BACK PAY TO THE WAIKATO REGIMENTS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXII, Issue 2676, 13 February 1866, Page 6

BACK PAY TO THE WAIKATO REGIMENTS.

To the Editor of the Daily Southern Cross. Sub, The great interest you have hitherto taken in defending the legitimate rights of the various Waikato regiments, and your having, from time to time, brought to exposure and to public notice the illegal treatment and flagrant breaches of faith which these regiments have been subjected to by Government, I consider it superfluous on my part to apologize for craving space in your journal for this letter. i The conditions under which those regiments were embodied in the month of August, 1863, are so clear and concise in every particular, that it is quite impossible to put any other construction on them, than appears prim& facie on the conditions themselves, so much so that even the most ignorant could not but understand them. The specific article under which the regiments lay their claim, and insist — and that with every reason — on being paid the back pay, reads, "They will be enrolled and required to serve in the militia in the province of Auckland, &c, until they are authorised by Government to take possession of their laud, when they will be relieved from actual service." Now, sir, you will observe that under that article these men were legally entitled to pay until they were so authorised, and that by proclamation ; and I am of opinion, as a duly qualified procurator and notary public in Scotland, that this proclamation, in addition to appearing in the Colonial Gazette, and public press, to become binding on all military settlers, should have been served on each regiment. If no such proclamation was issued, and no steps taken to acquaint the men of the same, until the period set forth in your Alexandra correspondent's letter, and your able leader which followed thereon, a few days since, the Colonial Government, I consider, are not only entitled in equity, but can be compelled in a court of law to issue the back pay, asked and demanded from the date the men were struck off pay, and placed on their land. The militia now in the doubtful possession of the confiscated lands, as you are aware, are subject by another article in the conditions to be called by proclamation to actual service, and, what is more, at any moment. In the present insecure state of the country, to bp «mrnri«:<vl hv thp natives, and no desire for peace having emanated from them, his Excellency Sir George Grey, I think could not legally free the militia, under the conditions from "actual service," or strike them off pay, until such time as the war ceased to exist, or at all events until the three years had expired. However, as the men do not look at or raise this question, and their desire being for pay only up to the date of the proclamation, it is not my duty to advise them. — I have, &c, Peurose, February 8, 1866. M. G. S.