NEW
ZEALAND

COLONY OF NEW ZEALAND.   101

authorized in   way to interfere with the New Zealand Land Company, or with settlers elauning under them.

My own measures in regard to the Company were reported in the despatches marked and dated as follow : No. 130, 12th Sept. 1840; No. 147, 6th Oct. 1840 No. 172, 29th Oct. 1840; No. 27, 29th Jan 1841.

I have, &c.

(signed)   Geo. Gipps.

No, 20.

Sir Geo. Gipps to

            Lord John Russell,

Government House,    Sydney, 28 March Russell,

28 March 1841.

I TRANSMIT herewith copies of documents, tending to show the intemperate haste with which the Company's settlers at Port Nicholson are ready to essail the government of Captain Hobson.

By these papers your Lordship will perceive that the company's settlers, though they have themselves obtained the whole of their own projected town, at the rate of 17. per acre, call in question the integrity of an arrangement, by which about half-a-dozen officers of government have been allowed to take each an allotment in the projected town of Auckland, at a rate which cannot possibly be less than 80/

per acre.

The complainants appear not to have been aware that the arrangement in question was sanctioned by myself.

The rate at which the officers are to pay for their allotments is the average obtained at auction for lots in their immediate vicinity, and in authorizing the arrangements, I expressly declared, that if a selection were made by any officer of an allotment of more than ordinary value, I would not confirm to him the possession of it.

— No. 20. —

(Sepnrate, No. 2.)

EXTRACT of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir George Gipps to

Lord John Russell.

10 Feb 1841.

Enclosure in No. 20.

This Excellency Sir George Gipps, &c. &c. &c.

Wellington, Port Nicholson, New Zealand,

May it please your Excellency,   10 February 1841.

We, the undersigned, settlers in New Zealand, and intending purchasers of town Iands in the township of Auckland, in New Zealand, beg to call the attention of yonr Excellency to certain proceedings counected with the proposed disposal of Iand in that township, deeply affecting our interests as well as those of the public,

By the government advertisment for the sale of town lands at Aucklund, it was stated that sections Nos. 3, 4, 7, 8, 16, 17. would be exposed to sale by auction; but we have since learned that severall allotments, comprising some of time most valuable lands in the township, have been reserved from such sale, and appropriated for the benefit of the subordinate officers of the government, and that these sections are to be paid for, not according to the price which even some of the less valuable Iots in their vicinity might command, but at the average price of half the town sections, and that a credit is to be allowed for the payment of the purchase-money until the sale of half the town.

We need nut, in addressing your Excellency, dwell upon the injustice of such an arrangement, the loss to the public revenue, the wrong done to fide purchasers, and the injury to the character of the government by which such measures have been proposed or sanctioned ; but we may venture to say, that such a proceeding is not less opposed to the instructions of her Majesty for the disposal of the Crown lands, than unprecedented in the history of neighbouring colonies. We could at first scarcely believe that such a proceeding could be contemplated, since we are assured that there is no one ground, either of policy or justice, upon which it con be defended.

We, however, rely with confidence upon the known character of your Excellency to free the government from the odimn, and ourselves front ths injustice, of such a measure, by instituting immediate inquiry into the subject, and by suspending the sale until such arrangements may have been made as will secure to the public the great benefit of open competition with regard to all the lands in that township.

We have, &c.

(signed)   Ridgways, Gayton, & Earp,

And 25 other gentlemen.

569

End. in No, 20.

NEW
ZEALAND.

For Sir G. Gippe's

No, 130 and

147, Papers relative to

New Zealand

ordered by the House

of Commons to be

Printed, 11 May 1841, No, 311 PP 79 and 128,

For No. 172 and 27, said

PP. 71 and 78 of this

volume.

No. 19.

sir Geo. Gipps to

L.aud John Russell,

28 March 1841.

No. 152,

9 Oct. 1840

No 175.

100   CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING THE

conduct that will be pursued towards   They cannot comprehend how that
measures so bealing and lement can be shown to them as towards Englishmen.

The tone of feeling manifested towards them by Englishmen, since the establishment of government, has not escaped their they are continually threatened with complaints, and assured that coercive measures will follow these complaints; from, and from the

usage,several very serious quarrels would taken place, but for kind interference of

Europeans; and here I would suggest that Europeans should be cautioned, not only to withhold their threat, but from for protection from government, white they continue the provoking first transgressors.

It will not escape his Excellency's notice, that incorrect (probably so) statements of government Acts of Legislative Council, remarks in newspaper, respecting the country, have given rise to much, of the present angry feeling and opposition apparent amongst the natives.

They cannot imagine why the government should keep them ignorant of thew acts, and cannot but view those as friends who communicale them. They have repeatedly required that publicity should be given to everything done in whirl they are so deeply interested.

it is impossible to keep them of the posing events of the day, and it would be much safer to pass them through the of goverment than a the garbled state they

must meet their ears. from people not only very partially with the language, but

in many casts to the government The rapid the natives are making in civilization will appear not only from the extent of their cultivations, but from the fact,

that there was scarce a village through which we passed that had not its village school and in every place the sanctity of the Sabbath strictly observed. There is a thirst for rending, and continued applications for books. In the Thames and Wackald there are

thousand native who can and are being taught to read and write Great crimes

are heard of but from among those who to their native and

then Wars have generally and cannibalism is spoken of with abhorrence.
The very Intelligent remarks that are continually made, slow them to be a people for

removed from that barbarism which interested and have represented them to he in, and in which it might be convenient to place them. Their sober, orderly, respectful, and faithful habits too plainly show that there is more excellence in them than there is to he found in the bulk of our own countrymen. I would not here be understood to be

my is to correct a prevailing error arising from ignorance of the language and

of the natives in this remark, and to prevent a growing disgust in my countrymen to the of this country, who are capable of high moral and intellectual The apprehensions of the natives as to the future are too apparent from every communication and converse held with them.

One rash, step, and the whole country is involved in trouble and ruin ; conci-

liatory such as have happily marked the first year of his Excellency's government, and lasting and a most part of the community secured, not only from run but to the British Government: and though it cannot be hid from his

Excellency that the seeds of discord have and are being sown among the natives, yet it is

a real pleasure to that they have their best in the peaceable lives of their Christian in the practical lessons they are duly inculcating, and above all is the high, honourable, and humane principles on which Her Majesty's Government

and purposes continuing the colonization of New Zealand.

The &c. &c. &c.   (signed)   Grorge Clarke, P.A.
New Zealand.

— No.19—

(No. 82.)

COPY of a DESPATCH front Governor Sir Georqe Gipps to Lord John Russell.

Government House, Sydney,

My Lord,   28 March 1841.

I HAD the honour to rector yesterday, by the ordinary post, your Lordship's despatch of the 21st November 1840, No. 174, directing me to defer, until I

receive further orders, the execution of any powers which I may have derived under the Act of Council, passed in this colony in July Iast, for the investigation of claims to grants of land in New Zealand.

The extent to which I have already acted, in pursuance of the powers vested in me by that Act, have been reported to your Lordship in the despatches marked in the margin.

The Commissioners are now employed in New Zealand in the investigation of claims, but I hove not yet received any reports from them; and I beg to state that it never was my intention to confirm any of their reports, or execute any deed for land in New Zealand, until the Act of Council referred to should have been by Her Majesty's approval.

I also to inform your Lordship that the Commissioner have not been authorized