ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume 3, Issue 151, 13 May 1848, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Southern Cross. Sir, — Last Saturday's Editorial article in the New Zealander, after alluding to the Taranaki land question, has these remarkable .words : — " This coupled with the Governor's satisfactory (?) 11 arrangement of the Company's other claims, ad' " ded to the practical revocation of Earl Gjey's " protested waste land instructions, must, we con- " ceive, go far to set the native mind at rest, con- " vincing them that whilst England will sanction no " spoliation of their, possessions, she will not, on •♦ the other hand, permit them to attempt iraudu- " lent resumption o? lands fairly purchased and ho- " ncstly paid for," The Editor who could -pen the latter part of this paragraph must be a very young hand in the colony, as^hc, appears to be tqtally ignorant of the matter on which he was attempting to write. How? the natives are to be satisfied that "England will sanction no ' spoliation' of their possessions, " because ■the "spoliation act" has been only suspended, I am at a loss to conceive ; and probably at the end of five years, when Earl Grey's " pensioner villages" have spread over the country, he or any other Secretary ot State may imagine wj3 may then be strong enough to carry out the " spoliation" which at piesent we dare hot attempt to do. When the New Zealander talks of " fraudulent resumption" on the part of the natives, he surely intended substituting " on the part of our own Government," for it is they who are fraudulently resuming the lands which have been " fairly purchased and honestly paid for," and not the nativeB. The Taranaki district was Bold by the natives to other Europeans before Mr. " Wide-a-wake" had landed there, bnt notwithstanding the Company's agent knew this, he " unfairly" bargained for the district, which he never honestly paid for, but " unfairly" claimed, in the eame way as the Wairau district, and indeed, the greater part of tbe Company's lands ; and it yet remains to be seen whether they are satisfactorily arranged, or not. I am, &c, M~. Auckland, May 10th, 1848.