The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-06-24 00:00:00

their attempt to colonize that island had never attempted
to pillage the natives, but bad made them an ample com-
pensation for the land purchased of them by setting apart
for them a certain reserve of land after it had been brought
into cultivation. The Colonial-office, however, thought
that its duty was discharged towards the savage when it
got for him a large price for his land, and had not taken
any measures to apply it to his future amelioration. He
then entered into a minute history of the injudicious pro-
ceedings of the colonial authorities in New Zealand, from
the time of the conclusion of the treaty of Vv'aitangi down
to the present time. He vindicated the conduct of the
New Zealand Company, and shewed that their settle-
ments had been founded on a scale of liberality and muni-
ficence hitherto unknown in the history of English colo-
nization. He then entered into a eiscussion of the land
question between Lord Stanley and the New Zealand
Company. He contended, in the words of the Select
Committee of last session, that the New Zealand Compa-
ny had a right to expect to be put in possession by the
government with the least possible delay of the number
of acres awarded to them, and that the company had that
right as against the estate of the crown, without reference
to the validity or otherwise of its supposed purchases from
the natives, all claims derived from which had been sur-
rendered. After condemning in the most severe terms
the conduct of Lord Stanley in having repudiated the en-
gagement into which Lord Joh❑ Russell had entered, and
in having broken his own, he called attention to the fact
that the New Zealand Company, after expending £300,000
of its own, and £300.000 more on credit obtained from
the public, had not yet obtained the grant of a single ccre
of land. Its capital was exhausted; its proceedings were
suspended ; and, what was worse, the unhappy emigrants
had been debarred from all access as owners to the land
which they had purchased with hard cash in England.
The crops which they had raised as cultivators, had been
set on fire, and their lives had been menaced ; and when
they had applied for redress to the Colonial-office, that
redress had been coldly and heartlessly refused. They
now apprehended a general massacre; and Captain Fitz
ro

)n whose eccentric conduct he animadverted with
great vehemence, bad prohibited them from arming to de-
fend themselves. The policy of that officer, who ought
never to have been sent out as the governor of such a co-
lony, had inspired the New Zealanders with overweening
confidence, and our countrymen with fierce resentment;
and the consequence would be that the first would perish
under the attacks of the last, as they would be no more
in the hands of Englishmen than mere children in the
hands of full grown men.
Mr. M. MILNEs seconded the motion.

Mr. HOPE commenc,d his observations by defending
Lord Stanley from the unjust aspersions cast upon him
by Mr. C. Buller. He denied that his Lordship was ii
fluenced by any hostility either to colonization or to
New 'Lea
the discussion of this Subject with that company in

and Compa

tiffs Lordship

all entered into

spirit of perfect fairness ; and as a proof that he had done
so, he (Mr. Hope) read a resolution of its directors,
signed by Mr. Somes as chairman, offering their acknow-
ledgements for the generous spirit in which his Lordship
bad done justice to the objects of the company, and their
cordial thanks for his readiness to concur in their mea-
sures for the government of New Zealand. He then
defended the policy of the treaty of Waitangi, and con-
tended that the right of the Crown to land in New Zea-
land did not arise so much from the right of discovery as
from the cession of its chiefs. He next proceeded to vin-
dicate Lord Stanley from the charges of fraud and deceit
and dereliction of duty, which bad been preferred against
him because he had made the company's title condi-
tional on the provii•g the legal validity of their purchases
of land from the natives before the island was a British
colony. He showed that the construction rut by Lord
Stanley on the agreement of November, 1840, was cor-
rect, and denied that Lord John Russell had ever given
an unconditional assignment of land to the company in
pursuance of that agreement. He was not prepared to
justify all the acts of Captain Fitzroy, but he was con-
vinced that in many cases Captain Fitzroy did himself in-
justice by the scanty information which be sent home.
He thought that Captain Fitzroy had done his best •o put

to justify that opittiou

be rear

several docur

_ , ... ..
had recently come into the possession of the Cokinal.
office. In reply to the allegation that the Colonial-office

was chargeable with all the disasters of the colony he in•
sisted that they were mainly attributable to the hasty
proceedings of the New Zealand Company in taking pos-
session of that island. The unfortunate massacre at
Wairau arose from the transactions forced upon their
agent by the precipitate conduct of the New Zealand
Company in seeking to obtain possession of a disputed
piece of land. He then proceeded to give an account of

the state of the colony according to the latest advices
which the Colonial-office had received. Mr. C. Buller
had furnished the House with an account of it, resting

general