Auckland.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1282, 14 November 1857, Page 3

Auckland.

THE NORTH OF THE PROVINCE. [From the New Zealander, October 17.] The St. Kilda, which arrived in our harbour early yesterday morning from the Bay, brought among her passengers Mr. Dillon Bell, who has terminated his inquiry into the charges preferred against Mr. W. B. White, Resident Magistrate of Mongonui, by Mr. W. Brodie—and who has also satisfactorily settled a number of disputed land claims in”the North. A letter from a local correspondent, published m another column, will show our readers that the inquiry at Mongonui has concluded just as we anticipated it would—in the complete exculpation of Mr, V hite, whose great offence appears to have been that be was too faithful to the public and the Government in the discharge of his duties. We have not space at present for all the particulars we have received of this investigation, nor of the extraordinary excitement created among the European and Native population by such charges being made apainst a man like Mr. White. To this excitement cur correspondent has in hN humdime scant justice. One slightly redeeming teature in the affair appears to be the unre served and unconditional manner in which the party immediately preferring the charges acknowledged tr.at he had been led, bv trusting to false reports, to commit an act of gross injustice towards Mr. White, and expressed his regret for having so acted. It is to be hoped lhat the lesson thus taught will indeed be "a lesson lor life.”

Mr. Bell’s return from the North has been earlier than he intended, owing to the receipt of intelligence of a severe accident to one of his family; but during his stay in the North he has disposed of a great number of old land claims, and has paved the way for soon bringing a very large quantity cf land into the hands of the Provincial Government. The Natives, we undtrstimd, have throughout evinced the most friend y disposition in the matter; and from first to lust the most gratifying testimony has been furnished hy the Natives themselves to the moral influence obtained over them bv Mr. \\ Lite, 1 y the film yet conciliatory course he has maintained towards th<m throughout the whole of his official connexion with them. We believe that almost the only recalcitrant against the authority of the Old Land Commissioner was a European settler who had peculiar notions ■ n the superiority of the old land claimants to Acts of the General Assembly, and who has just resigned his commission as a Ju-tice of the Peace for reasons connected in some way or other with the steps taken bv lhat Assembly to effect a final settlement of those claims, and so to conduce to the opening up of the Province. The Natives, we understand, were highly gratified on being informed that the Govern", tnent intended to set apart reserves for them; and—though we are making a wide jump from the Bay to Coromandel—we believe there is every reason to hope that the persistence in a course similar to that pursued in the North will ere lung result in the peaceful acquisition of large additional blocks in the Thames and Coromandel districts.