The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-10-28 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The intelligence from New Zealand, published in the Morning
Herald of Saturday last, was given in our columns on the
previous Tuesday.
In a few of our earlier impressions one or two articles were un-
fortunately put to press without being corrected.
" A Railway Speculator " should consult an attorney. Every
shareholder who has signed the deed, even for a single share,
is liable for the common debts of the company, whatever sti-
pulation to the contrary the deed may contain; and the liabi-
lity on'y ceases on the act of parliament being obtained.

Ebt Eibtrpoot otalilJarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 28, 1345

Our contemporary of the London Times appears
rather disposed to create a war panic out of the re-
cent news from China by the last East India mail ;
and in so doing, uses language towards a friendly
foreign power, which is certainly very unseemly in
its tone, coming as it does from the leading journal
of Europe. The ground upon which he proceeds
is an intimation from his private correspondent, that
the Island of Hong Kong, in exchange for which
we gave up, under the provisions of the Pottinger
treaty, our first conquest, Chusan, has proved a use-
less acquisition, unfit for trading operations, and so
unhealthy as to be almost a charnel house for the
troops stationed there, one-third of whom are car-
ried off yearly. (By the bye, we may state hers, in
reference to the alleged unfitness of Hong Kong
for trading operations, that the mail just arrived
brought the news that, between the departure of
last mail and that of the previous one, the number
of vessels belonging to Liverpool alone, arrived at
and sailed from that port, was twenty-one--an
increase upon our past trading operations.) In
the meantime, that French diplomatists are in•
triguing for the possession of Chusan, as soon
as the British give up possession of it next year,
their object being to out-general us in our re-
lations with China. Such an acquisition, on the
part of France, he argues, would surely, and almost
necessarily, bring us into a hostile collision both
with China and with France, upon the result of
which, after some disparaging and taunting remarks
upon the past want of success of that power in her
colonization projects, he expresses himself in the
following irritating terms : . .
. .

" FrariCe has sent out many embassies, many missions,
many colonies, many expeditions. Where are the results ?
Scan the terrestrial globe, turn it round and round, trace
the shores, scan the oceans. Scarce one result is left.
Let France send her frigates and war steamers. Let her
occupy Chusan with 20,000 men. Let her spend millions
in fortifications, in posts, in cordons, and enceintes.
Bootless and ridiculous inhumanity ! To little purpose
have you so cruelly disfigured the bosom of that peaceful
sea! Something unpleasant happens at home ;—our re-
lations are unhappily disturbed, and Chusan is ours.
" It is in vain for you to establish outposts fourteen
thousand miles from your European citadel. We shall
carry on the war from India, as we did before. What is
your point d' appui, what your resting-place between
Cherbourg and Chusan ? Sic vos non vobis. We shall
quietly occupy your forts, your harbours, your palaces,
your theatres, your hotels. We can afford to be just,
and leave China to deal with Chusan as her own discre-
tion and good taste may suggest."
Most certainly we should ourselves be sorry to
see Chusan in the posses ion of the French, and,
except for some undefined and unaccountable pur-
pose of annoyance, we can see no interest which she
can have in such an acquisition. A commerce with
China, large enough to require a station for its pro-
tection, she has not, and, from her position and the
nature of her wants and her exports, she never can
have. The British nation also would view the transfer
of Chusan to French occupation with no pleasura-
ble feelings; and remembering the fact, that in our
last collision with her, it was in the East that the
Emperor Napoleon calculated upon inflicting upon
us the most telling blow, might be provoked to re-
sent such transfer. But it was surely possible to
express the distaste with which the acquisition of
Chusan by France would be received, without in-
dulging in language only calculated to bring upon
us, before the necessity for it arrives, the asperity of
her press, and to stir up again amongst her impa-
tient and irritable people, the intermittent war fever
to which they are so liable. If, as 'I he Times says,
" we can afford to be just, and leave China to deal
with Chusan as her own discretion and good taste
may suggest," we can surely as well afford to he
civil to both China and France, pending the exercise
of that discretion and goad taste. Has the railway
panic showed symptoms of turning out a failure,
that the Times so eagerly endeavours to bolster it

up with a war panic ?
With one suggestion of the letter, upon which
our contemporary founds this irritating tirade, we
perfectly agree. Hong Kong, it seems, is useless,
or worse. Three of the other ports acquired by us,
under the provisions of the Pottinger treaty, viz.,
Amoy, Foo-choo-Foo, and Ningpo, are worthless as
places of trade, more of which is carried on by the
British at Chusan in a month than in those three
places in a year. The climate moreover of the lat-
ter place, originally thought unhealthy, is now
known to be most salubrious. Under these circum-
stances an able diplomatist ought to be sent out to
China to negotiate with the Emperor for the conti-
nued occupation of Chusan, and to remove, by all
means in his power short of the sacrifice of honour,
anything which may bring about the interruption of
our present amicable relations with a people, from
whose commerce we have derived and are deriving
such large advantages.

The rumours of dissensions in the cabinet have
become so rife that we are almost compelled to be-
lieve that there is some truth in them, although we
cannot bring ourselves to think that any hesitation
of the Duke of Wellington, as to the mode in which
the present corn-law is to be dealt with, can be
their cause. In a case of difficulty such as that
into which we are about to he thrown by the failure
of the potatoe crop and the deficient yield and qua-
lity of our wheats, the Duke of Wellington is not
the man to hesitate in cutting the Gordian knot.
The course to be taken by government in the en-
suing session upon that vital question we intimated
our conviction last week, when remarking upon a
passage of Lord Ashley's letter to his constituents,
is already settled ; and our opinion is confirmed by
a more recent admission of the fact by one of the
ablest advocates of the agricultural interest, Mr.
Bickham Escott ; and from the lips of that gentle-
man we are glad to learn that the agriculturists are
prepared to meet the difficulties of their position
with stout hearts and a determination to surmount
them.

" I think," said Mr. Escott, at an Agricultural dinner
on Wednesday last, " the change is inevitable, but I do
not despond for the result. (Cheers.) It is true, things
might have been better if we could have foreseen all that
has happened. Late last session I gave notice for the ad-
mission of Indian corn (the very best food for stock), free
of duty. Oh, if that measure could have been carried
last session, what a blessing would it have been for the
country ! (' Hear,' and ' No.') I hear some gentlemen
dispute that opinion. Now, consider for a moment. We
import the fat beast and give the Dutch grazier the pro-
fit, and the Dutch farmer the manure. Why on earth
should we not import the food which is to fatten our own
(hundreds were starving last March and April), and keep
to ourselves the profit of the grazier, and nourish our own
crops with the increased manure ? (Loud cheers, and
cries of "Ilat's common sense.') Common sense, says
some gentleman; yes, it is, indeed, common sense; and
that is what the Secretary of State has said of the wise
course in which we are proceeding. Lord Ashley is, in-
deed, right on one point ; when the leading men of all
parties are agreed to support common sense, it must be
very uncommon nonsense that can prevail against them.
(Laughter and cheers.) I have thought it right to speak
openly. I have wondered how it is that at so many of
these dinners so little or nothing is said of the great ques-
tion. One recommends better farming, another advises
the granting of leases, but both forget the facts that better
farming requires capital and security (great cheering), and
the other fact, that the security of leases can never be ge-
nerally obtained while there is uncertainty about these
laws of importation. (Cheers.) Let us all, then, endea-
vour to meet the times, not by concealing the truth, but
by preparing for its inevitable conclusions ; it will be thus
that temporary difficulties will be surmounted, as they
have been surmounted before, by the kindness and consi-
deration of some, by the energy and unfettered enterprise
of others, and for myself, I feel very grateful that you, to
whom I owe no public allegiance, and have no concessions
to make or votes to regret, have allowed me to express to
men, whom I respect, something of my own convictions
on the great public question of the day.
The whole company then rose and cheered tumultu-
ously for some minutes."
There is honesty in the heart of England—ho-
nesty in the breasts of the lords and tillers of her
soil—when she can exhibit the proud spectacle of
men thus throwing down their long-cherished pre-
judices and fears, at the call of their country's ne-
cessity. The selfish leaguer, who sought, for his
own interest alone, the adoption of the policy now
resolved upon, and submitted to unrepiningly by
those upon whose interests it will most immediately
press, can surely now afford to be charitable, when
speaking of the motives of such men. They may
not have foreseen the emergency to which the
country was destined to be hurried, or, at least, the
time at which it was to arrive. We question if the
league itself did. They have, however, evinced
their readiness to bow to that which the public weal
has now, in their opinion, demanded of them. We

shall see if the manufacturing interests, represented
by that body, will so cheerfully make the same sub-
mission. It must be made. If the farmer supplies
the workers at the loom and the spindle with cheap
food, the farmer and the farm-labourer must have
cheap clothing.
We cannot, with these facts in view, conceive that
it is anything connected with the corn-laws which
has created the alleged disagreements in the cabi-
net—say, rather, is it not that " chief difficulty" of
Sir Robert Peel's administration—the policy to be
pursued towards Ireland ? Time will tell.

In our last publication, we were the first to an-
nounce to the public the distressing fact, that a
serious collision had taken place between the natives
of New Zealand and the British forces; in which,
although one native chief had been taken prisoner,
the ultimate issue had been anything but satisfac-
tory, or calculated to sustain the prestige of our
power as a nation in the eyes of the New Zealand
tribes. We believe that more recent dates, which
have since been received in London, fully confirm
the information which we ourselves communicated,
although we have not their details before us, further
than a representation, contained in the Auckland
Times of the 24th of May—our latest dates were to
the 17th—that the capture of the chief, Pomare, had
not been effected in a way quite consonant with
British notions of honour. "He is said," reports
our contemporary, " to have-been desired to give an
interview to Colonel Hulme, upon which he was
surrounded and detained by the troops."
We cannot consider such a procedure one of which
an Englishman ought to be proud, and, for the cre-
dit of the British army, we trust it is untrue ; it is
one, however, which is too much in character with
the lawless manner with which the country in which
it occurred was originally settled by the New Zealand
Company, without the authority of the British
crown being first established there, and to avert the
consequences of which the treaty of Waitangai was
negociated, by which such authority was fully re-
cognised by the native chiefs. That even this step,
however, was not of itself sufficient to meet the dif-
ficulties certain to arise, from the grasping propen-
sities of the settlers on the one hand, and the awa-
kened jealousies of the natives on the other, was
predicted by many who had watched the past course
of British colonization ; and it was urged from time
to time on the Colonial-office to take effective mea-
sures for the establishment in the islands of a settled
form of civil government, protected by a powerful
military force, as the only means by which the dis-
asters likely to arise to the emigrants themselves, by
the existence of a lawless state of society, could be
averted. To carry out these sound views has been
the policy of the present governor and the Colonial-
office ; and the obstinacy with which their plans
have been opposed, and the provisions of the Wai-
tangai treaty attempted to be broken in their deal-
ings with the natives, by the New Zealand Company
and their settlers, ought to have warned the authori-
ties at home of the necessity of a stronger force than
that at present in New Zealand to repress the dis-
turbances which for some time have been antici-
pated, and were distinctly predicted, in his admirable
speech on Mr. C. Buller's motion, by the honourable
and gallant member for Liverpool, Sir H. Douglas :
" The honourable and learned member for Liskeard,"
remarked Sir Howard, " had spoken of the treaty with
great levity. Perhaps the New Zealanders as a body, may
not exactly have known what a treaty meant, or under-
stood anything of international law upon which it pro-
ceeded • but their chiefs did. Right or wrong, the treaty
was made, it exists, and its provisions and stipulations are
now well understood by the New Zealand people. It
established in New Zealand the sovereign power of Eng-
land. The natives know well the rights it secured to
them ; the august name of the Sovereign of these realms
and the character of this country, are pledged to that peo-
ple, that the treaty will he faithfully observed. No mea-
sure—no course of proceeding—no policy that does not
observe the utmost good faith in respect to that treaty,
can be pursued without the most serious consequences.
The least infraction of that treaty—the least indiscretion
committed now, with reference to native titles and rights,
would unquestionably lead to the most serious and de-
plorahl- results. The military force at present in New
Zealand is inadequate to any emergency ; the interior
circumstances and features of the country are, in a military
sense, formidable; and the habits and character of the
natives, are such as require, if once roused, very consi-
derable increase of force; and of other descriptions than
infantry to suppress anything like a general insurrection,
and desultory movements ; and I know not why I should
not now state the fact, that there is not a field gun, nor
one single artillery soldier in the whole of the South
Australian colonies." _ _ .

With warnings such as these before them, coming
from so high an authority upon the subject of Co-
lonial policy, and their fulfilment, almost to the let-
ter, so closely following them, it is clear that Go-
vernment can no longer defer attending to the press-
ing necessities of the case. We look with intense
anxiety for the next arrivals, and fear much that we
may hear of further collisions between the Natives,
encouraged by the partial success of the Chief
Heki, and the proportionately dispirited Settlers, of
a character which may impede the prosperity and
growth of the Colony for years to come. As the
first step the prestige of British power must be re-
established in the eyes of the people, by the presence
in the Islands of a Military force, large enough to
overawe the disaffected Chiefs and their followers.
After this is fully effected, a firm and impartial Go-
vernment should be erected, to whom both parties
may look with confidence, for justice in the settle-
ment of their conflicting claims. Perhaps it may be
even necessary, and we are not certain that it would
not be politic, to determine the power of the New
Zealand Company altogether by the withdrawal of
their grants, with proper compensation, and to
commence the work of Colonization de novo, exist-
ing interests and titles, legitimately obtained, being
respected.

We have been able to coincide in the justice of
many of the opinions expressed by the Times
" Commissioner", with respect to the causes and
the proper remedies for Irish misery and disorgani-
zation : and for his many valuable facts the country
has reason to be grateful to him. He has occasion-
ally, however, confined himself too closely to surface
observation ; and his conclusions, where such has
been the case, are necessarily superficial, and, at
times, wide from that truth which he would have
attained if he had praed deeper.
An instance of this is to be found in a recent
latzr dated " Galway, Oct. 12," in which he thus