New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1812.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 24, 21 October 1842, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1812.

We perceive, by the announcement of the Sur-veyor-General, that bv the month of January next, enough land will be open to selection, to enable the whole of the holders of preliminary sections to select their land. This is gratifying, on more than one ground. It will put many persons who have been compelled to waste more than two years in the Colony, without being able to obtain possession of their land, in a position to employ themselves advantageously ; and it will enable the Company to survey land upon which newly-arrived emigrants may he planted at once, or which may be purchased at first cost bv settlers from the adjacent colonics. But there are still two things requisite for the realisation of these advantages—to procure the acquiescence of the natives, and to construct roads. The former, we trust, will be now speedily accomplished—for the latter, we fear the settlers must wait a long time. Until, however, the means of communication have been provided, it is matter of comparative unimportance that a person should be able to look upon a map, and put his finger upon a piece of ground which he may call his own, but which he can turn to no profitable purpose. Hoads are the great want of the Colony. Without them, we can do little more than form a small settlement round the shores of this harbour. With them, we may hope to devdope, to their fullest extent, the yet untried resources of the

country. There is yet, however, another consideration connected with this matter, to which we can only now just advert, hut upon which we shall take other opportunities of dwelling. The preliminary and second series of sections comprise about 150,000 acres. The possessions of the Company, in respect of the money paid by the purchasers of these sections, are about six hundred thousand acres. We would suggest to

the proprietors of these sections, especially to those who are resident in the Colony, the ex-

pcdiency of considering whether they are not entitled to same share of these immense territories. It was by the expenditure of their money that the Company lias become entitled' to their acquisition ; and it has been by means of their personal sacrifices and risks that these lands have acquired whatever value they may now possess. Assuredly, therefore, they are entitled to some small share in profits which, but for them; would have had no existence. •• Wc shall return to this subject.

Tun trial of a Maori for theft at the recent sittings of the Criminal Court, before the Chief Justice, was an incident which we should not have made the subject of any special remarks, but for the most extraordinary comments of the Gazette upon the occurrence. Our contemporary’s notions of criminal law arc sufficiently amusing, and would, ,we imagine, scarcely obtain the approval of the law reformer, or ;we should rather say. law denouncer, whose shade lie so pathetically invoked on a previous occasion—wc mean Jeremy Benthem. We cannot refrain from pointing out some of the new discoveries in the science of criminal jurisprudence which our contemporary has made. The first and most striking is undoubtedly that of the utter folly of'all attempts to proportion punishment to crime. Heretofore, it was considered no small part of the task of a wise legislator, to adjust the nature of the sentence to be passed to the character of the offence committed, in such a manner as that there might be enough of severity to prevent a repetition of the offence, without the infliction of any needless pain. Much argument, and invention, and sarcasm, did the learned Jeremy direct against the spirit of English legislation, by which crimes of every conceivable degree of enormity were comprised in one class, and subjected to the same punishment. And yet here is an affectionate and admiring disciple of the departed sage, who gravely tells the public, that it matters little whether a man is hanged, or sent to jail, the two punishments being, so far as 1 (he culprit is concerned, of about equal severity. This is generalisation with a vengeance. Tried by this rule, Draco was a humane and intelligent legislator, and Romilly and his coadjutors to Lie present time, not excluding Jeremy himself, have been a set of bungling idiots. But leaving this ■ grand discovery to immortalize its author, we say a word or two upon the subject-, of the trial of this Maori. The circumstances were shortly these. Epoti, a native, was indicted for stealing a gun, the property of his nephew. The nephew was duly sworn, being a Christian native; and, upon cross-examination, he admitted that the prisoner had a share in the gun. Upon this, the Chief Justice intimated his opinion that the case could not proceed farther; and the Jury, under his direction, acquitted the prisoner. This is the proceeding which excites the indignation, or sarcasm, or contempt, we cannot discern which! of our contemporary.

it is, we believe, a rule of English law, and we should surmise that the same rule must prevail in the laws of other countries; that, except under very peculiar circumstances, a man shall not be convicted of stealing his own property. Of this rule, the reasonableness of which even our contemporary will scarcely question, the prisoner had the benefit. In this we can see nothing that is a cause of humiliation or regret. If the statement of the witness were correct, the prisoner was innocent; if not, he is not the first who will have, escaped through the operation of another principle of English law—that the guilty may occasionally escape, rather than the innocent should be punished. This is a principle with which many law reformers, and wc think Jeremy Bentham amongst the rest, have been greatly dissatisfied. Those who have no system to warp their perceptions or to stifle their sympaties, are, however, disposed to conceive of it as, both humane and wise.

This is by no means the-first case in which a Maori, charged-with theft, has been brought before a Jury. On the contrary, two or three have been convicted and punished. And although the natives may not at present feel the full import of all the circumstances; though there is,

doubtless, much which only excites their curiosity or their wonder; yet the result is to make them feeh that they form part of the same community as tire English settlers—that they have fhe protection of the law, and must submit to its. restraints—and thus, by the best of all teaching, that of experience, to bring them gradually into habits of obedience and order.

{ It is with the ideepest regret, we had almost said shame, that we inform our readers that an attempt was made on the 29th May to assassinate Her Majesty, who, by the goodness of God’s Providence, escaped injury. The person who was guilty of this atrocious act was a young man of bad character, named Francis, a cabinet-maker by trade, and who was employed as a workman in the machinists department at one of the Theatres. He gave no reason for attempting to perpetrate so heinous an offence. He was committed to take his trial for high treason. The ’King of the French was alarmingly ill: his disease was dropsical. Dispatches from the . Governor of New South Wales and New Zealand, were received in Downing-street on the 2nd of June. Knowing the anxiety with which our readers have been looking for news from England, we have omitted the whole of our Domestic Intelligence, in order that our extracts may he as copious as possible.