STATE OF SIEGE.

New Zealander, Volume XXI, Issue 2262, 31 October 1864, Page 5

STATE OF SIEGE.

For some past there have occasionally appeared in this journal letters signed “D. McCaskill,” and commenting, in a manner more conclusive than complimentary, on the conduct of the Colonial Ministers, and the character of the pleas put forward on their behalf. In a letter published on the 10th instant, Mr. McCaskill demonstrated, with singular clearness and force, that in the matter of the fugitives from the Kawau, the assumption of all the fancies that the Ministerialists allege as facts, would not avail one jot for divesting the' Ministers of their responsibility. The quarrel of the Ministers with his Excellency the writer takes the freedom of designating as the “ row “ between Sir G. Guev, on the one hand “ and Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap* on the other.’ Ic is not necessary for us to discuss the question, whether this st\'le of comment be, or be not, a little too free, or the manner of expression not sufficiently “ par- “ liamentary.” To a correspondent appending his real signature, some little latitude is naturally allowed.

The following are the items entere 1 in the •‘Clearance,” issued yesterday, of the cutter ‘Annie’ bound for the Thames : I half ton flour, 3 bags rice, 3 bags sugar, 20 lbs. tobacco,—all consigned to Donald McKaskel ; 7 omUon.'T of rum, I box of caudles, 200 lbs. ofsalt.—consigned to A. McKaskfl 4 bag# of flour, 3 bags of sugar, { bag of biscuit.—consigned to William P ark eh ; 5 bags of flour. 1 package of drapery,— consigned to Ho e Affixed to these items, on the clearance, is the superscription :—“ declined, T.R.”

Mr. “ D. McGaSkill.” the writer of the letters to the New-Zeai.ander, is identical with the « Donald McKaskel” of the clearance ; and Mr. A. McCaskill is his brother. 1 hese gentlemen are well known settlers on

the Thame* ; and they have re named at their residences there throughout the whole period of* the r cent disturbances, noi have they on my occasion suffered hut or loss from the Natives. We doubt w’i t ter Mr. D. McCaskill’s epistolary style will be sweetened or mollified by his being kept on short commons, or being deprived of flour, rice, sugar, and tobacco, or by his companions in misfortune being disappointed of their anticipated luxui ics and necessaries. This is a new rendering of the famous “ flour and sugar policy,” according to the more enlarged sentiments of the ex nfi’io patron and protector of the out-set-tlers the “ Defence Minister.” We should have thought such a policy miserably foolish and low, but (His aliter visum. To any objection that might suggest itself, —such as that we are supposed to live in a free country, that loyal and exemplary settlers in the bush at the" river Thames are not to be treated as if they were public enemies, or to be made dependent on the ukase of any would-be-absolute tyraimule —it is perhaps quuo a sufficient answer to adduce the awful autograph, “declined, T. K..” We hope that Messrs. McCaskill, Paukicr, and Hone, notwithstanding the state of siege to which their residences are reduced, and the vigorous action taken by the Ministers in thus stopping the supplies, to the settlers, may be able to hold out until the 21st of November, or a few days longer ; and they may then perhaps have the satisfaction of having witnessed ” the decline and “ fall” of the always petty, though at one time formidable, autocracy symbolized by the “declined T. R.” [“ Nevv-Zealander,” October 21.]