3 AUGUST 1844, Page 13

THE NEW ZEALAND INQUIRY : JUDGMENT AGAINST LORD STANLEY.

THE Select Committee of the Commons on New Zealand constituted a real arbitration-court, appointed to try the grave questions be- tween the New Zealand Company as plaintiffs and Lord STAN- LEY and the Colonial Office as defendants. Composed of ten Ministerial Members to five of the Opposition, the Committee could not be supposed to feel a bias against the Minister. Fully to appreciate the remarkable character of the judgment, however, it is necessary to recollect what were the questions at issue. In 1840, Lord Jona RUSSELL imposed upon the Company an " agreement," conditional to their chartered existence. The expediency of that agreement is now beyond the province of discus- sion ; it is a fait accompli, to which all parties have long since grown reconciled. That agreement obliged the Company to abandon their claim to land under any title derived from the Natives of New Zealand ; but stipulated to grant them land at the rate of four acres for every pound sterling expended by them in a manner specified by the agreement. The New Zealand Company construed their primary right under the agreement to consist in the having expended so much money, in modes specified and held to be useful : Lord STANLEY construed their primary right to con- sist in proving a " valid " purchase from the Natives,—although the title as derived from the Natives the Company were expressly obliged by the agreement to renounce, and they were restricted to claim only under the grant from the Crown :—the Committee have decided that the Company's construction of the agreement was right. The Company claimed a certain quantity of land as accruing to them on proof of having expended a particular sum, certified by Mr. PENNINGTON, an accountant : Lord STANLEY de- nied the right :—the Committee have ratified the claim to Mr. PENNINGTON'S award. The Company, estimating as slight the money-value of the title vested in the Aborigines to districts of which they occupied infinitesimal parts, devised a plan for reserving lands for their future use with really augmented value,—a far-seeing policy, which contemplated the welfare of the Natives in what is called " the long run " : the local officers put the Natives upon demanding extravagant money-prices for land, fostering their rapacity and ignorant passions ; set up the Native title in violation of Lord JOHN ResszLes agreement ; and obstructed the plan of reserves ; Lord STANLEY upholding them in all this :—the Committee say that the Company 't; policy towards the Natives was excellent, the Government policy bad. The settlers and the Company claimed more efficient armed protection, and the right to form a militia : the local authorities withheld all but the scantiest and tardiest protection, and forbade the militia :- the Committee recommend full protection, and the formation of a militia. Besides other things specifically decided, there were se- veral points of personal dispute between Lord STANLEY with his subordinates and the spokesmen of the New Zealand Company :- the Committee say that they will not enter upon many topics of dispute,—tacitly withholding any sanction of the Minister : it may be inferred which interest it was that dictated the forbearance of the Committee, the Minister's or the trading Company's. In short, judgment is given for the Company on every item, and against the Minister on every item.

The Committee, indeed, object to one act of the Company-- the original occupation of New Zealand, in defiance of the Govern- ment's refusal to countenance it : they solemnly condemn this, as " irregular." Granting the irregularity, it may be observed that, without such irregularity, New Zealand would now have been in French occupation, with a world of Palmerstonian armed diplomacy to dispossess them if possible, at the risk of war. Without " irre- gularity," some of our greatest colonies would never have been

settled. Irregularity has done much for England—obtained Magna Charts, and many other fine things. It may be well pro forma to object to the technical fault; but the Company will scarcely be blamed out of court, for acting with a spirit of promptitude, bold- ness, and enterprise, characteristic of Englishmen, though not of every English Minister. The fact is, that the Government of this great colonizing country, in placidly suffering New Zealand to slip through its fingers, forgot its duty ; it defied the public appeals that called it to that duty ; the energy of the country would not suffer so great a loss; and thus was the Company forced into exist- ence, and into action. The "irregularity " of the Company con- sisted in doing what the Government ought to have done, but igno- rantly neglected, or more blameably refused to undertake. And at all events, that question was not in issue between the litigants in the present suit. The consequences of the judgment in this case will be very important. It ought to have the effect of totally reforming the policy, if not of altering the composition, of the Colonial branch of our Government. It will have the effect of restoring public confi- dence in the Company,—a small matter regarding them only as a chartered body of profit-seeking shareholders, but a most important thing regarding them as the great colonizing instrument for New Zealand. It will dispel a dark cloud that obscured the state of affairs in England to the view of the colonists, and made some of them waver in the trust which they had reposed in their natural friends at home. Under the ban of the Colonial Office, all enter- prise was arrested here—checked even in the colony : a Parliamen- tary Committee has pronounced that ban to have been bad and illegal from first to last.