CORRESPONDENCE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume VI, Issue 430, 12 August 1851, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SOUTHERN CROSS." Mr. Editor, — In perceiving your observations on the Native Land question, and pondering the best manner of opening up the fine and fertile district of the Waikato, among others, to colonial industry, I have been forcibly struck by the silence you have maintained in the matter of certain purchases of land, said to have been recently effected with the natives in that locality. Surely, Mr. Editor, you cannot possibly be in ignorance that a portion of Native lands has been sold to two distinct Europeans, who both bargained for the same spot ? You cannot, surely, but know that this led the competing parties into dispute; and that, as the best manner of settling the controversy, both appealed to the friendly arbitration of the Surveyor General ; who, it is affirmed, threatened the pair with the tender mercies of the precious Ordinance you so justly denounce ? If you are ignorant of this, Mr. Editor, are you likewise ignorant that there are certain old land claimants in this province, whose claims were cast aside with Grey-like impertinence, and with an explanatory despatch (! !) to Lord Grey, that there was no existing commission for their investigation ? Are you in darkness of the fact that Lord Grey inflicted a merited wigging upon his spurious namesake, for his cool effrontery in refusing to investigate such claims ? — and that a peremptory mandate was issued to inquire into their justice ? Have you heard no whisper of that inquiry having been prosecuted, and of a favourable award having been pronounce'd ? I should be glad to have your reply to these queries, because if justice can be thus wrung by one or two outraged claimants, I can discover no reason why it should be withheld from any one of that long-suffering body. And, again, because if one or two parties may purchase with impunity on ' the Waikato, why^the Ordinance should operate any longer in terrorem of others equally anxious, but less bold in Native dealings. It is time, Mr. Editor, that talk should cease, and action commence j for, with a golden country within a week's sail, and with a poverty-stricken country closed, as this is, against every practical operation of its inhabitants, the speedy and inevitable result may-be readijy foreseen. I am &c. Busticus. August 9, 1851. [We have heard a whisper relative to the matters treated of by our correspondent; but in terms much too vague and indefinite to be effectively dealt with. If the statements be correct, we are at a loss to conceive upon what pretext the Surveyor General (the informer appointed by the Ordinance), can have overlooked, or winked at, the alleged transaction. Such a purchase is a- strong incentive to the general occupation of a territory so greatly calculated to benefit both the Native and the European farmer, and to advance the interests of New Zealand. If this iniquitous Ordinance,can be safely set at defiance by a few individuals, why not by

the community. at large? — especially when it has been rendered a complete' dead letter in the Southern Province : the settlers there squatting in every direction, in derision of such an atrocious Bill of Pains and Penalties. — Ed.]