A VINDICATION.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4002, 20 June 1870, Page 4

A VINDICATION.

Referring to the sweeping charges uttered by Mr. Rolleston, of Canterbury, and reiterated by the Lyttelton Times, against the colonists in the North Island, of trading upon war, the Wellington Post says : — "We have not the smallest hesitation in saying that such sweeping assertions are foul slanders on the colonists of this island, and a disgrace to any journal which gives utterance to them. In every place which has undergone the misfortune of having been the theatre of war, there have been found individuals who have thriven on the miseries of their fellow men ; from the contractors who drive a lucrative trade in supplying commissariat down to the repulsive wretches who prowl about the battle-fields, and plunder the dead and dying ; and no doubt there have been individuals hero who have benefited largely by war expenditure : but that the colonists of the North Island or any considerable portion of them have either profited by war, or dcs red it, we utterly deny. So far from having grown rich, ' these people ' have grown poorer and poorer — tho war has been a millstone round their necks—a stumbling block in the path of their advancement, from which they have long most earnestly desired to free themselves. The South has only had to contribute oertain aums of money towards war expenses, but in addition to this we have had to submit to all the aotiml evils of war present among us."