The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-14 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1844.

'The report which We mentioned last week, that
the Bishops were to hold a conclave on the Puseyits
doctrines, gains ground. The Archbishop of CAN-
TERBURY, it is said, has announced his intention of
summoning his brethren of the Episcopal Bench, in
order to deliberate and determine on the rubrical ob-
servances to be enforced throughout the dioceses of the
South, and the venerable and aged Archbishop of
Yoax has given his concurrence. This event is not
improbable or surprising ; but what surprises all true
Protestants is the fact, that the men who regard
themselves as the main props and stays of the Protes-
tant religion, the revilers of Catholics, and the un-
ceasing persecutors of conscientious Dissenters, re-
gard this as a healing measure of primary importance,
and announce that the decision of these Prelates will
allay the storm which has been raised by
the restless Puseyite Bishop of EXETER, and
the pious Puseyite Bishop of LoNpoer. If they are
, sincere, we pity their ignorance, and cannot give
them credit for a particle of judgment or foresight in
regard to the settlement of this alarming schism in
the Protestant Church. The Bishops have lost all
confidence with the laity. They have turned a deaf
ear to the entreaties, and remonstrances, and protests
of the true adherents of the reformed religion, or re-
jected their applications with contumely and scorn.
The two Archbishops are " dumb dogs, that cannot
bark ;" appeals have been made to them without num-
ber; the insulting, the Popish, and the tyrannical steps
taken by disciples of the new sect, have been forced on
t;;Ar attention in the most earnest, humble, and
.:ristian spirit—yet these appeals have been made
in vain. The Church, for we call the Protestant
laity'the Church, have given up all hopes from that
quarter. Oxford and the Bench of Bishops are on the
high road:to Rome ; the PUSEYS and the Wartns
have described as a great calamity the separation
of the English Church from the Papal See. There
is no redemption for her but by immediately retracing
her Steps—that is, joining in all the rites and ceremo-
nies and doctrines hitherto so repugnant to Ref
•r mers.
these heretical doctrines have been winked at by
the 'Archbishop
of ..ANTERBURTB,.aInd openly court-
- ooraced or palliated br
rare
nam whom the pro'foisnsnYfri'llil°:l..e thlellat
rch
up to as the ouly safe gu
evofer
ming (vs in the present
diffiribcueltile3se.oeNh
there such a blind
no
'The people hoe" tecet 'l,;e r7e7 0,178-
nto
-r own hand 3, for tlst -beSC'lf r+ll teas.
no edic:t iesued 1.-om Lana' bet.,
the slightest effect—not even if it denounced the
obnoxious measures of Dr. Eumrorr4 and Dr.'

BLONIFIELD, and the whole race of Puseyites, and
decreed that no innovation whatever should be made
in Church ceremonies. A well-grounded suspicion
has seized the public mind that these changes, harm-
less when taken by themselves, are only the fore-
runners of some wicked scheme for subverting Pro-
testantism, and accustoming the people to a religion
which they cordially detest. No. The bishops can
do nothing that will allay suspicions. They have been
sufficiently tested ; they have been " weighed in the
balance, and found wanting." In the meantime, let the
people of England be on their guard ; let them keep
watch on the towers of Zion and defend the sacred
citadel against the only enemies they have to fear—
the enemies in the camp. The magnanimous conduct
of the churches in the diocese of Exeter has excited a
strong feeling of sympathy throughout the country.
Dissenters as well as Churchmen have watched their
movements with intense interest, and in the hour of
danger they will unite to preserve the greatest bless-
ings ever conferred on this Protestant country—the
blessings of the reformed religion.

The Report of the Select Committee on New Zea-
land touches directly on some important elementary
principles—a better knowledge or a stricter observ-
ance of which, on the part of the authorities at home,
might hare averted many of the evils which have
since overtaken this unfortunate colony. To this fact
we adverted, generally, in a former article. It may
be well, however, to note the passages to which we
refer more particularly, inasmuch as they may ope-
rate to prevent similar errors in future, whenever the
question of occupying territory still peopled, how-
ever thinly, by aborigines, shall be again submitted
to the Government for its decision.

It is quite clear that the question of occupancy is
at the root of all the difficulties whieh have sprung
up between the settled colonists and the natives, and
in the relations between the New Zealand Company,
the settled colonists, and the Government of 'Great
Britain. If there was no possessory right in the
British Crown, at the time any of its subjects made
settlements in New Zealand, there could be no de-
rivative right invested in any mediate authority, in
virtue of which these subjects could make good their
title to occupy lands in those islands against the pre-
tension of any of the aborigines. They who occu-
pied in defect of such authority, could not, in reason,
invoke that authority to enforce and- protect their
possession. If they held lands and located upon them,
in confidence of the good faith of the native chiefs
with whom they had negotiated for the acquisition
of those lands, they held them under liability to be
oustad by the bad faith, or deprived by the caprice,
or driven out by the violence, of the same savages, or
some of their compatriots. There was nothing in
their bargain with the aboriginal owners to entitle
them or their property to the protection of their SOVE-
REIGN, which is said to be the condition reciprocated
by the Crown for the allegiance of its own subjects.
These latter had, in fact, put their allegiance in
abeyance, for their own purposes, and could not
complain if the British Crown kept, as to them, its
protective functions in abeyance also. And here let
us pause to avail ourselves of the well-reasoned de-
finition given by Sir GEORGE GIPPS, the Governor of
New South Wales, in an address to his Legislative
Council, on submitting to them a Bill framed by his
Excellency, under instructions from home, consti-
tuting New Zealand a British colony, dependent on
his government. " The Bill," said he, "is founded
on two or three general principles, which, until I
heard them here controverted, I thought were fully
admitted, and, indeed, received as political axioms.
The first is, that the uncivilised inhabitants; of every
country have but a qualified dominion over it, or a
right of occupying only ; and that until they establish
amongst themselves a settled form of Government, and
subjugate the ground to their own uses by the cultivation
of it, they cannot grant to individuals, out of their
own tribe, any portion of it—for the simple reason
that they have not themselves an individual property
in it." This language may sound like the imposition
of a very arbitrary disability on a nomad tribe to
part with its own lands, on its own terms, to foreign
purchasers ; but we take it to comprise law, as sound
as the maxim to which the portion in italics supplies
so striking an analogy, that labour is the capital of
land. " The second principle," Sir GEORGE con-
tinued, " is, that if a settlement be made in
any such country by a civilised Power, the right
of pre-emption in the soil, or, in other words,
the right of extinguishing the native title, is
exclusively in the Government of that Power,
and cannot be enjoyed by individuals without the
c unsent of their Government. The third principle is,
that neither individuals nor orders of men, belonging
to any nation, can form colonies except with the con-
sent, and under the direction and control of their own
Government, and that from any settlement which they
may form without the consent of their Government,
THEY. MAT BE OUSTED. This is simply to say, so far
as Englishmen are concerned, that colonies cannot be
founded without the consent of the Crown." Now, in
this false position, beyond all doubt, the earlier British
settlers in New Zealand, locat ed about the Bay of
Islands and elsewhere, be fore the existence of the New
Zealand Company, had placed themselves. But we
shall show, in a future paper, that this error of
theirs aas radically cured, if not by the autho-
rised acts, yet on the assumed rights of the New
Zealand Company ; and that, however vicious the
title of that Company, ab initio, and however unwar-
rantable its proceedings in undertaking to deal with
private capitalists for the sale and occupation of lands,
having in the meantime no more substantial or recog-
nised title, the deficiencies of their original powers
roust be held to have been, afterwards, if not cured,
yet condoned, and so to speak, recognised by the
unpardonable carelessness of acts of the British Go-
vernment. What those acts were, and in what ex-
tent and degree the very serious responsibility for the
destruction of life and property, the sacrifice of capi-
tal, time, and health, the moral and social ruin con-
sequent on the proceedings of the New Zealand Com-
pany is to be apportioned between the New Zealand
Company and the home Government, we shall endea,
your, on an early day, to show.

Notwithstanding the boasting tone held by the
Agricultural Protection Society on its formation at
the commencement of the year, it has made up to the
present period but a sorry fight against the Anti-
Corn-law League. Its energies have evaporated in
mere words. Its roar—as Bottom, the weaver, would
say—has been that of " a sucking dove." When
first instituted, it confidently announced its expecta-
tions of being able to storm the League entrench-
ments—beard Mr. COBDEN in his " pride of place"

—and recover all the ground that had been lost
by Monopoly during the last four or five
Soars. But, instead of this, the Protection So-
' ciety has done little or nothing. It has indeed
" kept the word of promise to the ear," but it has
broken it "to the hope." Not a single blow more
serious than might be given by a lady's fan has it yet
inflicted on the Anti-Corn-.law-League, despite the
formidable array of Dukes, Lords, Baronets, and
Squires, that grace its muster-roll. Why is this ?
What occasions this humiliating failure on the part of
the self-vaunting Protection Society P The answer
may be given in a sentence. The common sense
and right feeling of the community are against it. In
vain it distributes tracts and pamphlets by the
thousand—in vain it makes speeches by the score—
its written and its oral eloquence alike fall
still-born on the public mind. "Wisdom crieth from
the housetops, and no man regardeth her." At a
meeting of this ill-starred Society, which took place
on Friday in Old Bond-street, Mr. MILES read the
first Annual Report of the Committee which fully
bears mit our views of the deplorable condition of
the Protectionists. Notwithstanding the ingenious
attempts made to conceal it, a tone of humility—we
might almost say, of despondency—breathes through
this Report, which satisfies us that the Society has
failed in all its efforts to extendgthe sphere of its own
influence, and reouse the popular feeling against the
League. Mark, for instance, the crest-fallen
spirit in which it alludes to the important
question of the Registration :—" Since the
rs:.ess, vur opponents have by t;:e4 min showing in
a great degree abandoned their itinerant lecturing,
and have mainly directed their exertions towards in-
creasing the votes of their particular party, thus turn-
ing the Anti-Corn-law League into one Registration
Club for the whole country.. The Borth Tull. of our
strite7 Prof 11:1tb
O
beliat ane,yir Late that thettir not the letter of the law,
g, n
spirit of the, Constitution regards