or in goods which ivere relatively convertible. But there were, others whose co-operation were necessary to give stability to the moonbeams, and hence many labouring men and small capitalists, who could trade without adventuring their capital in land, were bound to be united to the colony. And to these classes the lands originally offered for sale having been all purchased and paid lor, the promises were most liberal. Not only was the great demand for labour in a colony, where every man was obliged to get up a roof to shelter him, held out as an inducement, but, if that means failed,, employment under the Company was promised, so that if by any chance the capital of emigrating families might become insufficient to employ the disposable labour in the colony, the capital of a Company possessing unbounded wealth would employ it.at certain fixed rates. But sensible men would have seen that such promistsheld out to ihe multitudes invited to emigiate could not be. fulfilled, unless men possessed"of some amount of capital, however limited, could be induced to come away from their friends, c-ajnections, pros-

[ poets, and hopes in England, to settle in a new community, the arrangements of which promised that the laborer should in five years become, if so lie willed, a land 4 owner, and even' other person progress i»! like manner. Especially to young men,: whose friends would buy a section and duly equip them for an outset in a new country, were prospects held out, and the philanthropic, the benevolent, and the Christian, were all brought into the scheme by the notion of Native Reserves. One tenth was to'be reserved for the nativesan ominous proportion, too aptly coincident with the tenth of profits dedicated to the poor of the parish, or some such charitable claptrap, invented to enable clergy-. men to to take shares in the Old Mining Companies. 'For how, and here let us shortly diverge from our Subject, have these reserves been made. One-eleventh, not one-tenth, of the land has been selected for native reserves, and. of the. responsibility for the selection we shall hereafter have a few words to say. The'fact, however, is, the Government Surveyor reported that of the ihirty-two sections chosen for,the natives in respect of the settlement of Port Nicholson, only twelve were available,- and the New Zealand Compa nys Surveyor, whose talents are not to be doubted, going over those secions with the view of.correcting the report of the Government Surveyor, reports, if we may credit the statement made at the Public Meeting of Land Owners, that seventeen only of those sections were available. Let us, therefore, at once dispose of the comments made upon the Government Surveyor's Report by the press supported by the influence and money of the New Zealand Company's Shareholders. The three or four cases examined in those comments, were the few cases, related it must be seen to those sections, respecting which an Agent of the Company has been able to differ from the Government Surveyor, and not fair samples as alleged by the press we {allude to. And in respect of one of the sections expressly referred to, we can quote an authority which that press, at least, will not question—Mr. E. J. Wakefield's Book. The comments referred to states, that a barren section of 100 acies was chosen at , Ohirq-for a native reserve, because the natives had a fishing village there, In Mr. E J. Wakefield's book lie states "not to mention the absurdity of choosing: 100 acres of land for the site of a maori fishing village, Mr. E. J. Wakefield says p. 243. •" He(E Kura) explained to me, that none of the natives Hved permanently near the sea side, but that their pahs and cultivations were far up the river among the mountainous country, which they considered more fertile as well as more secure against hostile attacks." Foremost of those to w~hom should he coincided the right to throw up their land and take others, will be the Trustees pi native reserves. And now to revert to the subject. The New Zealand Company when they published their first prospectus, had not a legal title to a single acre in New Zealand, and notwithstanding their assertions relative to extensive ;purchases, they had nol a title which would be recognized by any persons on these islands, lo any considerable quantity of valuable land in the colony. Hence the moonshine. The other dealings of the Company >cut of which arises the present claim, will be referred to in our next.