TOPICS OF THE DAY.
COLONIZATION OF NEW ZEALAND.
Tim attempt of the French Government to establish a penal colony in New Zealand, the public meeting at Guildhall on Wednesday, and the publication of " Correspondence with the Secretary of State relative to New Zealand," render this the prominent subject of the week. We shall therefore dwell on it at sufficient length to make the present state of the case intelligible to our readers.
It will save time to begin by reprinting the following extract front the Spect«tor of the 5th of October last- " Upon the whole, the affair is in a complete mess. All this was long since foretold by persons well acquainted with the .■111,j,..et. The sug;zestions of the New Zealand Association of' 1837, on which the in,truction: to -Captain Hob- son are founded, might have been suitaide to the tben state of things, but are wholly inapplicable now. Since Lord llowick's crotchetiness prevented the passing of a law for the regular colonization of New Zealand, the mischiefs of irregular colonization have been proceeding apace. The Colonial Office will not cure them except by retracing its steps. and starting afresh from the safe point of British snercivntll established by Conk in l;69, and finnuallg asserted ky the Crowe of England in 1814. This would cut the linot of a thousand difficulties. Tids, too, is the most logit:mat a mode of proceeding—the one least open, or rather not at all open to quc,tion. Finally, this is the only way of avcrting fresh difficulties which aro growi,g in Paris. By acknowledging as to all New Zealand the mock sovereignty of the native savages, which Lord itOlViel.". Het up in 18!.11 as to a little bit of' one of the islands only, the Government provides a store of confusion and troalde for its subjects and itself; and it also ineit, a f4eigners to colonize a land which bad better be covered by the waters than possessed by any nation but the English."
The " fresh difficulties" have exceeded our worst anticipations. The French Government, having been " invited" by ours to colo- nise New Zealand, has set about the NVorli ill rood earnest, by granting men and money to a company for that 1 flrpose. But if France lots a right to plant a colony in New Zealand, she is equally eatitled to determine what sort of it colony it shall be. She decides that it shall be a convict colony. The petition adopted by the Guildhall meeting (which will be found in another page) sufficiently states the evil tendency of this proceeding. The re- sult of the neglect and folly of our own Government in this matter is even more disastrous than anybody anticipated.
The public has nevertheless supposed until now, that our Qo- verninent had at least taken sufficient precautions to establish law and order in the Britieh settlements that might be formed in New Zealand; but It now appears, not only that the Government has been exceedingly- remiss on this point, but that it has actively in- terfered to prevent the British settlers from establishing law and order Ibr themselves. The instructions to Ceptain Ilonsox direct that any exercise of authority by him must be pretvqed by acts that may never be performed : pains seem to have been taken to render it probable that his situation, to use words applied to the former Resident et the Bay of Islands, will be "like that of a man- of-war without guns "—that he will be emly a spectator of anarchy without the least power to restrain or protect : and yet the twelve hundred emigrants from this country are threatened with the vengeance of the Government, if they should carry into effect their agreement to repress crime in the settlement according to the laws of England. It is Lord Jolts RussEr.r. who titters the threat, though he does nothing to remedy the supineness or the blunders of his predecessors. his figure in the affair is even more dis- creditable fleet that of Lord NonmAsny or Lord (LEsEi.o.* When the requisition appeared tbr a meeting to petition parlia- ment on this subject, Lord Joux Ressm.I. hastened to lay on the table of the House of Commons the " Correspondence " which is now before es. Having carefully examined the contents of this Blue Rook, we have no hesitation in saying that it has been made up for the sole purpose of exculpating the Government. Various im- portant documents are soppressed, while others are inserted which have been reccatly composed with the obvious design of justifying the strange conduct of the Government throughout this affair ; and the whole is so arranged as to make it appear that the pre- sent mess lV:1,; inevitable. This trickery will bo easily frustrated. The last paper in the collection is a - )Iemorandum" trans- mitted by Air. Sinn! EN to the Foreign (Mice on the I sth of March I 8-1-0 : :old -i ltich may be descr;ba.1 in an earnest pleading for the right of any foreipi power to eolonioe New Zealand. This is the case of the Colonial Office anti the Government. The Crown of England. say they, has ()Ner ati:1 over mzain repudiated all sovereign rights in New Zealand : and therefore the Govern- ment WaS WI bOlillti either to interfere with any design of France, or to provide. against anarchy in settlemte:ts formed by emigrants from Britain : inasmuch as England hod no sovereignty. we did well to assert none. but rather to try :led obtain cession thereof from the natives : and let what may liapron in the meanwhile, the limit will not be °ors. but will be due to circumstances over which we had im control.
This argument rests entirely On the assumpftin that England bus repudiated all sovereign rights in New Zealand. Ilut as good lawyers as 11.. ST t.;911:N deny that assumption in tofu. They deny it on the sonlo grounds as would justify the United States in assert- ing against all foreign nations that general sovereign right which they exercise over savage tribe's, such as the Cherokee and other Indian natives, with whom they enter into treaties and hold a sort i of diplomatic relations, but with whom they would not permit any foreign nation to establish any political relations whatever. Mr.
1 * see Lett,Ts to 1.ind .1 onx Russri.m. from :Mr. Somrs, Peputv-Governor or the Ni' it. ZC:1■:'■:.11 Company. and from the tsi'yretary of the 1.:'ompany to Colonel W Mit:I'll:1.D : C ■7':'ispondtsilee, pp, (it; and at STEPHEN seems entirely ignorant of the distinction between sove- reignty as against foreign nations, and sovereignty modified with respect to savage tribes by various recognitions of their nationality. He dwells emphatically on acts Of the British Crown and Parlia- ment which have acknowledged a New Zealand nationality, but seems wholly unconscious of the numerous acts of the President and Congress of Anteriea, whereby they have acknowledged the nationality of several belied tribes, as between those tribes and the United States, but without in any degree repudiating that general sovereign right, as against all foreign nations, which is founded on discovery. Ile appears to be profoundly ignorant of the very point On which this whole questien turns. And yet, strange to say, the Blue Book eenteins despatches both from Lord NORMAN BY and Lord Jonx Busses' which should have informed Jim better. We allude to oue free' Lord Noamarsnv to Captain Honsos, dated lelth August I eat), whereby the latter is directed to "assert her Majesty's bo% ereign right on the ground of disco- very," without going through '• t he ceremonial of making such arrangements with the natives as would be a mere illusion and pretence" ; and to one from Lord JOHN RUSSELL to Sir Gnonon Giens, dated 4th December 1819, which recognizes the previous direction to "establish the Queen's authority" on the ground of discovery. This order applies, indeed, exclusively to one of the two large islands ; the reason assigned for the distinction being, that the natives of this South Island are less numerous and less intelligent than those of the North island. The matter of fact may he disputed: the recut accounts front Cook's Strait represent the people of the South Island as equally numerous and intelligent with those of the other : but sepposing that it were not so, what on earth has this distinction to do with the question of international law? All those steps of the Midst' Government on which is founded Mr. Smensx's argument in favour of France, related without the shadow of a distinction to the whok of the islands called New Zealand ; and if they have repudiated British sove- reigntv ill one place, so have they in every other. If the elaborate argument with which Ir. STEPHEN winds up this " Corrresp ence," has any force, Lord NORM ‘NITY and Lord JOHN Busses'. have directed Captain Ilonsos to usurp a British sovereignty over the South island in defiance or the law of nations. Mr. STEPHEN condemns two of his chiefs in succession. Or, if they are in the right and he in the wrong on this subject as respects the South island, then they are in the wrong as respects the North island ; he is in the wrong as to both islands ; and his argument must be regarded as mere special-pleading fir the purpose of excusiug their folly as to the North island, and their cruel treatment of the British emigrants whom they have left a psey to foreign aggression and domestic anarchy. In tbis light his argument will be viewed by all who carefully examine the papers.
But not in this light only ; for, whatever the object of Mr. Sgngnee'e " Memorandum," it: manifest tendency is to encourage the pretensions of France. One might suppose that the paper had been urittett in the Foreign °lice at Paris. In order to get
the Government out of a scraps, STEPHEN is employed to do that which both fitvours the French project of a convict settlement in New Zealand, arid tends to preserve a state or anarchy in the British settlements already established there. 'this is the plain truth of the limiter. This elli;ir alone justifies the hearty groans which came front all pasts of the meeting at Guildhall when .Mr. STEPHEN'S 111111C ‘VaS umCIttiOm:i I (.0mm:ion with the Colonial Office.
But much yet remains to be eeisseal. At present we have only time to rot ice one of the many suppressions he-fire alluded to. It is that of the whole of the correspieidecce between the Govern- ment and the New Zealand Associatien of 1837. These papers will be asked ties awl musts one should think, be produced, not Lord 1 lo w te KS MU: Lora MELBOURNE'S natural ob- jections to their -,ceing the light. At them is a despatch from Lord Gssseso to Lord Dui:use, from which it will eppear how completely the present deniel of !knish sovereignty ie New Zealand is an afterthought of' the Government. Lord CI LE N RIG says- csbassation to no t,rnit'l exteitt i.- :heady effected ia these islamb:. The only yo ien iii ■rl: ia iii 1%1•,ii cit /to ion, desultory, without law, and fatal ti ii.nat;,, a eihotizatioi, t,:, and :salutary. Ifer Majesty's
Goverimiett are 51- di,; t':-po-,t1 to eirt. rtain the proposal of estuilisliing
such are c.id:c;.: ;.t to tim ;or.orporation by a rupd charter vi -ot o and pal cniment of the pro- jected , for ,tofic shell i,rin "I -, would he effiltided. The charter would be flamed with refer( tic, to the iii. IliS Of the Colonies estalili lied in North An.. 1i fy Great Di nth and severittenth et:mar:ft," Here then the light of England te proceed on the discovery of Captain COOK onvf other acts by wh:t it a general sovereignty had been estehlohed, is treated as a matter of course. This offer of a royal charter was refused by bad Duan sAI and his coadjutors, on the ground that tie y it er iii..illing to become a joint-stock company, or to take any is euniary interest in the work of colo- nizing New Zeelned. They 1111 la lige brought a bill into Parlia- ment fbr establishing a public system of cohteizatima. This bill, although it had been corrected twil approved by Lord Howlett as the crgan of the Government, was throen out at the instence of the Government and of Lord IIMVICK in particular ; and then, but not till then, Lord GI-Esst.o's proposal was adopted and the present New Zealand Ctargeley was fiwined. We mention the facts for the purpose of exposing the gross inconsistency of the Government, not less in their present eager repudiation of a tish sovereignty over New Zealand, than in Lord ;lows Russcsn's childishly-spiteful refusal even to acknowledge the existence of the
present Company.* But far more has yet to be explained, before all the carelessness, the vacillation, the treachery, and the paltry meanness of the Government in this affair, can be understood by the public. We rejoice to hear that an able and much-respected Member of the House of Commons has undertaken to bring the whole subject before Parliament immediately after the recess.
* See Mr. SOMES' Letter to Lord PALMERSTON.
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