BOOKS.

Fox's SIX COLONIES 0-F NEW ZEALAND.*

Tim author of this work is a graduate of Oxford, and a barrister of the Inner Temple, who in 1840 forsook the purlieus of Fleet Street for the Antipodes, taking up his abode in New Zealand as a "practical colonist." But the " juris legumque peritus " was not allowed to turn quietly into the husbandman, or to escape the "sub galli cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat." Mr. Fox was called on to succeed the late Captain Wakefield as Resident Agent of the New Zealand Company at Nelson ; he was appointed Attorney-General of the Southern Province, an office which he "accepted on the distinct assurance that self-government was immediately to be bestowed on the colony "—finding it was not,he resigned ; soon afterwards, he be- came Principal Agent of the New Zealand Company at Welling- ton, on the death of Colonel Wakefield ; and on leaving New Zea- land at the breaking up of the Company's establishment, he was appointed honorary political agent in England for the Wellington colonists. In the course of his official experience he became well acquainted with the various settlements. " In addition to five years' residence at Nelson," says Mr. Fox, " and three and a half at Wellington, I visited Auckland for three weeks, New Ply- mouth for ten days, Wanganui twice, Otago twice, Canterbury thrice, (exploring a large part of the district,) and many other parts of the country where no inhabitants either European or na-

tive are to be found On returning home after nearly nine years' residenoe in the colony, I find the ignorance of the many, who know nothing about it, only exceeded by the misapprehen- sions of the few, who know a little. -Under these circumstances, it seems a duty incumbent on me not to keep back the results of my experience " : and hence the present volume. Mr. Fox divides his book into three sections. The first contains a descriptive and statistical account of the islands ; the second is devoted to the natives ; the third to the government. "Statistics," "description," and "the natives," however, are very different topics in Mr. Fox's hands from what they are in the generality of pub- lications on colonies. In his book there is no official parade of figures such as fill the local almanack, and are wearisome be- cause they are barren ; the "descriptions" are not compilations from Cook or the first discoverer, down to the last author-traveller who has made a book about the place ; the natives are not handled after the fashion of a pocket cyclopiedia or school geo- graphy. Everything is fresh, and it may be said original ; the product of observation, or of reflection on the reality itself, not of statements about the facts, however able. The observation and re- flection, too, have this character about them,—they have not been induced by any theory, or even by a liberal curiosity, still less by any bookmaking purpose. They have been forced upon the author's mind by practical experience—the sight of some good prevented, of some evil produced, of progTess whose development has been altogether checked. Hence there is an earnestness and directness about the book, which literary skill, however great it may be, does not attain ; and similar qualities are visible in the treatment and style. Everything is clear, direct, and very read- able. The author proposes to furnish information of a certain kind, with which his own mind is full, and he furnishes it. But there is no labouring for effect, no over-dwelling upon details : everything that is not essential to the purpose is thrown aside. When we speak of the directly practical and purposelike dia- racter of this little volume, it must not be supposed that it is de- void of philosophy. In looking at the geography and capabilities of the islands, and of the six settlements that have been founded, Mr. Fox sees more than the mere material characteristics of each, or the kind of industry that physical circumstances of necessity give rise to. He looks deeper—to the motives that prompted the settlers ; and, like Bancroft in his History of America, determines the character of each colony from the principle, so to speak, which distinguished its foundation. The extinction of the " natives " is a fertile subject for declamation, projects, and discussion. Mr. Fox treats of the subject, but in a more philosophical way. He pro- nounces extinction probable, almost certain, and that within two generations. Amalgamation might take place if there were time, but there is not. The causes which will extinguish the aboriginal race are-1. physical, and physical practices (originating, however, in moral defects); 2. moral. Notwithstanding the numbers who have written upon the subject, we have never seen so clear an ex- planation of the action of what is so uniform as to seem an inevit- able law—the extinction of the Red before the civilized man (for the Negro and the Mongolian have a power of resistance). Having enumerated the five physical causes that are reducing the native race, Mr. Fox proeee s to the moral. "The moral cause in operation is perhaps less obvious, but no less cer- tainly at work, and probably little less effective. It consists in a depression of spirits and energy, which in the mind of the savage ensues upon his con- tact with rivilized men. He soon sees his inferiority : his pride may strug- gle against an admission of it for a time,—he may still occasionally bedeck himself with the ornaments of the warrior, and endeavour to shame by his barbaric splendour the plainness of civilized industry ; but the great ships that throng his harbours, the (to him) magnificent buildings that spring up on every side,—the display, if there be any, of military force,—nay, what to the colonistare the merest articles of every-day use, his watch, his plough, his axe, his pooket-knife,—all declare, in a language which he cannot mis- understand, that it is a superior race which has come to share his country. From the:day -when has makes this acknowledgment to himself, he feels.that his greatness is departed, that his nation is henceforth a nation of Helots. lie cannot form in his mind the hope of rising to the level of the superior The flim Colonies of New Zealand. By William Fox. Publiahed by Parker and Son.

nice ; it.s existence and everything connected with it, are a mystery to him—. what the North Americans call a 'great medicine,' the New Zealanders a Typo, or divinity. The gulf between him and the new comer is too great; he cannot conceive the possibility of bridging it. So he sits down and broods

in silence till his appointed time. • " The most probable method by which the operation of these feel- ings could have been checked in New Zealand, would haw been the encouragement, to the greatest extent compatible with the ge- neral government of the colony, of the institution of chieftainship, which we found existing among the natives. The men of the most en- larged minds and of the greatest influence were of that class; and had they been, as I think they might, maintained in an elevated position, and their feudal authority supported at least for some years, it would have given them a position round which the rest of the race might have rallied, and whence they might have taken their first step towards one more elevated and advanced. But, with the exception of the early founders of the Wellington settlement, it has been the policy of those in whose hands were the destinies of the natives, to discourage the institution of chieftainship, and to reduce to a general level all classes of natives. An individual chief may occasionally, and sometimes very indiscreetly, have been petted and encouraged. But the chieftainship,' and the various shades of nobility and gentry subordinate to it, have been allowed to sink into ruin, and carry all along with them to a lower social level than before."

The erection of this species of feudal society might not have been easy under any circumstances; with the Missionaries on the spot and the Government at a distance it seems to have been impossible. Familiarity, says the proverb, breeds contempt : with the New Zealander it produces something more—aversion, from his gross habits and grosser morals. Two or three generations might have obviated this, probably ; but there was still a difficulty connected with the chieftains. Those who possessed energy of character enough to govern were too energetic to be trusted to govern. This is a well-known ruler—one specimen too of a "convert." " ffauperaha has been often described. His cruel treatment of his ene- mies, whom he seduced on board a ship, hanging them by hooks through their thumbs' cutting them to pieces, and boiling them for food in the ship's coppers ; his treachery to his relation To Belli, whom in the critical moment of battle he deserted, securing thereby his own elevation to the chieftainship of the tribe; and the part which he bore in the Wairau massacre, are the leading events by which his name has become familiar to the English reader. After the latter event, he placed himself under missionary protection ; and by pretending conversion and likening himself to St. Paul, he succeeded in hoodwinking his protectors, and through them persuading the government of his fidelity, at the very time that he was supplying 13.anghiacM, the open rebel, with arms and ammunition. Detected, seized, and imprisoned on board the Calliope frigate, he was released at the end of a twelvemonth, and, handed over to the chief of the Walk-ales, who became bail for his good be- haviour. Carried by him to the North, he was upbraided with his misfor- tunes by Teraia the man-eater, while the more generous To Whero-whero endeavoured to sooth his affliction. After a few months he was permitted to return to Otaki, the place of his tribe. There he resumed his pretensions to sanctity. 'I saw,' says an intelligent but newly arrived clergyman, who visited him at this time, amongst the other men of note, the old and once powerful chief Rauperaha ; who, notwithstanding his great age of more than eighty years, is seldom missed from his class ; and who, after a long life of perpetual turmoil spent in all the savage excitement of cruel and bloody wars, is now to be seen every morning in his accustomed place, repeating those blessed truths which teach him to love the Lord with all his heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and his neighbour as himself.' Those who knew Rauperalia better, may perhaps doubt whether the ./Esliiop had so completely changed his skin as to justify the belief in which an enlarged charity, exercised by an amiable man, thus led its possessor to indulge. A few days before his death, when suffering under the malady which carried him oli; two settlers called to see him. While there' a neighbouring mis- sionary came in and offered him the consolations of religion. l'emperaha demeaned himself in a manner highly becoming such an occasion ; but the moment the missionary was gone, he turned to his other visitors and said, What is the use of all that nonsense? that will do my belly no good.' He then turned the conversation on the Wanganui races, where one of his guests had been running a horse."

Although two sections of the volume are devoted to the phy- sical features and natural capabilities of the country, or to the po- sition and prospects of the settler, or to the natives in various aspects, the subject of the third section is found everywhere. "My harp has one unchanging theme" : the government, no. government, or misgovernment of Downing Street, meets the colo- nist everywhere, to vex or injure. The islands were snatched by individual Englishmen from foreign dominion, not only without encouragement from Government but in defiance of the Colonial Office; but the first settlement in New Zealand no sooner gave signs that it would flourish, than it was pounced upon by "this Office," and perverted to purposes of patronage. From that day to the pre- sent hour, the public money of this country has been uselessly squandered, and the prosperity of the colonists wantonly or igno- rantly retarded, by the Colonial Secretary, or his viceroys over him, abroad and at home. They have continued to unite the evils of an established despotism with the drawbacks of a state of one re- move from nature. In an old society one of two things occurs. The government professes to act for the benefit of the people, and indeed does so according to its power : it provides them with amusements encourages art and trade, opens up roads, and is al- together whet is called "paternal." In the other case, such matters are left to the people themselves, subject to such forms as have been established. In both cases the people have got adapted to the state of things if they were not originally adapted to the people. In New Zealand everything goes by the rule of contrary. From the title of his land—nay, from the means of now procuring new and waste land, (the promise of which made him a New Zea- lander,) to the providing of a passage-boat—the Government pro- fesses to do all, and does nothing • nor will it allow the settler to do for himself. Amply provided with means from England, raising a sufficient revenue in the colony for its own purposes, Downing Street wastes the 'whole in rank jobbery. In a second edition it would he worth while for Mr. Fox to devote an appendix to a debtor and creditor account of the money that .has been raiscd in; crier New Zealand within these dozen years, ..and to.exhibitin a vis-à-vis what there is to show for it. In the book, indeed, there is material for going some way towards forming an account ; -of which we will quote a few samples.

It may be recollected that Wellington was the place chosen by the New Zealand Company for their first settlement. The Colonial Office has the weakness of all foolish and ignorant people, of wish- ing. to appear to have "an opinion of their own": : so they do as oll such persons do—make an alteration ; and this alteration was to make Auckland the capital of New Zealand.

"Tire town of Auckland is the largest and most compact in the colony. It has one or two very good streets, but the lower parts are as filthy as ' Dept- ford and Wapping' navy-building towns.' Very little except shopkeeping was going on at Auckland when I was there. 'The amount of cultivation was very small, and consisted almost entirely of a few fields of grass, within four or five miles of the town, where newly-imported stock were kept alive till the butcher was ready to wait upon them for the benefit of the troops and townsmen. In short, the settlement was a mere section of the town of Sydney transplanted to the shores of New Zealand, filled with tradesmen who were reaping a rich harvest from the expenditure of a regiment of sol- diers, a Parliamentary grant, missionary funds, and native trade. As an in- stance of colonization, it was altogether rotten, delusive, and Algerine. The population had no root in the soil; as was proved by some hundreds of them packing up their wooden houses and rushing away to California, as soon as the news of that land of gold arrived. In Cook's Straits not half-a-dozen persons were moved by that bait. If the Government expenditure had ceased, and the troops been removed at that time, I believe Auckland would have melted away like a dream. The expenditure of British money by the Go- vernment has been enormous in this part of the colony, and easily accounts for so large a town having so suddenly sprung up. The troops stationed there have not expended much, if anything, less than 100,000/. a year. Two sets of very costly barracks have been erected, with a lofty stone wall round each, which cannot have cost less than about 100,000/. more. The Pension- ers' houses at least 50,000!.; their pensions about 12,000/. a year; besides a variety of contingent expenses. From the Parliamentary grant, from 10,000/. to 20,000/. a year expended on roads and otherwise. The revenue of the Northern Province about 25,000/. a year. The outlay of the three missions, which, I was told on undoubted authority, amounted to the same sum. Two men of war (not always, but frequently) in harbour for long periods. In short, in addition to the local revenue, not less than certainly 200,000/. a Year of British money has, on an average, been expended annually for the last four or five years ; and one or two lump sums, amounting to not less than 150,0001., in addition. "Nearly the whole population of Auckland has been imported from Sydney and Van Diemen's Land. With the exception of the Pensioners, I believe only one, or at most two regular emigrant-ships—that is vessels carrying bodies of men of the labourims class—ever proceeded from this country to that settlement. The returns oecrime, compared with those of the Southern -settlements, exhibit fearful traces of the origin of its population, and display the great importance of colonizing on a regular system, which may insure a pure origin for a colony. In the year ending December 1847, there were no fewer than 1083 criminal cases disposed of by the Resident Magistrate at Auckland, of which there were 991 in which Europeans only were concerned; 857 convictions, and 529 for drunkenness; that is to say, one in six of the population was convicted of some crime or other, one in eight of drunken- ness. At Wellington, the proportion was one in 40; at Nelson, one in 79."

laving erected a fungus capital—a town without a country— Downing Street felt that a rural population was needed, and, with military pensioners, (Lord Grey's pet project,) went to work in this wise.

" In April 1849, I visited all the Pensioner villages in the neighbourhood of Auckland, then four in number. They had been established between one and two years. The conclusion I arrived at was, that,, whether viewed in a military or a colonizing aspect, they are costly failures, affording a most de- cided warning against the continuance of the experiment, or its renewal elsewhere. The same conclusion is arrived at by a careful examination of the few documents relating to them in the Blue Books. "In a military point of view they are altogether useless. Placed as a sort of cordon round Auckland, to protect it from the large tribes to the South and West, but being mere straggling villages without any sort of fortifica- tion, if the natives should ever wish to attack the capital, they would, any morning before daylight, walk through the whole of them, massacre the in- habitants in their beds, and, having seized their arms and ammunition, pro- ceed on their way to Auckland. The Pensioners are for the most part cons siderably beyond the middle period of life, many of them with constitutions shattered by climate and hard living, and a large proportion of them of very intemperate habits.

"Regarded in a colonizing point of view, the Pensioner system could prove no other than a failure. With the single exception of convicts, it would not be possible to select a worse class for emigration than old broken-down soldiers, stiffened into military habits, or only relaxed by the vices of bar- racks and canteens. Nor are their families likely to be much better than themselves. Then, the manner in which they are located is equally ob- jectionable. The first essential to colonial success, particularly among the labouring class, is perfect freedom of action ; liberty to go here, or there, or everywhere; to follow the calling of previous years, or turn the hand to any new employment which offers. This military colonization is fatal to such libertv. I found the largest of these villages (Howick) located fifteen miles from "Auckland, on a bare and poor soil, without a stick of firewood within many miles, remote from any employers of labour, and separated from them and from Auckland by an unfordable river. Reports of actual starvation among the inhabitants of this village, the winter after I saw it, were circu- lated in the Auckland papers; and, sinless it was staved of by eleemosynary means, I do not see how it could have failed to result from the circumstances hi which the Pensioners were placed."

A. great charge against that incarnation of selfishness Louis Philippe was his corruption of France by the multiplication of placemen. "This Office" is obnoxious to the same charge, with- out the same excuses.

"On the other hand, there is too much government. The official establish- ments are altogether disproportioned to the communities whose affairs they administer. In the Southern Province of New Zealand there are not less than one „hundred paid officials (besides about forty policemen) to govern a population ,(at the time the estimate was made) of not 10,000 Europeans. This is attribu- -able to two causes : 1st, The necessity which the weakness of the Govern- ment creates for the employment of a great many hands to help it, making up in 9uantity what it wants in quality; and 2d, The tendency which all *vote governments have to buy support by patronage. In the Southern Province, in the year 1850, with an ordinary revenue of 19,0001., no less than 14,000/. (minus a small sum for contingencies used in the offices) appears to have gone into the pockets of the officials as salary ; while nearly the whole -of the remainder was expended on police, printing, or other matters in-

volvinglaatronage, and attaching the recipients to the interest of Govern-. meat. In 1846, Governor Grey proposed the appointment of a Lieutenant Governor for the Southern Province, and pledged himself if one was appointed, judiciously to curtail ' the existing cost of government. But he has found it impossible, and will so long as the present system exists. At the date of that pledge, the entire annual cost of government at Wellington was 44091. A Lieutenant-Governor was appointed in 1848, and the cost of government, so far from having been judiciously curtailed,' has swelled to 16,000/., while the ordinary revenue, in the same period, has increased less than 5000/."

Such is the system of production : here is the article.

" Patronage being so exercised, it is not surprising to hear the colonists com- plaining of the inefficiency and incompetency of the officials. An instance or two may be given. In January last, a deputation of settlers waited on the Governor on business of importance. The Attorney-General and Colonial Secretary were present officially. To the surprise of the deputation, the Governor and both the above-named officials were entirely ignorant that the lands within the settlements which had formerly vested in the New Zealand Company, had for six mouths past been re-vested in the Crown. The point arose on an act of Parliament, which had been constantly before them for three years and a half, and for some months past ought to have been their daily study ; and it involved the rights of the Crown and Local Government over all the settled lands in the Southern Province. It was not till a corre- spondence had taken place with the Colonial Secretary the following day, that the Governor could be convinced of the oversight. A few months before this, in consequence of a dispute between a party and the Registrar of Deeds, a case was referred to the Supreme Court for decision ; when it turned out that the system of registration in force was directly contrary to the pro- visions of the ordinance establishing it—that the Government had hi fact for ten years been working the wheels of its own machine the wrong way, and all it had done was invalid in consequence. A complaint was made against a Resident Magistrate. The Colonial Secretary of the Southern Province wrote to the complainants admitting its justice ; and by the same post he wrote to the Magistrate thanking him for the able manner in which he had always performed his duties. The Magistrate got a copy of the other letter, put both into an envelope, and sent them back again. The Colonial Secretary of the other province refused in Council to receive a protest, because it contained no reasons in favour of the measure protested against '; and the same gentleman moved to strike out of an appropriation bill the words "not exceeding."

A specimen of attention to intercommunication.

"The means of communication with Auckland (the seat of government) are very defective. There is an overland mail, carried by a native, which is three weeks on the road, and affords the prospect of an answer in seven or eight weeks from the date of writing. There is also a Government brig, which occasionally, but with no sort of regularity, visits the different settle- ments. In diet, for months together, no communication by sea between Auckland and the Southern settlements takes place. On one occasion, the Lieutenant-Governor sent despatches to the former place by way of Sydney ; and I have myself been upwards of five months in receiving a reply to a letter of pressing importance. "The Government vessel might have been of considerable use in lessening the inconveniences arising from the distance of the capital, had she been used as a regular packet between the settlements. The colonists, however, complain of her mismanagement, and state, that though her maintenance has since the colony was founded cost nearly 20,000/.,-f she has not really done work to the value of as many shillings. She has generally been in an unseaworthy condition, and the accommodation for passengers so extremely bad, that nobody who had once been on board of her would sail in her again if he could make the voyage in any other way."

So much for "This Office" and its instruments : let us take a look at what would seem to be higher game. There is a curious section on what might be headed "In and Out " : this is the "Out" portion.

"In the great debate in the House of Commons in 1845 upon the affairs of New Zealand, all parties agreed that the only remedy for the evils, which all admitted to exist, was self-government. Not to quote the late Sir Robert Peel or Sir James Graham, the present Prime Minister expressed his decided conviction that 'the voice of the settlers themselves, speaking through their own representatives, could alone extricate the colony from the difficulties in which it was plunged.' Lord Grey (then Lord Howick) hoped 'they would revert to the ancient and wise policy of their ancestors, and allow the colo- nists to govern themselves.' Contrasting what our ancestors had done in America two centuries ago, he must say that experience was decidedly in favour of allowing a colony to govern itself. We had before us a melan- choly proof of the height to which misgovernment might be carried by Down- ing Street ; and he was persuaded that it was utterly impossible for any man, be his talents and industry what they might, adequately to admin- ister the affairs of the British Colonies, scattered as they were all over the world. It would have been well for the natives of New Zealand if the colony had been self-governed.' And Mr. Hawes, alluding to the great powers placed in the hands of Governor Grey, said that 'he would not object to it in the present state of the colony. He would at least be free from the 'laborious trifling' of the Colonial Office. Do what they would, they must emancipate the colony from the Colonial Office : they must lay the foundations of local government ; and the colony, when left as free as possible, would soon display the original energy of the parent stock. The remedy he proposed was simply this, that the Colonies should have local self-government.'

"Not long after the above remarks were made, the colonists heard, with feelings which may be easily appreciated, that Lord John Russell, Lord Grey, and Mr. Hawes, had come into office, the two latter, respectively, as Secretary and tinder-Secretary of State for the Colonies. There would, Of course, now be no delay in reverting to the wise policy of their ancestors, and allowing them to govern themselves.' No fear of their being any more troubled with the 'laborious trifling' of the Colonial Office. The very men who but a few weeks before had declared self-government the remedy for all existing evils, had now the power of bestowing it. Doubtless they would soon be left as free as possible' to administer their own affairs."

Doubtless every reader knows how those " feelings " of the colo- nists have been disappointed. From that day to this they have been kept upon the operating-table, in order that my Lord Grey might try his hand at constitution-carving, at their cost and sufferin5, and at a much larger cost to Rohn Bull The constitution is not yet forthcoming ; though, like Beau Brummel with his neck- cloths, Lord Grey has had his failures.

"+ 20001. a year of the Parliamentary grant is voted for the purpose. In 1846, Mr. Hawes being asked in the House of Commons what the item was for replied, " that it was for a steamer; ill which the Governor paid his periodical visits tct the settle- ments." There is no steamer, and the Governor never sails in the brie, but awaits in one of the men-of-war on the station- the expense of himself and suite beiai a further tax on the public purse."

Similar extracts might be multiplied ad libitum, and some that in point of a Molierelike character are even richer still; . for Whigs in Downing Street can go beyond a satirist. There is one point, however, so important that it deserves distinct exhibition, involving as it does the existence of a settlement for national purposes of colonizing, and the prosperity of the settlement when colonized; if it does not even reach to the very existence of the settlers themselves. It relates to the management of titles of land ; which in a new colony, be it remembered, is about equivalent to a title for a trader's stock in England.

"A great number of grants of land were issued by Governor Fitzroy, in an irregular manner, to private parties claiming under purchases direct from the natives, some previous and some subsequent to the establishment of British authority. In some instances these grants were in contravention of the provisions of local ordinances; in others, in opposition to the recom- mendation of the Commissioners ; and in all they were opposed to the charter and the Royal instructions.

" Under instructions from home, Governor Grey took steps to settle the question of their validity by proceedings in the Supreme Court at Auckland. Similar proceedings were taken at Wellington by the New Zealand Com- pany, whose title was in some instances infected by such grants, claiming to override it. In all the cases tried, the court decided that the grants were valid and irreversible. It was thus established, by repeated decisions of the highest tribunal in the colony, that a grant of land made by the Governor and under the Colonial seal, though in opposition to Royal instructions, to the charter, and to local ordinances, is valid and bindino.' on the Crown, con- ferring a good title on the grantee and his assigns. Hence a Governor, though acting contrary to instructions, might grant away at his pleasure the whole of the waste lands, his power being absolute aud uncontrollable even by the Crown itself.

"It might have been expected that a decision involving such consequences would have been carried before the Privy Council on appeal. But Governor Grey, apparently foreseeing the agitation which such a course would have created among the European population immediately around the seat of go- vernment, yielded, and passed au ordinance quieting the disputed titles, and rendering valid 'all grants under the Colonial seal made previously to the passing thereof.' . "The Governor, however, wrote to the Colonial Office, pointing out the consequences of these decisions, transmitting a copy of his ordinance, and requesting that the whole subject might be brought under the review of the Home Government, in order that the authority of the Governor may be clearly defined, and such difficulties avoided in New Zealand or other colo- nies for the future.' The despatch centaining this request was written on the 24th of July 1819, and received at the Colonial Office on the 3d Decem- ber in the same year. It was not till the 13th of August 1850, when a whole session of Parliament had elapsed and all opportunity of doing any- thing had passed, that Lord Grey answered the Governor's despatch; when he merely acknowledged its receipt, expressed his appreciation of the motives which led the Governor to pursue the course lie had, and intimated her Ma- jesty's approbation of the ordinance. As far as appears by the Blue Book, no other notice has ever been taken of this most important matter ; another session has since elapsed, and it still remains in statu quo."

"Knowledge is power," and it produces the effect of principle. A man who thoroughly understands a business, not only does what he undertakes in the best mode, but enables everybody who is in any way connected with him to carry on his affairs in like manner. In common speech, "he is a man who may be depended on." Not that he feels any interest in persons whom he has rarely or perhaps never seen ; not that he is a kind man for he may be the reverse ; not that he is a man of delicate conduct, for he pro- bably is not; but, in another common phrase, "he knows what he is about." And this knowledge induces him to resist in- fluence even when his leanings go with it, because he no more deems of opposing what he knows the case requires, than a physi-

cian thinks of administering what is tantamount to poison because the patient or his friends may wish it. -Unless their passions are

roused, men rarely sin against knowledge. It is this want of

knowledge, and of the clearness and decision which knowledge gives; that forms the characteristic of the official Whigs, which has produced their -weakness, and will work their ruin. The not knowing what to do, or how to do it, destroyed the strongest party that over was assembled in the House of Commons, on the passing of the Reform Bill ; from not knowing what they were about, they

have ruined our sugar-planters and probably the whole of our sugar-growing colonies ; not knowing what they were about, de- populated Ireland in spite of a waste of ten millions ; a singular mixture of obstinacy, arrogance, ignorance, and bad temper in the Colonial Minister—never knowing what he is about—has alienated the minds of the greater part of our elder colonies, and placed New Zealand in a worse position than it was left in by Lord Stanley.

" t A report has reached me, that the decision of the Colonial Court in one of the above cases was actually brought before the Privy Council; when, without hearing the respondent, it was reversed. Nothing has been published on the subject ; but if it be so, it seems extraordinary that the Crown should be advised to abandon its rights, or rather those of the public, by confirming the ordinance referred to above, which was passed only in the belief that the decision of the local courts was irre- versible, and, as Lord Grey himself states, without any meritorious ground existing in the case of those benefited by it."