THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Saturday, December 18, 1847.

Wellington Independent, Volume III, Issue 228, 18 December 1847, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT Saturday, December 18, 1847.

The Company indeed bag bo strong a case as to silence all objection.... The history of the transaction in every step Jβ suggestive of conclusions moet injurious to the intelligence, and even' to the good faith of our Colonial Administration ; and it cannot much be wondered at if people should eventually demand some radical alterations in a department which is at once unjuat and inefficient. —Times, July 16;

The history of New Zealand is the history of h great design, defeated by the incapacity of those who have been intrusted with its execution. It is a history of petty jealousies, of personal quarrels, of Colonial Office intrigue, of rapacious avarice under the garb of religious 2m), of malice, pretending to, humanity, of civilization triumphing by fraud over barbarian ignorance, of barbarian revenge wreaking itself in cruelty upon the weak'neis of lie oppres-sors,-of alternate neglect and meddling folly, of imbecile indifference and presumptuous misgovernment.. The annals of European colonisation do not, with perhaps one exception, famish »n example of

co fair a beginning conducted to ea F«, i eion. Certainly fcith no exception do J * eOncl U< so lamentable & record of failure nr 1 y COM »Ib external or unavoidable J^«. sole inherent corruption of internal m—Times, July 3. " al er «ttl«itlo, Mr. Hawes.—lf the New Zealand n should succeed and should sell its |.ni« 11. be no doubt as to the repayment of ti.fr "'W if it failed, we had at any rate t h Jr.■ ° an - H million of acres to fall b/ck upon 7Of «H The merry knights of the thimble ami, '. ed a rich harvest from the ignorant IS d rea P« confiding country gentlemen by whom it ? nd ,0 » were surrounded ; while Ihe fear of be , all,e « and bonnetted, or otherwise MtreatM T S mob W silence the bystander, trickery of the game.-Roguerieeof therSf "" Maitere. it is proved already that you . >' better than false knaves ; and it will /of 6 llttlj thought so Portly. Ul 6 ° ue »r to be Marry, sir, they have committed f.1,. . moreover, they have .poken untruths • »LW ! ■ they are .landers; sixthly and lwtly, th« X J l, lied a lady; thirdly, they things; and to conclude, they are lying Dogberry. 6 * ua "S.— I have deceived even your very eyes • «hii» wisdoms could not discover, the.c- .hiUn. P" have brought to light.—Borachio. f ° D| » A goodly apple, rotten at the core Caveat Emptor. ' . In the following remarks we a" B ., m that the Bill irora the debate upon S one of the above extracts is taken, ha passed in;o law; and that the Parliament of Great Britain has granted a of money to be ppent or wasted by the Di recors of the New Zealand Company* without requiring them to giveavailabfi land somewhere to the purchasers who eight years ago paid for land in their first and principal settlement, which does not exisi in the aettleinen , and which cons. quently they cannot there receive; and this notwithstanding the clear expression of the settler*' opinions, the statements con. tamed in ihe local pres.*, and in the private letters to England, and in the letter o! the land-purchasers to the Directors giving clear warning of the character of that body. The Seitlers did not expect the Company to perform miracles, to create available land wlitre available land does not exist but they did reasonably hope some land would have been oQered in the New Settlemetii, to those who cannot get their laud in this, or at least that the Hritish Parlia. ment before trusting the Directors with more public money, wonld insht upon thtir doing justice. We do not bejieve the members of the House of Commons are indifferent to the claims of justice'; .we cannot suspect Earl Groy of knowingly making himself a party to a dishonourable act; we hope that most of the Directors themselves would repudiate with scorn the acts which have been done in tlieir name. But the Directors are deceived, Earl Grey has been misled, the House of Commons has been crossly imposed upon, and the singular spectacle has been exhibited to the world of a wh»le community discredited upon (he testimony of a stable individual. Little did the settlers merit this insult at tho hands of the Directors. As little, perhaps, did the Directors ami. cipate the exposure this insult will assist in provoking. On behalf of the Stttlen; we throw back the chargu implied in this neglect of thiir just complaints, and claim for (hem and for ourselves the cre.iitwitti the British public, for a greater degree of creditability than belongs to the statements published in the name of the Company's Principal Agent, and not disavowed by him.

The limid, the shrinking, the very prudent, and all those who have a spice of toadyism in their composition. may en« quire, " Of what avail is any attack »pm a body so powerful aa the Directors of the Company have proved tbemsolves to be, controlling completely ihe Colonial Office and forming in effect at present the Colo* nia) -Administration." Our answer U, we do not yet despair of finding in the Bn , lish House of Common's some independent members who will demand of the minister why when he was about to intrust the settlers with powers of self government, he placed such an amount of influence at the disposal of a public body, whose acts at the beat had been of a questionable character, and whose proceedings had never been submitted to a thorough searching investigation. If the settlers feel the insult irhion has been offered lo them, as «e-_belie»e many do feel it, and take up ihe subject as some are deposed to take U up, we Relieve the minister may yel be coinpeneu to reconsider the case, and the House« Commons induced to insist upon additional terms being imported into me c,,n ' tract between the Natives and'thdOom* pany.. f - We shall begin nt the beginning. , When lSdwiud Gil.bon Wakefield (it • CGvered that he was not to be the oV "°- r fof N.'w Zealand, he left or became W* warm in tlio New Zealand Aesoeie»°"j. When some members of that nssoci

tion had purchased a ehip,aml were on the pointof sailing- he-seeing the scheme appeared practicable, moved Lord■ Durham and others, and procured the forma" tion of the New Zealand Company ..paying out the original speculators by doubling <he amount of their investments in shares or land orders of the Company' The price, or reward,.of his activity was the. appointment of William Wake field as Principal-Agent of the Company with a salary of £1,000 a year, and other advantages. From which three facts, if sUc h they be two inferences are suggested. ' First—that the colonization of New Zealand, systematic! or otherwise, was perse, a matter of indifference to Edward Gibbon WaJcoeel J. But • keeond-That the systematic colonization of New Zealand, as a means of procunnnr governorships and good things for himself and. family, wag to him a matter of.tho yrtiatosiinterest. Those whoJiave watuhed the Company's proceedings in this settlement, may think with us that this desire of Edward Gib b )ii Wakefiold to be a Governor, has led to a great abuse of tho'Company's iiifluTo his interposition U' due the insertion 'of the clauses in the New Constitutipu ' 'which deprive the electors of their votes for Members of Council. The natives of New Zealand, but'recently one of the mon savage races in the world, had, by the exertions of thmissionaries and tho enterprise of traders and whalers on the coast, been kwakoned to the advantage of intercourse with while people, when in 1839 William WakefieM landed at Port Njcliojson. " There the inhabitants were induced to sijjfi a contract, written in a language which they did not understand; Hβ says it was fully explained 10 them. » Journal, SeDtera»>e"r 27th, 1839," "after the full explanation and formal execution of the deed &c " 24th October, 1839. ' '

In purchasing on the large scale I have done in this transaction, in rmrking the boundaries of terntory acquired upon tlie fullest and most eatisfac torj explanation and examinutioa by parallels of latitude, &c.

The evidence of Richard Barret, given before the Land Claims Court, proves the contrary. And although this has taen known to the Principal Agent of iho Company, if he attended t>i the interes s com mil ted to his care, he hag s ill suffered ins Journil 10 remain unconvcted, and to be appealed to as a record of facts. iMany persons have been charged with responsibility for the partial failure of this seille ment on fictitious grounds, and one true cause of that failure was the absence of a fair arrangement with the natives in the first in,ti.nca. Even the written contract was not adJiered to, one eleventh, instead of one "to nth of the land being reserved, and a large proportion of the land actually reserved wbs worthless. Fur proof of this we refer t.o the fact, that the Government has been compelled to purchase two sections of land for the natives of this district. In that Journal, under date October Ist, thj Principal Agent says— The natives contemplate an almoet immediate jonrney to Wairarapa, or Palliser Bay, which they poesese, for the purpose of plunting a stock of potatoes, and bringing back pigs whiih run wild there. To-day Warepori tabooed that place for me, and swore by hie bead that no one should have sny of it until I had time to go and see it.

If Warepori kept his oath, and the New Zealand Gazette ami Wellington Spectator may be for once relied on, the lime of the Principal Agent must have been close ly occupied during the first four y.ars of the settlers residence here, and every one else must have been kept out an unreasonable tin}* , , for he did nt visit ihe Wairarapa until "near the end of 1843, or beginning of 1844, although Captain Best (who fell gloriously in India) had visited that vailpy wilbin six months after the settlers arrival, and reported favourably of it. But the Journal proceeds—(TheWuirarapa) It is a large bay to the eastward of.thie port, and contains a large district of flat and fertile land.' In these respects it is like Wairau, uear Cloudy Bay, and the valley of the Hutt here, all of which require some labour to make the lnnd available, in consequence of the freshes inundating the flats at the mouths of the rivers. We find it difficult to reconcile the above description with (he present appearance of the Hutt Valley. It seems better adapted lo the delusive birds' eye view of Port Nicholson, published in London and patronized, by fhe Company. Xjn<ler date 23rd October, is the followirighonorable seniinient—

If I did not commuerate the mental condition of a wild race just commencing an interchange with civi]i?;d people, and were not aware of the cruel delusion, and dishonest practices of most of the foreigners they have seen, towardi them, I should have been angry at their violent and perfferjeconduct, £tc. ■ ~ ■ • ■ On the 24th October, after the mention

in all its imnmW 1 party, and tra n«lated standing P P " tß t0 their P erfect Und ". ihii\H thG Prlr,ci P a » Agent meant by n?«s latter passage, or rather what he did be L P gath.red from CW™ H Tn7 1,,e Claims Lourt on the 10th June, 1842, when in answer to the question tlwAfi 1 A XP A &i T d t0 lhe native ß before they witbio the boundaries specified Iα the deed ? He stated— eeiiing all the land within those boundaries but that reserves would be made for them h,re wa no specal mention made as to their pah, burill grounds, and cultivated lands. P ' Here we find tho root of all the dim*, cullies respecting pahs, clearings and cult.vat.ons.wluch have so much Embarrass. e<l the negotiations between the Govern •nentandUie Company, and «, greatly' P<rp!e«ed /he Local Government in iv dealings with the naiives. Common sense might have suggested the policy of reserv. |ng these portions of the land in the first instance, common honesiy have dictated tne necessity, of explaining to the natives «'wl,,, w-re ja.t commeScing an ' interchange with civilized peo p| e » , hat these portion of the land were included inthe purchase, and it is diflbuh to perceive how these simple precautions could have escaped the aitemion of a prudent and h.»norahle mind. Nor do we think it unreasonable to believe, that a scrumx "Us observer of the truth would have heenated to de-cibe as a translation of the deed, ' to their perfect ' a proceeding in which so important a resuit of the deed wa. left unstated and unexplained. The natives must now be very much of the same way of thinkinwith -Sir Peer Teazle in the comedy, a.d could they quote our English proverbs, mi 'lit urge tin Principal Agent • to be just before he is generous. , * The bitter anima IverMuns which have at different times !jeen made upon the c -mluct of the offi.

cers ot givernraent, when en:lvourino- eito remedy evils arising .£, ora t h; s S0Ilrc ; in the only practicabie.the only honest,way recoil upon i!k> head of him who was t !ie author of their difficulties. Those antmad venioas ' carried weight i, England from the credit given to the Journal. Fheir injustice will be male manifest by the r-i|,oit of Col. M'Cieverty. The Journal further states that :i In order therefore to complete the rights of ihe Company, to all the land unsold to

foreigners in the above extensive district, &c." Henca it appears there had been some land sold to persons whom for the purpose of creating a prejudice he terms foreigners. The Company was no: at that moment strong enough t0 seize the land (hat others h id bought. We feel the want of Mr. E. J. Wakefield to expound the morality of the following: passage which evidently laid the foundation of that unjust and expensive struggle in which the Company ha 3 been involved with the prior land purchasers. The injustice is on the part of the Company, the expense the part of those who purchased under it; who when they apply to b> reimbursed ara remin led of the le-'al maxim " Caveat Empior," a bint for intending purchasers of land. Two much cautiun these cannot exercise. As regards the purchases made previous to this day's date in the neighbourhood of the Sttaits by I foreigners, they are, I feel assured, too insignificant Jto interfere with the views of the Company. Here and there a small bay may have beeu purchased and settled on by whelers in Cloudy Bay and the Sound, but no extensive district has been acquired from either the Kifia or . Ngatinwa Tribes j and in my belief no regular document has been made upon any occasion, and in most cases of occupation of this kindj no consideration has been given for the land. ; . The considerations given in some cases of ' occupation , of this kind, exceed by ihousands per cent, that given by the Company's Principal' Agent. But although on the 24th October the deed ot purchase, was as Col. Wakffield says, translated in all its important parts to Kauparaha and Hiko to their perfect understanding, Tβ Rauparaha did as the ' Adventurer in New Zealand " tells U9 in his imaginative Book, vol. p., early inti mate his repudiation ofyhe bargain— On the morning of the 18th November, as we ' lay nearly becalmed off the sandy beach between j Waikaaae and Otaki, Rauparaha came on board on bis way from the latter place to Kapiti. Hβ seem- ' ed ill at ease, though we greeted him kindly, not. withstanding, our aversion for his character. Hβ

aaked lot some grog, and then took an eaily opportunity of stating, in the most barefaced way that he .should sell some land (o the vessel from Port Jackson, as he wanted more guns, .and had only sold us Taitapa and Rangitoto—thai ie Blind Bay and DUrville's Mend.

Colonel Wakefield reproached him instantly, and m the strongest terms, with his falsehood and duplicity, making Brooke the interpreter repeat lo him several times that he had behaved as a liar and a slave, iiutead of a great Chief. Kauparaba maintained, however, an imperturable dlence, no answer to tkts Bevere attack, or to the reproachee vvh.ch all the cabin party addressed to hTn. He demanded and drank another g l aeß o f grog, and then got mto hu canoe, which pulled for Kapiti. We were of course much hurt by this rapid re pudmtion of his bargain, and though we depended upon the perfect justice and openness of the agreement which we had made with him before so many witnesses, and in such explicit terms for our justificauon before the world, we foresaw some obstacles already arrayed against the peaceful settlement of the Straits, during the life of this deceitful old TT: , l BLefmed8 L e f med Dataral ■t0 SO PP<»e, however, mat whether obl.ged to govern and protect ourselves, or acknowledged and foetered as we hoped by the British Government, W3 should always possess a force able to protect the plantations against any of His eyil designs, aad to maintain the execution of any just bargain, whether or not he should be in. ciined to abide by it at a future period. We return to the Journal to see with what fidelity the Principal Agent recorded tins part of the transaction for the informaturn of the British Public, who relyingupon the g>od faith of the Directors of the Company and the candour of their A«eni, were about to (rust their fortunes, and the lives of themselves and jheir families to such guidance—

Monday, November 18. —At length a light southerly wind enabled us to leave Kapiti, and running along the coast, to the northward, we passed successively Waimea, which is the next die. trict to Waikanae, the stream at which place i e nearly dried up, its main branck having diverged itself into the Waikanae river, which however scarcely admits a boat at high water ; Otaki and Manawatu, both rivers also incapable of access to any craft.

The. reader will hardly need to be reminded that much good rhetoric has been expended, to induce a belief that the repudiation of the contract by the natives, resulted from the mischievous influence of missionaries and disaffected white men, and that it dU not occur till after the lapse of a considerable period of time. The nathe contrary Had Mr Wakefield's B iok been earlier published these attempts would have been in vain. They probably led Mr. Coramisnoner Spain to ask one of the witnesses examined before him the. following qnesdons. ■ Q. Has any reason been alleged by any o f t jj e Chiefs who signed this deed for not allowing your claim to Porirua ?

A. They allege that I did not buy it. Q. When did you first have an intimation of their refusal to allow your claim to Porirua ? A. The first positive intimation I had was when they, destroyed the road leading to it about a year and a half after we had been there. Q. Had you done anything previously which could be considered as indicating an intention to take possession of the land.

A. We had been surveying there previously. Q. Were the surveyors interupted ? A. The surveyors were stopped at the same time that the road was destroyed. * That witness was William Wakefield, Esquire, Principal A.s;entof the New Zealaud Company. Which then of these is the true account?- The circumstantial narraiive of Mr. E. J. Wakefield, iv his book; or the statement made on oa;h before the Commissioner. The attention of the Principal Agent has been called to these passages, and we have been informed thai he had no observations to make thereon. It will be observed that the answers do not contain a direct contradiction of the facts narrated by bis nephew, but it would be no charity to suppose that the witness remembered the transaction and framed bis answers accordingly* Not content with suppressing, if he did suppress, from hie journal an interview of so much importance to those who confided in his honor, the Principal Agent, if he has not been misrepresented by the London organ of the Company, wrote an ostensibly private letter, an extract of which the New Zealand Journal primed, May 23, 1840, p. 119, in which are the following passages. From private letter, dated Hokianga, 10h December, 1839. Port Nicholson, though not possessing a large flat district, is with its site for a large town at Thorndon, and the Valley of (he Huti for farms, infinitely more eligible than any place I have seen for the first settlement. It must be the Com. mercial Capital. Here, on.the contrary, if settle, merits are formed, labourers will not be kept a month. Any body can become a proprietor, and a man must be a poor beast indeed who cannot live in New Zealand by means of hie own work, and native assistance. There' are many settlers here who began as servants now worth thousands. I have read in the Sydney papers the regulations for the sale of the Company's lands, and as regards the first settlement am prepared to fulfil their engagement with the public at Port Nicholson. It is impossible I can describe the want of some

ly respecting property here, The place is a hell upon earth for want of it. The natives are rwjn.ed here—turned off their old lands, harraseed by the variances of the white people, and worked almost to death at cutting and dragging trees. The Company s natives, or as they call themselves, my people, at Port Nichojgon, are in comparative abundance and ease, and are a very hippy Bet. I have sef-n ao account of the sale of 100,000 acre* I have decided on the first settlement being «t Port Nicholson, but I have land for settlers for the next fifty yenrs —London New Zealand Journal May 23, 1840, p. 119,120. '

That some such •irWbrnwi-in was sent to the Directors, and the sense in which it was understood by them, appears" from their advertisement in the same paper Lasds in New Court of Df. rectors of the New Zealand Company hereby give notice that they are ready to receive applications for country lands, in secti-ms of 100 acres each, a t he Tμ ° f r lo ,° Per SeCtioD ' Wbich W M entitle the holders to select out of the surveyed land in the vicinity of the Town of Wellington, in the Oompany a Principal Settlement, comprising t h e extensive districts surrounding the harbour of Po"rt NuhoLson in Cook's Straits. Porchasers proceeding to the colony will receive an allowance of 60 percent., subject to the Company's regulations which may be obtained with all requisite iofor ma ' tion at the Company's House, Broad-street Build" ings, London. By order of the Court, John Ward Secretary. New Zealand House, 29th May, 1840* The sense in which the letter was understood by the public may be gathered from the leading article in the same paper wherein referring to the despatch already mentioned, and adopting the words of the Colonial Gazette, it is stated-

Save in the omission of one sentence of a per eonal nature it is printed without abridgement or the suppression of a single word, a strong proof of the opennegg and fairness with which the operations of the Company are conducted ! (The article then proceeds) The characteristic feature which this despatch displaje U the completeness with which the objects of the Company have been fulfilled Col Wakefield has acquired for the Company the south' em portion of the northern island and the northern portion of the (southern island; thus giviog ,i, e Company the command of Cook's Straiis now about to become a great maritime thoroughfareplacing in their possession one of the finest harbours in the world, and an agricultural district " enough, for settlers for fifty years to come ;" ao d placing our relations with tbe natives on supb a footing ac will tend to the advantage of the colonists and to the rapid civilization of the natives themselves. Col. Wakefield states in a private letter, printed in oar present number, thai he had seen the termg on which the Company had disposed of the land for the formation of the first colony, and he is prepared to fulfil their engagements with the public, &c. Instead of all thie being the case there was not in the vicinity of Port Nicholson, available land to an extent exceeding one fifth of the amount gold by the Company, Muchof the iand surveyed for eonnify lands i<, practically speaking inaccessible, and many of the town acres are not worth fencing in. The purchasers of the lands mcnioned in the advertisement, instead of gelling land in theviciniiyof Port NichoU son, were sent to Wanganui 110 miles dis. 'ant. _ The melancholy fate of that settle* ment is of such recent occurrence to need no description here, nor should we refer to it except for the purpose of reminding the sufferers to whom the responsibility for those sufferings is attributable.

The untruth of the statements quoted above, with respect to the extent of the district of Port Nicholson, is manifest to every one who comes into the harbonr. We shall, in a future article, show clearly that the inability of the Principal Agent to fulfil the Company's engagement with the public at Port Nicholson, was as obvious to the early settlers on their first arrival at Petoni, as it is to every one here now; and we shall endeavour to dispose of the cant about the early prosperity of this settlement, which was rendered an impossibility by the appropriation of the only available land among a fexr of the land-purchasers, and those chiefly absen. tees.

Enough has been stated to justify us in calling upon the British Parliament to reconsider their proceedings, and to recall the dangerous influence they have given to Directors, who have shown in the management of their affairs, and in the selectfon of their Principal Agent, so deplorable a want ef Judgment. We a's> call upon the British public, for*obvious reasons, to doubt the statements of the Company unless supported by extrinsic evidence. In conclusion, we beg our readers to lake none of the quotations of granted, to satisfy themselves for otir acenracy, by referring to tha authorises frs>ra which they are quoted, which are the London New Zealand Journal, for May 23, 1840," Mr. E, J. Wakefield's Adventure in New* Zealand; and Appendices to Iteport of the Land Claims' Commission on the claim* of the Company to the Port Nicholsoo and Porirua Districts'; . Cateat Empior. ,