THE "Wellington Independent." Saturday, October 16, 1852.

Wellington Independent, Volume VIII, Issue 732, 16 October 1852, Page 3

THE "Wellington Independent." Saturday, October 16, 1852.

. Wβ shall not pretend, to-day, to comment at any length, upon the important intelligence received from England, respecting the progress of the New Zealand Bill. It is sufficient for us to state the facts ; that the Bill would certainly be carried through Parliament, before a dissolution; that important alterations were made in Committee; and that the modifications consented to by the Government were in favour of the oxtension ■of the legislative and administrative .powers intrusted to the settlers. Sir W. Molesworth opposed the Bill Altogether, as '• too cumbrous and expensive.;" and it does, at the first glance, <appeur ridiculous lo establish no less •than eight distinct legislative assemblies ■in a country so thinly peopled as New .Zealand. But it must be borne in mind ■lhat .the Provincial Councils will have to discharge all the functions of the various parochial and municipal institutions in ■England, and, that they have boen called for by those who have the best /right to offer suggestions upon the subject, because they will have to bear all the expenses, and to suffer all the other vincouveniences of a bud system of go•veriitnent, if established among them. The inhabitants of the colony are the persons the most deeply interested in lhis question, and their local experience ■ought to have much greater weight with tstatesmeu than any merely speculative ..objections, started by any man ho.wever ..capable and honest. The most important changes in the Bill were those relating to the appointment of the Superintendents of the six •provinces, who, it appears, —and with .-the entire consent of the Government, .who themselves inserted the alteration—, are to be elected by the inhabitants, i. c. .by the same constituency who jare to choose the members of the provincial ■ councils, and those councils are then ,to determine what .remuneration, if any, ■is to be given to these Superintendents. Auother amendment, which may or imay not prove of great consequence, according to the future -circumstances of ;Jthe colony and , the principle that may hereafter be adopted respecting the sale ■ of land,, is to vjthe effect that the New .'Zealand .Company,-in lieu of five shil,lings per acre, of ;the proceeds of the ,land sales, is to have one fourth part .ttf the sum; but whether gross or net does not very distinctly appear. -The .debt of £2(53,0 JO is, at any r.ate,J;o be saddled upon us, by an act of the most •cold-blooded and shameless iniquity that .ever disgraced the House of Commons, in its mast corrupt and jobbing days— which must no longer, however, besought ifor ia the past; and it will remain to bo fiuon whether ..the people of this colony Avill think ithe Bill (itself worth having, when accompanied by .this drawback, which will be a millstone round, their jiocks, and a perpetual bribe, to the exKent of a quarter of .a million sterling, do a separation from the mother-country. How any body could have the face to -propose such a thing to Parliament we ..cannot imagine.; unless it were that they, .considered the entire thickuess of the globe itself, interposed between .them <aud.their victims, a sufficient screen,to .conceal their blushes as well as the in.-, •famy of .the transaction. And, then, :the cunning and hypocrisy of tagging on <the .burden to a grant of privileges.-! As if we would be willing -to buy a constitution, by acknowledging this obligation. Why, the negro slaves, in the West Jndies., .when .emancipated, .were not culled upon to pay off tho debts of their •Musters-! We have heard of ministers of stato giving away places, on condition that you should subscribe .moiioy to a charity;; and some of the more profligate sort havo indicated a Nthre. toning money-lender, a -rapacious •mistress, or a dunning tradesman, as the ■proper recipient of your bounty. But .pve.n this was always dpno privately, and

with a little cam of decency and virtuo to gloss it over. Here, however, there is no affectation, because there are evidently no traces of shame; but tho minister, with his friond the fraudulent bankrupt under his protection, says to the unfo;- ,- tiiinUe colonies, T will concede to yuu your just ami iualiemtbio rights, which 1 should be a tyrant to wiihhoM from you, but, then, I will only do so on condition of your paying tho debts of this worthy gentleman, amounting to £203,000 sterling, and which I shall Lie obliged to do myself, if I cannot find somebody who will be green enough, or imbecile enough, to relievo me from tho responsibility which I have undertaken.

It would s be bad enough if wo were required, as the price of our liberty, to give £268,000 as a solatium, to tho victims of the railway panic ; or to form an endowment for the maintenance of decayed speculators in the gambling houses of St. James's; or to provide for those who wore superannuated in the servico of less moral establishments; but to bo compelled to make a present, to such an amount, to tho New Zealand Company, is a refinement of cruelty mingled with corruption, which the colony will never submit to, even in the days, should they ever arrive, of the most abject humiliation.

A third concession, made by Sir John Pakington, is that of the royalties upon gold, should it ever be found iv New Zealand; which he gives up in prospectu, to the provincial councils. But, as that discovery has not yet been made, we think we may safely and prudently reserve the revenue derivable from it for discounting, at a colonial rate of interest, and with colonial promptitude, the bills that may be drawn upon us by the New Zealand Company.