Correspondence.

Colonist, Issue 23, 8 January 1858, Page 3

Correspondence.

. $gf We desire particularly to state and most distinctly affirm, that we do not by any means hold ourselves responsible for either the doctrinesoos mere statements of our correspondents. However, when they confine their remarks on our public men to mere foibles in Council, <&c, or defective argumentation, we consider free discussion and playful animadversion, so long as there is no personal asperity, as not only admissible but really useful. At the same time, ibe hope some of our friends will in future endiavour to be more sparing in unnecessarily strong terns. —[Ed. Colonist:]

To the Editor of the Colonist.

Sißj-^Can you tell the world .what this programme of a Waste Lands' Bill, just published, can pos-ibly mean ? , Does it assume that the Compensation. efforts of the working men*'will ~o engross all attention as to preclude observation of a stratagem to betray the Superintendent and the Agriculturists?, , If the miners for advantages, to be acquired, by circumvention, on the side of pastoral exclusiveness, suppose that the " lower class" are infatuated, and will allow themselves to be duped, they are altogether mistaken. We trade the mole, by the clauses ofthe contemplated measure, which are only so many numbered dirt hills. It will be a fine thing certainly to give the Pasture Lords cheap homesteads, at either two shillings and j sixpence, or ten shillings pet* acre, where they can spoil a country, as a -person of the name of —— has done, in the West, so as to be nearly useless to any ore .I.e. .But tlie resulting vilene^s is in daylight althoxign the move-^ ment itself was prosecuted in the dark>nd under, cover. Brainless, and stultified beyond redress, must than man he who sees not the kind of beings at work. Whoever concocted the intended Bill had better at once be avowed as the enemies of the largest poitions of oun population. . Their concealment only exposes or ratlier encloses them, so as to make the heavy heels of the multitude, at the day of reckoning, crush them more inevitably. An exasper.ted people will assuredly bury them in the grave of their own underground doings. We care not what they are, or win they are. but as they are men—perhaps amiable, and some of them, in some departments even clever men —we conjure them to desist from attempting an ordinance as unworthy of them» as it is unjust to the poorer colonists, and to posterity. Give us none of these confounded botches of fractional redress .in small matters at iwst, whilst yoxi literally damn the masses of'present population, and put a stop to emigration, by laws only iv favour of a sorry handful of sheep and stockmen. Away with such paltriness!— And the thing is to be achieved at the eleventh hour of public reflection, or rather before the great majorities of tiie districts can fully express their censure to make it of any avail. If the mean, petty, one-sided Bill projected,*be once adopted, all the best locations, everywhere in the Settlement, will be secured by a parcel of schemers, and the place, as a great Agricultural Country, will he. undone. Once for all, I call upon the working men to muster, to meet, to agitate, and to rest not until the Bill, abetted by the secret enemies of the Superintendent and of the largest part of. our fellow ■settlers, shall be cast aside, for a reasonable and proper measure. Let a Bill be framed, and carefully examined - with plenty of time for general discussion of its merits or demerits—the only Bill of the kind wanted—one that shall enable honest, improving labourers a,n/j others, with small means, to buy farms sufficiently large for grain and stock jointly ; and, on payment in cash of some twentyfoe per cent, give them sufficient credit for the payment ofthe remainder (at moderate interest) n triennial or suitable instalments. A measure of ths sort, a provident, a credit and residence Bill—is wanted, a Bill to protect aud aid poor men, and not such a contemptible thing, such an abortion as the Bill attempted must in the end shew itself to be. Let the demand now be, what is wanted and required everywhere, a fized price for all land, and an end of auction delusion. JUSTUS. Waimea West, December 30, 1857.