CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, Volume V, Issue 351, 3 July 1844, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor rf the " New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator." Sir,— The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, of the 29th May, 1844, hat juit been received by me, in an article in \% on -the Land Question, I observe the following statement • — " The Gazette of 26th July, 1843, contained a very severe article upon the mode in which Mr. Spain had delayed the settlement of the Land Question. "Love of office and of salary paid quarterlj', were stated as the motives by which that gentleman was animated. Either on the same day or a day or two after, the writer of this article met Mr. Spain |at the house of a mutual acquaintance, others were present. Tlie conversation turned upon the Land Question when Mr. Spain expressed his indignation at the article in question. The conversation was continued and that gentleman heard for the first time that the settlers were utterly ignorant of the correspondence which had been carried on between the Commissioner, the Acting Governor, Jthe Company's Agent and Sub- Agent, respeering the settlement of the Land Question. A statement was made which led the writer of this article to state, that he would undertake to establish that not six settlers in Port Nicholson were aware that any arrangement had been entered into between the Company's Agent and the Acting Governor. All present avowed a similar ignorance and belief. A request was made to see the correspondence, and the result was a conviction in the writers mind that Mr. Commissioner Spain, had not only not been indifferent to the interests of the settlers, but that he had shewn most praiseworthy anxiety in their behalf." The reference made to the article oJ the 26th July, 1843, and the use immediately afterwards of the expression "the writer of this article may probably lead some of your readers to conceive that the writer of the article of the ?6th July, 1843, had by the perusal of the correspondence* referred to in the above quoted paragraph been convinced. of having taken a wrong view of. the subject. Your meaning, on a closer perusal, appears to be that the writer of the article of the 29th May, 1844, had been convinced, and not the writer of the former article. As the writer of the article of the 26th July, 1843, I beg to point out this ambiguity, and to state that I have never met Mr. Spain at the house of a mutual acquaintance since the date ■ of that article, and that though I have perused the whole, I believe, of the correspondence referred to, and had a good deal of information on the subject from other sources, I have never seen any reason to change the opinions I have expressed in the article of the 26th July, 1843, nor in any other article written by me in the Wellington Gazette, during the short period for which I had the honor to Edit it, viz. — from the Ist July, 1843, to the 6th September, 1843, both inclusive. I remain, Sir, Your obediant servant, William Fox. Nelson, 20th June, 1844.