LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 937, 25 April 1868, Page 2

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by correspondents. ■ Sic, — It was generally supposed that in the establishment of the JNative Lands Court, the Government had discovered the panacea for all aboriginal disorders, and that thenceforth all troubles about land would be confined to mere trivial and family squabbles; that it would inspire confidence, offer special facilities for settlement, and generally save the country. , Somehow or other, these results have not followed its action, and the weakness and vacillation shown in following out the project, seem to indicate that it contained within it, at its birth, the seeds of its own dissolution. Small wonder that it fails in giving satisfaction to the native race, -when we witness the late display of bungling and incapability at Turanga, which caused its sittings here to prove so deadly a failure, and following in the heels of which is the amazing postponement of sittings, advertised, months since, to take place in Napier, Waipawa, and Wairoa, during April and May. This latter affair is not only a great wrong, but a great folly, and the excuse offered — that the gentleman who was to have presided here as judge was detained by press of business elsewhere — only pretence or evidence of complicated and gratuitous stupidity. Are there no other judges ? The officers connected with the establishment strike one as being sufficiently numerous ; how comes it, then, that Government is unable to keep faith with its own advertisement? JSTo one seems really to benefit by the institution save these gentlemen, while the owners and claimants to land, surveyors, would-be buyers, or tenants, are wholly ignored, and their interests treated as of no moment. That it is desirable that the titles to native land should be such as would be recognisable in English Courts of Law, thei'e can be no question, and the plan that offers to promote this deserves every support. How necessary it is, then, that officers entrusted with the working of the Act should be studiously careful that all their public acts inspire public confidence. As it is, I have no hesitation in saying that the instances most recently before our notice have given that confidence a rude shake, and that no little indignation is felt by all parties in any way concerned, at the heedless indifference with which their convenience and interests have been treated. . A few words in season may help to prevent similar conduct at a future time. — I am, &c., Nemo. Napier, April 24, 1868