Chap. H*. DISTANT LEGISLATION. 38^ 
rally supposed that they came from England imbued 
with that spirit of kindness and impartiality towards 
the Cook's Strait settlers which had distinguished 
Lord John Russell in his manly concessions to the 
Company at home. 
It was felt that nothing could be worse, in a political 
view, than the present state of things. It was now three 
months since a word of official correspondence from the 
seat of government at Auckland had reached either 
Colonel Wakefield or Mr. Murphy. It was known, 
through the Sydney papers, and by casual information, 
that a Council composed of a majority of Government 
officials, was legislating at Auckland for the whole colony : 
but the great numerical majority of the inhabitants had 
no opportunity of expressing their feelings or wants to 
this body, while the Governor and his obedient Parlia- 
ment could hardly be supposed to know anything of the 
desires or necessities of those for whom they were making 
laws. Besides this, it was known that profuse expen- 
diture, from which this part of the colony derived no 
benefit, was paving the way for a taxation of which it 
would have to bear its share. It was certain that 
jobbing, in its worst shapes, for the good of the official 
inhabitants, had been allowed to usurp the place of the 
necessary measures of real advantage to the country 
generally, in the decrees which had as yet issued from 
the proclamation metropolis. 
For nearly nineteen months the Governor had been 
promising, but omitting, to make that important visit to 
the principal part of the population which should surely 
have preceded his final choice of a site. And when the 
complaints of those whom he had thus neglected, and 
tantalized, and harassed, and oppressed, reached his ears, 
he had written letters condescendingly to *say, that he 
should soon bear down the " olive branch," and pacify 
the discontented insurgents. 
