CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5509, 14 July 1879, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE KAINGAROA PUMICE LANDS AGAIN. TO THE EDITOR, Sir, —la yesterday's issue of your valuable journal, a local paragraph, taken from the Bay of Plenty Times, is published, which awkardly drags in my name as a kind of stepping-stone that the writers may applaud: the Government land agents in reepect of their, '' difficulties, "—poor jaded men I—as: to land matters. With a flourish of trumpets, we are told that there are no fewer than five.parties of surveyors at work on these blocks' of barrenness, wasting the public money ; and then we are duly informed that, '' unless delay is caused by Government, these lands":—rthejpumicedeserta, rejected again and again by both Northern and Southern runholders—r"willbe«peedily open for selectionl" Would Kessra,.Mitchell and Edwards, whose names: and titles aro paraded in the article I am called upon to notice, or their masters, Sir George Grey and the Native Minister— the demoralised heroa of fiikurangi and Te Kopu*—place a cow or a sheep on the lands ," speedijy to be open for selection ?" Probably none of these gentlemen would be at home with respect to "the selection busi-' ness," should their choice be confined to the dreary 400,000 acres of Kaingaroa. But then, sir, men of loose principles, temporarily foisted into power do not, perhaps, consider it a sin to throw dust in the eyes of the public, especially when it iB hoped that their term of oiSco will be prolonged by gross misrepresentation of all Maori affairs, strangely enough overlooking the declaration, " fie sure your sin will find you out." The employment of a possa of surveyors on the impoverished wastes of Kaingaroa just now may be recorded to take the wind out the sails of the Opposition Bhip. But Sir William Fox and other practical statesmen are familiar with the desolate region in question, and may put a speedy veto on the " solection " delusion. "The difficulties the surveyors had to meet and overcome," say the writers of the article under consideration, " did not only emanate from dissatisfied tribes, but are partly due to Mr. G. O. Davis . . . whose letter was produced at a great native meeting at Te Paeroa ; but, fortunately, the majority of the natives present treated the matter with indifference." Certainly "the majority of the natives present" did perfectly right to " treat the matter with indifference." as far as my letter "produced at the native meeting" touched on the points at issue, for the truo and simple reason that the " majority" wore in no way concerned ; as my communication referred exclusively to lands under the immediate supervision of the Great Committee of Kotorua, the business of which body does not trench on the pumice country of " the five surveying parties," nor on the acknowledged negotiations of Messrs. Mitchell and Edwards, whose triumphant march from Galatea and Paeroa is chronicled with so much eclat, for the benefit of all those who are sufficiently ambitioua to covet possessions in that doleful locality to be " open speedily for selection." There is no indisposition on my part to meet my accusers face to face at any time, before any tribunal; but this incessant Bhooting through the Press from behind a masked battery is, it must be confessed, somewhat tantalising. The spirit of unmanliness so continuously exhibited by numerous correspondents will, no doubt, continue, until wo learn to become more unselfish in health and lifo. Will tho parasites of dishonourable men in power soon learn to be truthful 3 I fear not.—l am, &c., Auckland, July 12, 1879. C. O. Davis.