LAND STEALING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9179, 8 October 1888, Page 3

LAND STEALING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Among the many curiosities to be found among us, the one above named is not the least interesting. It is generally connected in the public mind with the practices of Native Land Courts, when land has been surveyed by stealth or secretly, and is piloted through the Court- in the names of men whose right to it is either non-existent or of the flimsiest description. But there is another branch of the question wherein our modern laws indirectly encourage wrong. If Brown appropriates Jones cow, he can be pulled up, and may get a sentence of months or years, and Brown gets back his cow, if found. But change the position ; let Brown appropriate Jones' land, and no magistrate or inferior Court dare meddle with the question. Jones has no redress, unless prepared to spend from £50 to £100 in law. Even should he do that and obtain justice (and law does not always prove synonymous with justice), Jones may obtain his land, but Brown does nob incur any penalty or punishment. Now why should this be? If Brown steals a coat worth 15s he may be summarily sentenced to (perhaps) three months' hard labour ; but if he steals, or tries to steal, a foot of Jones' land, value 40s, he incurs no risk of punishment, and only a very slight) risk of having to make restitution ! Is this protection to the peaceable and well-dis-posed, and a check on those whose tastes and dispositions are the very opposite ? Is it not rather an encouragement to those who are inclined to try to wrong their neighbours?—lam, &c, F.C. October 5, 18S8.