The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-17 00:00:00

objects of their government are the maintenance of I
peace all over the world, while in almost every
quarter of the globe emissaries are sent forth to ex-
cite disturbance. The islands of the Pacific Ocean
are, at the present moment, in a state of the utmost
confusion, caused by the French. The whole Medi-
terranean coast of Africa is up in arms against
France, if we except Tunis. Egypt is in a state of the
utmost uncertainty. The old brave man has given up
the reins of government to his profligate son, who is sup-
ported by the French, and, in case of a war with
England and France,he would at once declare against
England. But these petty Powers on the African
coast are nothing in the scale. They are mere ad-
juncts to the relations between France and England.
The proceedings of the French in that quarter, how-
ever, show what is their intention. LOUIS PIIILIPPE
is anxious to live at peace with England, yet
JOINVILLE, and BROUAT, and D'AUDIGNY, are
doing everything in their power to excite the
English people against the French. The
bombardment of Tangiers is .a novel feature in a
period of peace, and it is the more remarkable that
it takes place when the Sovereign of France is about
to pay a friendly visit to the Queen of ENGLAND.
We are at a loss to understand the policy of the
King of the FRENCH. He professes to be on the
best terms with the English Government, while every
measure he takes is in direct opposition to his profes-
sions. lie is encouraging the opposition journals
of France to excite the people against England ; he
is encouraging his spn.
_to attack an ally of England ;
he is making great demonstrations along the Mediter-
ranean shore, all injurious to the trade and influence
of England ; yet his Government professes that their
only object is to preserve the peace of the world.
We are reluctant to express any unfavourable
opinion of Louts PHILIPPE, but at the same time we
must state that his present policy is likely to bring
on an universal war, and destroy all the glories of
his peaceful reign.

It is becoming a question of daily increasing in-
terest, " What limits do our Ministers intend to assign
to the uncertainty, the timidity, and the vexations of
their scheme of colonial government ?" The very
genius of mismanagement appears to have established
itself in some of the bureaux in Downing-street—
Jamaica languishes under the want of coloured free
labour. It is agreed, on all hands, that the only effi-,
cient course which can be taken to relieve her from
thin condition of agricultural paralysis into which she
has fallen, owing: to the almost entire withdrawal
from work of the emancipated black population, is
for the Crown to sanction and encourage the immi-
gration of labourers accustomed to tropical heats, and
exposure to the varieties of climate which these gene-
rate. Two plans for drafting such immigrant labour
into these islands are proposed to the Colonial-office ;
the one, by importing native coolies from Bengal ;
the other, by inviting free Africans from the British
settlement at Sierra Leone, or the countries in-its
vicinity, on that part of the African coast. The
Colonial-office halted so long before it could bring
itself to approve either the one or the other of these
experiments, that the resident planters and owners in
our West India Islands were compelled warmly to
remonstrate on the unnecessary aggravation of their
sufferings which ensued from this postponement of a
remedy. The plea of difficulty in dealing with a
proposition of so much novelty, was answered by
reference to the fact of the successful issue of such a
system of coolie immigration in the Mauritius and in
Demerara. When, at length, permission to adopt it
in the case of Jamaica had been coldly and tardily

conceded, the permission was found to be clogged
with so many obstacles and restraints and vexations,
that it was almost useless to those for whose welfare
it was intended. With the fortune of every other
boon which Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Government has
ever granted, this, also—there is too much reason to
fear—will have been yielded too late. It has been so
ungraciously and so long withheld, that it has not
been productive, as yet, of anythini,iike the degree
of alleviation which must have been experienced
from its earlier concession. But if Jamaica an
other of our West Indian possessions have reason to
complain of the supineness, or the wrongheadness of
the Colonial Department in one particular, some of
' our new establishments in Australia, in the Pacific,
and in parts of the world somewhat less remote, have
equal grounds for considering themselves aggrieved.
I by a course of action on the part of the Colonial
Minister that is neither protective, nor conciliatory,
nor just; but that it is calculated, on the contrary.
to exhaust the energies of the colonies which it con-
trols, in unsupported efforts to consolidate their own
strength and resources ; and to involve them in un-
seemly squabbles with the Government of the mother
country. In this latter category we may include the
noble island of Ceylon, and the important islands of
New Zealand. Our present business is with the
latter. _ _ _

In the whole history of our colonial settlements, we
know of none which has been treated by the present
Government—and, We must add, by its predecessors
—with more of neglect and apathy at one time,
more of disingenuousness and fatuity at another, that,
New Zealand. Neither the Government of Lord
MELBOURNE, nor that of Sir ROBERT PEEL, seems
to have ever made up its mind to the policy which it
became this country to adopt towards these fine and
improvable islands. If other States—Holland, for
example—had been disposed to contest our possessory
title, British Administrations seem to have gone out
of their way to afford them means and opportunity
for doing so, by the indifference and indecision with
which, during a very long interval after the disco-
veries of Coox, acting on the hints of TASMAN, they
regarded all propositions for settling and cultivating
these two islands of New Zealand. No jurist, we
apprehend, can feel any substantive difficulty about
the soundness of our preferable title to them; but
Lord JOHN RUSSELL himself always appeared as
disinclined to raise this preliminary question as Lord
STANLEY seems to be. Why, we are at a loss to di-
vine. If these Ministers have acted upon principles
of supposed exposed expediency, they have been
egregiously deceived.. Their forbearance has only
opened a door for the sub-negotiation, if we may so
call it, of French and other land speculators with
native chiefs who were already in immediate rela-
tions of amity with, and dependence upon, us. Had
we stated more broadly, from the first, our preten-
-dons (which cannot be questioned, so long as all the
precedents are to enure, that are relied on, by European
nations for the right of territorial occupation in newly
discovered tracts of waste or savage country), there
would have been such an ascertained proprietary
principle established by the Government, as against
all incomers, as must have preventei those conflicting
claims in respect of lands, conceived to be already
ceded or transferred, by sale and purchase, to the New
_Zealand Company, which resulted, the other day, in
the bloody conflict of Wairau, and the death of Captain
WAKEFIELD and many other English settlers. It is
clear, from the circumstances of that disastrous ren-
contre, that the native chiefs had either never parted
with the lands they were required to surrender to the
parties who should purchase them of the New Zea-
land Company, or did not understand the delegated
title of a private corporation holding under the
Crown to which they* themselves acknowledged a
willing allegiance. Now, instead of repairing this
anomalous and dangerous state of things, the Colonial
Department, and her MAJESTY'S Government in
general, seem pre-occupied by a taste for per-
forming the comedy of She Would and She
Would Not. They will not exercise that right
of sovereignty which consists in giving titles to
parcels of the soil set out for sale to British subjects ;
hut they will not, on the other hand, repudiate the
fact of that sovereignty.
How grievously this feeble and injudicious waver-
ing must operate on the interests of the New Zealand
Society, was very forcibly demonstrated at a special
Court of the Proprietors, held yesterday, at their
house in Broad-street buildings. The report read to
this meeting by the secretary contained the following
passage :—" We are prepared to issue orders for land
in any' of the' settlements, not doubting ourselves,
after the award of the tribunal to which the questions
between this Company and the Colonial-office were
referred, that you may safely rely on the justice of
her Majesty's Government and Parliament for ob-
taining, sooner or later, the grants from the Crown to
which the Committee of-the House of Commons has
declared you to be entitled." We fear that this is a
begging of the question. What is the value of de-
Clarations and recommendations of Committees of
inquiry appointed by the House of Commons, when
the Government, at pleasure, treats them in that