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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 4, Issue 190, 11 May 1861, Page 5

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To the Editor of the Haioke's Say Herald. Sic, — In your last week's paper appear editorial remarks touching the question of the demand made by the natives for what you call " grass money." From wliich we are to gather, that it is by no means a matter of surprise to you, as aa editor, that the Natives exhibit a most decided determination to extract the uttermost farthing from us then* amiable and forbearing instructors, for it lias become singularly apparent to the pupil that their teachers practically illustrate their theory regarding the difference between mine and thine by unmercif ally lilching one another upon the smallest occasion. As for one example out of many which I could give in support of that position, I will tell you how a friend of mine, — mind I say a fri&iid of mine, because therein is to be fouud the pith and marrow of the miatter, — insisted, in the "kindest manner conceivable, upon my paying fifty shillings for grazing a cow and calf upon his run, — upon his run, mark you, — for rather less than two years ; wliich charge, but for the interesting circumstance that the claimant is a, - friend of mine, as I said before, I should consider to be about the most barefaced piece of extortion under the sun. With such cases as this continually occurring — with such facts as this kept perpetually before their much admiring eyes — we must admit, I confess, with reluctance, that the natives may, with good example, look upon us, then- fellow men and white brethren, as just so much pabulum to be made the most of upon occasion. When they see us thus earnestly engaged in feasting upon the very vitals of each other, how can we, with the slightest dash of reason, expect anything else from a race of natural anthropothogist, than that they should join in the feasts with hearty zeal and relish. "As we sow, so must we reap"; and having carefully sown amongst these aborigines the delicious seed of the doctrine of Mammon, we must be content to abide at har^ vest time by the result of our labours, and rejoice that the yield is good. But this question of " grass money," as treated by you, would not be of much consequence, only that you, with amazing coolness, assume, ' as a matter of course, that, the natives having threatened, will proceed, without further v ceremony, to enforce their claims with the strong hand. You really write as though your celebrated paper found circulation only amongst a race of 1 men to whom law and order are but vague inexpressive words ; men to whom the thought of redress by other ■means than that of the strong hand is but a wild flight of excited fancy : men to whom Lynch is the law-giver, the judge, and the executioner; and men to whom all those advantages which make it the envy of nations itife live under British law and institutions, are a farce ana? - absurdity. - - " Did we not leave the time-honoured and peaceful homes of Old England, the dwellings of civilized men, to settle in the wild wastes of New Zealand, the habitation of a blood-thirsty and naked race, under the fixed and firm belief that, as in the old land we have left, so in the new land we have come to, we should enjoy the laws and protection afforded by those laws, and which were purchased by our fathers at great cost of goodly blood and of golden treasure, and upheld by them, for centuries, against all the encroaching tyrannies. , of Europe, and which we expect to secure us against rapine and depredation here as well as there ? Was it not with-J this belief as strongly engrafted in our minds as the certainty of death, that we saw, with comparative indifference, the long white shores of our beloved island of liberty and security fade slowly away from bur watching sight in the dim twilight of a summer's eve^ whose fair, soft, balmy breath was bearing us on, oyef; countless miles of unfathomable waters, to lands to His 1 unknown ? The voice of thousands now toiling on these wilds, answer with one shout, "It was ! ! It was HI" ■ Yet, notwithstanding this united acclamation, let us agree then, since you have presupposed the probability 1 of. it, that our laws are really set aside, and that the natives will seek^redress for their supposed wrongs and grievances, or rights an&.privileges, whichever you like ' to call it, by an appeal to physical force. Admitted! What -will be the consequence? I say that while you

thus, with editorial coolness, worthy oY Demosthenes, and deriving, as you certainly. must, great additional vigour, both mentally and bodily, equal to meet any emergency, from the knowledge of the latent powers of your printing machinery, and from, the security naturally engendered by the confident bearing and smudged faces 'of that redoubtable army of little devils with which ;your back premises are .strongly garrisoned, take this startling fact of no law for granted, as permissable (amongst the natives, you lose sight of the important circumstance, that there are generally two parties to a bgjteain in most cases, and that on our side we have P«Bfty of men, with thews and sinews, as trusty and as strong, with hearts and hands as brave and as ready as any that may be found on the side of the Maories. Sons of sires, descended from old Nolls and Ironsides, and who are prepared and determined to defend their own against the natives of any nation upon the face of the earth ; and I say it advisedly, that if the natives do take the law into their own hands, as you feelingly assure us is their intention, they will most certainly meet with a resistance of a nature to utterly destroy their self-confi-dence and impudence, and which will, I much fear,-ma-terially interfere with the happy security with which our most profound of R. Ms.tenjoys his otiwtn cum dignitate, and you your uninterrupted supplies of printer's ink. For Ido assure you, that so certainly as the natives lay forcible hands upon the property of the settlers, if restitution thereof be not enforced by the aforesaid R.M., so certainly will you find that we shall make a retaliatory inroad upon the nearest aboriginal mob, which I confidently live in the hope of finding would teach them, our deluded black brethren, as the Rev. Exeter Hall calls them, a lesson, the like of which they never learnt before. ■ Naboth's vineyard was as dear to him as the kingdom over which Jeroboam ruled was to that amiable monarch ; and the sequel of that story goes to show that the small holder evinced more real pluck, when the question of ownership arose, in defence of his little holding, than did the large holder in defence of his big holding. In conclusion, let me tell you, sitting as I am in sackcloth and ashes, while I acknowledge the humiliating truth, that we have quietly submitted to insults from the natives, from time out of mind, the like of which, coming from our nearest :and dearest relation," would incontinently lead to a forcible expulsion of that worthy out of the premises. This to the lasting disgrace of our children's children, to the third and fourth hundred generation. I am, &c, NO MISSIONARY. Country District, 6th May, 1861.