COLONIAL JOBBERS IN A FLUTTER.
MR. BARING'S New Zealand Bill, an account of which appeared in this journal last week, has alarmed the section of Wesleyan Methodists who job in missions. Like Demetrius the silversmith, "which made silver shrines for Diana," they fear that their "craft is in danger to be set at nought :" and truly, they are not troubled about trifles, for their trade has "brought no small gain unto the craftsmen."* Being deficient in true facts and rational arguments wherewith to assail the project for colonizing and civilizing New Zealand, the interested parties alluded to resort to wholesale misrepresentation and abuse. Let us look at some of the principal charges—a fair sample of the whole opposition case got up in this quarter, I. The bill is represented as the offspring of a vile scheme cloaked under the profession of philanthropy and regard for reli- gion. Nonsense—the authors and supporters of the measure make no such pharisaical pretensions ; which they leave to those who take care to provide amply for their own creature comforts while holding themselves up as martyrs to their zeal in the cause of converting the heathen. The prime object of the parties in- tending to emigrate to New Zealand is to better themselves and their families. "True aelf-love and social are the same; " and they are wise enough to know that the protection and improvement of the aborigines is necessary to the prosperity of the colony. We suspect that their due appreciation of this truth affords a better guarantee for justice to the natives than clamorous professions of interest in their spiritual welfare.
2. The members of the New Zealand Association are to be the Commissioners—the future managers of the affairs of the colony. Some of them will; and who so fit to undertake the office as the men who have devoted much time to the subject, and thoroughly understand the only sound principles of colonization ? But it is a simple untruth to assert that the members of the Association and the Commissioners are the same: they are not.
3. There is nothing to prevent their becoming proprietors of half the land in New Zealand. The ridiculous insinuation is, that the Commissioners may treat the thirty millions of fertile acres in New Zealand as their private pm perty, and pocket the proceeds of the sales thereof; although the bill expressly and strin- gently provides for the appropriation of every penny of the pur- chase-money, and lays down positive rules which preclude the possibility of recurrence to the vile old Colonial Office system of grants to favourites. All the land must be sold publicly, on equal terms to all bidders: all the funds derived from the sale of lands have a specific destination, which the Commissioners cannot alter.
4. Titles are to be inspected. This is indeed a disagreeable part of the measure, to those who may have obtained the land they hold by fraud or force ; but an objection to it comes with bad grace from those who care not for worldly things, and devote themselves to the salvation of souls. The provision is necessary for the protection of the natives, and with that view was it put in the bill. The same just and humane feelings prompted the per- manent appointment of a Commissioner of Native Titles.
5. The Missionaries are to be placed under the surveillance of the Commissioners ; that is, they are to be subject to the reign of law, which we trust is about to be established in New Zealand. Well, and is that fine country never to be blessed with regular and efficient government, because, forsooth, Wesleyan Missiona- ries have planted themselves in it, and their self-importance would be hurt by the appearance of persons over them ? Disease and crime are making sad havoc in the native population. Escaped convicts and other ruffians of the worst description carry desolation threugh the land. The Missionaries are unable to prevent the inroad of these marauders. Indeed, the chief Missionary station is also
In a letter from one of the colonists, lying before us, are some trustworthy statements respecting the proceedings of the Missionaries in enriching them- selves. This is a sample-
" The Missionaries and their families are the largest purchasers of land. Mr. Faithurn owns a tract of 100,000 acres. Mr. White (acted to place at the disposal of the New Zealand Association an extent of territory equal to a principality. Mr. Henry Williams is a great farmer on hie own account, anti keeps twenty servants. A New Zealander now in England, who lately, for the first time, saw fashionable ladies driving in Hyde Park, being struck with their magnificence, exclaimed, 'Missionary wife, missionary wife !' Yet it is impu- dently and mod falsely asserted that the Missionaries have not got lands for diemdIves and their families !" the most noted for its immorality in the whole country. The pro- posed Government will have the power to expel the radians and put an end to their irruptions : but the country is to be ravaged and depopulated rather than the Missionaries should lose their predo- minance! They would, it is said, welcome a Government mea- sure,—in other words, they would have no objection to a fleet and armed force paid for by this country to guard the coast ; for that would leave them in possession of their internal sovereignty. But Mr. BARING proposes to colonize and protect the country without coming on the British treasury for a farthing. The scheme goes beyond the mere preservation of the natives of New Zealand : it contemplates the establishment of a great and flourishing British community. G. The New Zealanders are to renounce their independence. Poor creatures--they need to be protected from extermination. The notion of infringing the independence of the New Zealandera is too laughable. What is the value of their independence now, subject as they are to the incursions of runaway convicts, and unable to protect themselves ? 7. If land is wanted for the settlement and employment of the miserable Irish, let the estates of Sir WILLIAM MOLEsWORTH, Lord DURHAM, Lord PETRE, and the other Commissioners, be made over to them by act of Parliament. Such is the proposi- tion. So, the thinly-scattered savages of New Zealand—a dimi- nishing population less than that of a single district of London, spread over a surface of many thousand miles—have the same title to the millions of uncultivated and unappropriated acres in their country, that an English nobleman has to his estate! Par- liament may deal with the land in Cornwall, Essex, or Durbam, as with the wilds of South Australia and New Zealand ! Truly this is a pretty doctrine, and beautifully illustrates the fitness of its authors for the government of a colony. Is this monopoly of the means of comfortless subsistence for a few, the Missionary reading of the Divine command, " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it ?"
8. "Religious instruction—the only means, as we opine, for making men Christians—is not so much as mentioned." Provi- sion is made for the support not only of the Episcopalian and Scottish Presbyterian forms of Christianity, but for the mainte- nance of the clergy of every religious sect that may spring up in the country—including that of the Wesleyan Methodists : yet it is pretended that no heed is taken to the religious welfare of the aborigines,—as if they were to derive no benefit from the exer- tions of all these ministers of the gospel. The best way to con- vert the natives to Christianity, will be to treat them with kind- ness and justice: as for preaching to them, there will be no lack of that ; but at all events, supposing that no funds are especially set apart for converting the natives, they will not be worse off than they are at present; and the Missionaries will have, as here- tofore, a monopoly of the labour of love. The motives of the attack on the New Zealand Bill, and the trumpery character of the case put forth, are transparent. The
motives are not religious—that is clear. The dread of interference
with their worldly profit and authority is conspicuous in every sen- tence of the manifesto of the Missionary "craftsmen." These persons have been treated by Mr. BARING and his associates with too much respect and tenderness : some of their proceedings, which will scarcely bear the light, may yet be exposed.
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