The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News. THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1873.

Auckland Star, Volume IV, Issue 1041, 22 May 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News.

THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1873.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance,

And the good that wo oan do,

Murder is murder whether by white man or black, and recreant in its trust is the Government that will on any grounds condone wilful bloodshed within its jurisdiction. That a man has grounds for irritation, and wreaks his vengeance in consequence with homicidal hand, is no palliationof murder by a white man, and the difference in the colour of skin makes no difference in the colour of the bloodguiltiness. While therefore it is the bounden duty of the Government to avenge the death of Sullivan, and bring the murderers to justice, ib is not inopportune to glance at the causes that have led to this outrage, so that while the evil of Maori outrage is being put down once and for ever we may also look in the face another growing evil of only secondary importance as regards the advance of settlement in the North Island. It is quite unnecessary for ns to say that these outrages and the chronic discontent among the natives arise from the extension of pakeha occupancy, whether in the form of freehold or leasehold of lengthened duratipn. And among ua generally it is regarded as quite the proper thing that we should rejoice at the extension of such occcupancy, and every new block of twenty thousand acres of land acquired from the natives is announced as a fresh advance of settlement, and as the yielding of savagery to civilization. So far has this feeling gone, fostered by our natural antipathy to Maori isolation, that it has been elevated quite to the dignity of cant, and the statement, let the native titlo be extinguished any way, is allowed to go unchallenged. We have no doubt we shall be regarded as saying something very horrible when we say that so far as the future settlement and prosperity of the province and colony are concerned we should rather see the lands remaining for many years to come in the hands of the Hauhaus than see them passing, as they have been passing, in huge blocks into the hands of our fellow-coloDists. There has not been a month for a long time past in which we have not been called upon to rub our hands and chuckle over the fact that a block of so many scores of thousand acres has been surveyed, and sold or leased to Mr So-and-so. Now, we ask, is the public fully aware of the bar to settlement that is here being raised up. Any one that has resided for any length of time in Victoria, New South Wales, or Queensland, must be aware of the intense agrarian agitation with which public feeling has been vexed, and the terrific struggles that have been found necessary by the people in order to prevent the whole country being swallowed up by capitalists, either for speculation or to turn those fertile lands into sheep and cattle runs. This has always been the great ground of struggle in the neighbouring colonies, and despite the training which years of struggle have given to the popular mind, the popular party has barely been able by the most stringent legislation to prevent whole territories from being swallowed up, through the various subterfuges of dummyism and personation, by persons who, fencing round these principalities with posts and rails, bar them for ever against the intrusion of population. And this is just what has been proceeding in this province under oUr very eyes, and entirely unchallenged; and by-and-bye we shall wake up some morning and find that while we have been singing jubilate over the retrocession of the native power, we have been establishing a monopoly in land, against the bulwarks of which the storms of popular agitation will lash in vain. We know that this view will be exceedingly distasteful to many, but for this we do not care a pin's point. We see the danger ahead, and we feel that the public should be awake to it. We are quite aware of all the old Australian worn-out replies to those opposed to the absorption of huge tracts of country for unproductive occupancy. Capitalists will sell them in portions; they will cut them up in farms; they will employ labour; they will increase consumption.

of dutiable articles and so forth. But they will do nothing of the sort. At least they have done nothing of the sort in Australia; but these huge wastes of pasture land have cramped settlement, and have been an insolent defiance to those who have felt keenly and laboured hard fcr the general welfare. In the colony of Natal, in South Africa, so ruinous did this become that the Legislature was absolutely under the necessity of borrowing money, and buying back the alienated lands for settlement to prevent utter collapse. Neither need we go beyond the province of Nelson in our own colony for an illustration of the evil. Already t enortfimis tracts of lan din the Northl Island have fallen into the hands of capitalisitkat the smallest of cost, and we'do )tiiot hesitate to say that the " peace policy," such as it has now proved itself to be, has been exactly calculated to foster this quiet and noiseless absorption of land. The resistance offered by the native owners has been just enough to deter the great body of the people from obtaining land, but has not been sufficient to resist the persevering pressure, the half blandishment, half compulsion of those who have been prepared to risk money for an almost certain enormous gain in the future. The acquiring of these lands has been reduced to a science, and as wegradually advance on Maori territory these speculators will keep twenty miles ahead picking out the eyes of the country; and the subsequent advance of settlement will simply confirm the position and enhance the value of principalities so acquired. It is an admitted fact that the < heaviest curse that can burthen any young colony is a large quantity of alienated, but unimproved and comparatively unproductive land, and this is the very curse that we are bringing on our own heads while we rejoice at every acquisition of twenty, fifty, or a hundred thousand acres. Whatever may bo tho connection of "Sullivan's murder with the advance of this system, it does not in any way affect the duty of running the murderers at any cost to earth. The safety of the settlers in the Waikato is absolutely dependent on this systematic and murdering policy being put down*;for ever, and the Government that would hang back in this crisis, whatever bei the cost in blood or treasure, should go down in history with execrations. But we do trust that when the trouble is over, .provision .will be made that these vast tracts- of -<s6nntry, instead of passing into private hands without any conditions of cultivation, will be guarded for bond fide settlement whenever Maori owners feel it to be their interest to lease or sell. Mr McLean's " peac;? policy," as we have said, has worked in such a way as to thoroughly play into tho hands of this objectionable class. Tho rupture of that policy, and the settlement of the pending Maori questions by the arbitrament of the sword will tend, we have no doubt, to bring the general public and "bond fide settlers, either directly or through the Government, into immediate contact with theso lands, and as such we do not hesitate to say that war will be about the very best thing that could happen for the extension of bond fide settlement. The burthen of our public debt will press very heavily on colonists if there are not large accessions to our population, and beyond a question this sub rosd acquisition of huge tracts of country by private persons, which Mr McLean's policy has so fostered, would be that which of all possible e.vils would present the most insuperable barrier to satisfactory colonization.