Hawke's Bay Hearld TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1867.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 816, 8 January 1867, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Hearld TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1867.

We have more than once alluded in these columns to the manner iv which the thistle has been allowed to propagate throughout the district, and to the wide spread aud formidable nuisance, it has, through impunity, at length become to the settlers. Iv some parts of the country large areas are perfectly covered with this noxious weed — the eradication of which, day by day, assumes more gigantic proportions — and, everywhere, it is to be seen in some degree of luxuriance, flourishing aud vigorous whenother plants are drooping for want of moisture. The blame of this state of thiugs cannot be altogether laid at the door of our fellow settlers. So long as the best lands of the couutry were iv the hands of the aboriginal owners, such owners not being amenable to law, so long was there a virtual barrier to auy legislation or effort in this direction. Had the Provincial Council passed ' a

law which un posed penalties on the native race Tor permitting thistles to grow on their laud, such law would have been quietly shelved by the Grenerai Government as one likely to bring the two races into hostile contactEven had it been assented to, it must have proved a dead lette^; as, also, would have been any enactment affecting European land alone, while native land adjoining continued a hot bed for the growth of everything noxious. But all this is now altered. Many changes have taken place within the last year or two, and not one of the least is that the native land situated within the more thickly populated parts of the province, has nearly all passed into the possession of European settlers. Beyond their own cultivations, the natives have scarcely an acre remaining. Besides, the natives are now amenable to law, and can be reached with facility even for a trifling debt. There can, therefore, be no excuse for longer delay in passing a Thistle Act; and we trust this will be one of the first matters to which the new Provincial Council will turn its attention. Assuredly nothing is more loudly called for by all classes of industrial settlers. In referriug as we have done to the general alienation of native land near Napier, we would add, to prevent misapprehension on the part of distant readers,.that the greater portion of the territory so alienated has been simply leased, and that the natives are in receipt, for the use of the same, of. a princely income.