COLONIZATION OF ZEAL\ : CI. L lAl.
ANNOI. NC EMENT THE Globe is an acknowledg.',1 organ of th,.. 11.;-
ferring to a paper in the last Immher ou the 1):,-
posal of Lands in New Zealmal, the fi.11oning exintet ("rein the Globe of Tuesday invites remark.
" We call the particular attention of our mulct.; to tin, iixtrr.,7t, given in
another column, from a dc,p,tich the NI:min::: of 1\ *.rn:ar.by to t aptain lloteson, regarding the dilo,a1 of land in NOV " It is obvious that in countries so contiguous as New South Wales and NeW Zealand, the wages of labour mast approach to a common level; and that if the settlers proceeding to New Zealand were permitted to take posses- sion of the lands of that country without being made to contribute their due proportion towards a labour fund, they tetatH obtain the large supply of labour which they will require, at the expense of the Emiyrationveunds of the adjoining °tonics.
"la this manner, the irregular colonization of New Zealand, if not prornptly arrested, would complaely count.ract the system, which has been so successfully established 1.1 tl:e Australian akaies, of .fixiui a price upon the public lands, and employing Ow pr,weeds of the sale as an .E.1;:yration-fund. "The Camial (Mice, as will be roon by the extract from Lord Normanby's despatch, lr.s 1Q ;n :Irccie:It of this clangor, and has adopted effectual measures for averting it. The establishment of British settlements in New Zealand, upon the enlighten,,i principles if colonization propounded in this despatch, in- stead cf pricing htjurious to th,2 alontes, will accelerate their pros- perity, by Olkiling to them extending fields of intereolonial commerce."
The Gto/s, it appears, adopts the views on this subject which we propounded last week, and expresses them almost in our own words. The publication of' the document in question (which we reprint elsewhere) has obviously been provoked by our remarks. We brought a charge of neglect against the Government; and here is their answer. The ordinary secrecy of the Colonial Office gives way to the necessities of self-defence. Most cordially do we agree (vith the Globe in expressing admira- tion of the " enlightened principles" laid down in Lord NOR- MAXON'S despatch. They are the principles which Mr. WAKE- riELD discovered some ten years ago, and which we have ever since maintained. They are the principles of the Australian system; whose application to Van Diemen's Land; New South Wales, Australia Felix, and South Australia, has already produced the most gratifying results, and promises to render that part of the world in a few years the most valuable portion of the British Colo- nial empire. They are our own principles; and we should belie ourselves if we du not acknowledge with satisfaction the conver- sion of the Colonial Office to opinions which we deem of the highest moment in Colonial ;1ff:tins But here, unfortunately, ends our approbation of Lord NOR- MANBT'S, or rather Mr. STEPHEN'S despatch. The instructions to Captain Hoasox are nothing but an enunciation of principles. The practical part is wholly wanting, not to say provided against. We will make good this assertion.
" It is an (Asset," says Mr. STEPHEN, "of the first importance, that the alienation of the unsettled lands should be conducted from its commencement upon that system of sale of which experience has proved the wisdom, and the disregard of which has been so fatal to other British settlements. With a view to those interests, it is obviously the same thing whether large tracts of laud be ac- quired by the mere giti of the Government, or by purchase effected on nominal consideratiyas from the aborigines." He then adds, that the land-sharking system would be more injurious than the in —le of free grants by Government. The main purpose, consequen
of the instructions to Captain Honsox, is to put an end to the practice of land-sharktiq. With this view, Captain Honsox is to "announce by a proclamation addre.ssed to all the Queen's sub- jects in New Zealand, that her Majesty will not acknowledge as valid any title to land which either has been or shall hereafter be acquired [from the natives] in that country, which is not either derived from or confirms]. by a grant to be made in her Majesty's name and on her behalf." How a title to land already "acquired" is to be "derived from" a future grant by the Crown, it is not easy to perceive; but, passing by this inconsistency, be it observed that the proclamation will hold out the promise of free grants from the Crown as to land which "hits Is en or my hereafter be acquired" by land-sharking. This is a pre:sium on land-sharhing, and a pro- mise of that which the despatch condemns as the worst thing next to land-sharhing. And in order that there may be no mistake about this premium and this promise, Captain HonsoN is further enjoined " to dispel any apprehensions which may be created in the minds of the settlers that it is intended to dispossess the owners of any property which has been acquired on equitable con- ditions, and which is not upon a scale which must be prejudicial to the latent interests of the community." In other words—" Be comforted, gentlemen land-.5harhs ; your property will not be dis- turbed, except in the case so vaguely described that ever to esta- blish such a case will be next to impossible." What a mode of securing the " object of the first importance" which is assigned in principle to Captain HonsoN's mission !
But the land-shark titles are to be subjected to examination by a Commission, with a view to " deciding how fitr the claimants or any of' them may be entitled to confirmatory grants from the Crown." The Commission, one should have supposed, is to pro- ceed from England, and to be composed of persons having no in- terest in the maintenance of claims founded on land-sharking. On the contrary, it is to be appointed by the Governor and Coun- cil of New South Waks,—a neighbouring colony, of which the most influential inhvI)itants. including, we have reason to think, " members of Council," have :eIerked great tracts of land in New Zealand. The Concidsion, therefore, will probably represent the private interests of New Zealand land-sharks residing in New South Wales, and will readily approve titles accordingly. That is, if such a Commission ever act ; tbr before it can be appointed, there will be work enough for twenty commissions sitting for twenty years. " Extensive acquisitions," says the despatch, "have undoubtedly been already obtained ; and it is probable that before your arrival a great addition will have been made to them," Yes, a very great addition indeed; the greater part of both islands, in all probability, and by a manlier of lasd-s/aolts of which the Colonial Office has no
conception, who have been encouraged to this irremmediable mis chief by the Treasury Minute to which we have alluded before.
And here is another point of inconsistent weakness or impras.. ticability in the instructions to Captain Holism. Whatsoever he is directed to do on behalf of the Crown, depends on his obtaining from the native savages a "recognition of the sovereignty of the Queen." Nor, according to the said Minute, can he accept such recognition except as to lands already "possessed by British sub- jects." Shark away, gentlemen, he must say, in order that I may begin to treat for 6overeiguty, and to question your titles by means of the Commission from New South Wales. What is this but, in . one view, a direct encouragement to the very thing which the Colonial Office deprecates on principle, and in another view, to efforts on the part of settlers to prevent the native savages from acknowledging the Queen's sovereignty ? No thought, moreover, seems to have been taken of land possessed by other than "British subjects "—such as French and American land-sharks, whose number is not inconsiderable.
Upon the whole, the affiiir is in a complete mess. All this was long since foretold by persons well-acquainted with the subject. The suggestions of the New Zealand Association of 1837, on which the instructions to Captain HousoN are founded, might have been suitable to the then state of things, but are wholly inapplicable now. Since Lord llowleK's crotchetiness prevented the passing of a law for the regular colonization of' New Zealand, the mischiefs of irregular colonization have been proceeding apace. They are now all but incurable. The Colonial Office will not cure them except by retracing its steps, and starting afresh from the safe point of British sovereignty established by Cook in 1769, and for- 2nally asserted by the Crown of England in 1814. This would cut the knot of a thousand difficulties. This, too, is the most legiti- mate mode of proceeding—the one least open, or rather the only one not at all open to question. Finally, this is the only way of averting fresh difficulties of a most serious kind which are growing in Paris. By acknowledging as to all New Zealand the mock sovereignty of the native savages, which Lord Dowiex set up in 1831 as to a little bit of one of' the islands only, the Government provides a great store of' confusion and trouble for its subjects and itself; and it also invites foreigners to colonize on land which had almost better be covered by the waters than possessed by any nation but the English.
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