CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8680, 24 September 1891, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE EAST COAST LANDS. TO Tin: EDITOR.

Sir,—l very carefully perused your leader of Monday last respecting the report of the " Native Affairs Committee" on the question of taking over from the Assets Company the lands presumed, or assumed, to have' been acquired from the natives by the late East Coast Native Land Settlement Company, Limited. It may lie well for the Government if it can be done quietly, to take over some but not all of these lands for the purposes of settlement, as a considerable portion thereof is only lit for depasturauc purposes. lam thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstances of the casei and I now raise my voice in a warning to the Government, and to the whole colony, not to assume any responsibility, or liability, in the matter until due enquiry is made as to the manner in which the late New Zealand Land Settlement Company acquired these lands, and what equivalent the native owners received for them. Any attempt to take possession, whether by the Assets Company or the Government, will be strenuously opposed by the native owners and occupants. Our present preponderating numerical strength may enable the Government to take possession by force. If the same thing had been attempted twenty years ago it would have resulted in a disastrous war. The mere making of a few reserves will not satisfy the natives, and very considerables payments will have to be made either by the Assets Company or the Government before they will be able to obtain peaceable occupation of the lands in question. If this matter is blindly rushed into, I will deem it to be my duty to place some very clear facts before the public for their information. —I am, etc., James Mackay. Auckland, September 22, 1891.

DR. LAISHLEY AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION. TO THE KDITOR.

Sir., —Mr. Gerald Peaeocko's letter today calls for no notice from my pen, except in respect of his statement that ho is told that I " speak and write as the accredited mouthpiece of an organised body of influential citizens established with the deliberate purpose of exciting popular opposition to what they term dangerous revolutionary measures." As I presume he refers to the Natioual Association, permit me, sir, to state that I neither sneak, nor write, as mouthpiece of it, or of any other association." Indeed, it is patent on the face of my letters that I have been writing only in defence of an article published in: the Herat,]') before the National Association was formed. By the way, sir, as I believe land nationalisation to be the cancer which is just now eating into the heart of the colony, and as I cannot spare any further time to expose its fallacies beyond writing a summary of the Anti-Poverty Society discussion, 1 venture to refer those of your readers who care to investigate the abstract questions involved, to two articles by me 011 "Land Nationalisation," " Single Tax," '' Land Tax," ami other features of communism in the New Zealand Herald of 22nd March, 1890, and Ist April, 1890, entitled " Land Chimeras," and Dr. Laishley's Reply to "In Hoc Signo Vinces and especially to Professor Huxley's scorching articles therein quoted, entitled " The Natural Inequality of Man," and "Natural Rights and Political Rights," which can be seen in the Nineteenth' Century Review for January and February, 1890. They will be found to effectually dispose of tiie abstract questions now in issue.—l am, &c., R. Laishley, j September 23,1891.

MR. GERALD PEACOCKE. TO THE EDITOK. Sir,— Gerald Peacoclce, in his discreditable and revolutionary letter to you, erroneously alleged that I was the mouthpiece of the newly formed National Society. " I wrote solely in my private capacity, without the knowledge or inspiration of any association or person, and when I have done with the Anti-Poverty Society I shall deal with Mr. Gerald Peacocke, in spite of his Billingsgate and bombast.— am, etc., ]?. G. Ewingto.n*.