The Sun. — 1845-02-01 (London, England)

OUR UTTERLY DEFENCELESS STATE, AND THE NON-SETTLEMENT OF THE LAND CLAIMS, AND WAS LOUDLY CALLED UPON TO DO JUSTICE ON THE MURDERERS. In all this I could only take a very modified part. Agreeing in the necessity for protection, and unable to divine why our Governor should never come near us, but fix his seat of government at such a distance that we sometimes had intelligence from England of as late a date, nor why the Commissioner for settling the land claims should defer until the last those which were most important from the numbers, whose interests were involved in his decisions, I still thought the expedition unnecessary hazardous, and sure, in case of any disaster, to be disavowed by the Government. Unnecessary, because, unlike our friends at Wellington, we had undisturbed possession of more land than we could beneficially occupy ; hazardous, beeause the chiefs to be apprehended were powerful and uncivilised, and unlikely to submit quietly to a proceed ing which, according to native customs, at once de . graded them from their rank ; and sure to be blamed by Government, if it failed, because it took upon itself to act where they had hung back, and where its failure would be brought forward as their justification for so doing. At last arrived Governor Fitzroy, with his mind evidently made up beforehand to consider the natives as ill-used and oppressed, IN WHICH HE WAS WRONG ; and to consider our conduct as rash, hasty, and republican, in which, perhaps, with the exception of the last charge, which was ludicrous, he was right. He at once superseded our local authorities, and appointing as police magistrate a fellowpassenger, in a very flattering manner put me into the commission of the peace by myself, although he afterwards added two or three more names. On leaving us he proceeded to the other island, and after an interview with the native chiefs in question, decided that he would take no further steps in - the matter. His published reasons were that the settlers had acted illegally, and that the natives had done no more than was customary with them after a fight ; nay, less, for although they killed, they did not eat their prisoners. His private reasons were supposed to be a great desire to conciliate the natives, THE INADEQUATE NATURE OF THE FORCE AT HIS COMMAND, and his:belief that a general war would take place, and the colony be destroyed. As to the legality of the act, it was argued that the police magistrate had received the approbation of Government for the very same conduct on a similar occasion before ; and that his duty was to punish and not to palliate their enormities : that he could have procured any amount of force from Sydney, and that nothing could inure directly tend to stop colonization than the knowledge that these murders were left not only unpunished, but not even legally inquired into ; and that by the natives his conduct would be ascribed to fear, and their own behaviour be much in• fluenced by such a belief. Since then the Governor has been busy at Auckland, making laws, and trying to raise a larger revenue (a hopeless task, now the New Zealand Company's expenditure has ceased), until the other day, when he refused to confirm the Commissioner's decision, that the Company's title to New Plymouth was good, and after their three years' toils, offered to compensate the settlers by land at Auckland. On this point there is but one opinion, that his conduct is indefensible. Altogether I look on him as a very conscientious, religious, hard-working, positive man ; well-informed, touchy, too much disposed to treat us as his subjects, and altogether, perhaps, hardly of sufficient calibre for so difficult a situation.  To return to the Company's affairs. Shortly after poor Capt. Wakefield's death, I was very near being appointed agent in his place, had it not been thought advisable to appoint somebody entirely unconnected with the settlement, which was done. Since the❑ various attempts have been made, by task-work, lowering the wages, and graduating them according to families (a pauper system), to force the labourers to cultivate for themselves, as the settlers could not employ them, and they were beginning to re-emigrate in numbers—about 350 up to the present time. Thus matters went on until a week back, when the Nelson arrived,