The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1888.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8274, 21 September 1888, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1888.

Those papers whioh have been so ; persistently asserting that the New] Plymouth Harbour Board's funds are • not diminished by the ohange in the land laws, are now trying to evade the point at issue. They cannot deny that we have been iujured, and that the settlers have to be rated personally through the colony robbing the Harbour Board of its land endowment, whioh was the property of the district before the loan was raised. The Wellington Post admits its "most profound ignorance " about the matter, but says it cannot accept the assertion we make that Taranaki has been most unfairly dealt with since this part of the colony was first Sbttled. The Post goes on to say : — "So far from ' continually running down this diatricr, and showing every desiire to treat it exceptionally to other parts of the colony,' oar complaint has i ever been that Taranaki h&s always been ! treated ' exceptionally,' and that no other I port of the uoloay has bad ao much favour shown to it. It has, since the Constitution Act come into operation, been the 'Little Benjamin' of the New Zealand family, and its share of good things has always been double that of others. It has bocome so accustomed to this that it has grown to regard such exceptional favour as its right, and to whine terribly as soon as any attempt is made to place it ou equal terms with other districts. This is the real position of affairs." The paragraph is not very logical. Instead of Taranaki being a " Little Benjamin," the district . has been treated more like "Joseph" whose brothers despoiled him of everything he possessed. It doea not requite much research to prove that, and for the benefit of the Evening Post and others who are as "profoundly ignorant" of the past, we quote what the late Mr Sewell paid in the House of Representative on Tuesday, Juno 10th 1856, respecting the Treatment Taranaki was reoeiving from the other distriots:— Mr Sewell Baid :—"I: — "I have nlwavß been of opinion that that Province was entitled to the utmost sympathy and consideration from tne rest of the colony. She has been made the scapegoat of the colony. Those native land purchases in the South which have so greatly benefited Wellington have had the effect of concentrating the native population round New Plymouth, till she is hemmed in vMh a miserable pittance of land not exceeding, I believe, 60,000 acres. Three years ago J. 1853] I heard Sir George Grey's policy severely condemned by high authority in thus drawing to a head round New Plymouth the native difficulties, without any simultaneous relief to that Province in the way of extended land purchase. I propoße to aid New Plymouth by an outlay of £20,000 in the purchase of land for her, by way of commencement of stock, as well as to guarantee her a certain revenue. She has to bear the charges o£ a Land Department, costing about £1100 a year, and mainly kept up to work up arrears of Crown grants and survoys which have grown from the negligence of past Governments. I earnestly trust — indeed I am firmly persuaded — that the House will deal with the case of New Plymouth in a spirit of consideration and justice." The £20;000 that Taranaki was promised, but to this day never got, was part of £180,000 whioh was to be taken from the quarter of a million loan raised to be applied to " the purpose of extinguishing the right of the aboriginal inhabitants to land in the North Island of New Zealand." That £180,000 was "grabbed" by Auckland and Wellington, and spent by those two provinoes. Major Brown, who was a member of the House at the time, told the Wellington and southern mombers " That Taranaki appeared to be regarded by both parties as a speoies of vermin to be scotohed, if not killed," and after thirty-two years the #ame feeling, it would seem, still exists. Then again Taranaki was fixed UDon as the ground on whioh the question of supremacy with the natives was to h& tried, whereas it should have been tested in Hawke's Bay, where the King movement was initiated. The Colonial Government, without consulting the settlers, commonoed a war with the natives, and for ten years the district was laid waste. When the settlers saw the military blunders that were being made, they were not allowed to take the matter into their own hands, or they would have soon settled the war, but hostilities were prolonged in order that Wellington, Auckland, and Dunedin, from which most of tho supplies for the tropes came, might continue to benefit by the commissariat expenditure. When the peace with the natives was patohedup, the colony gave away to the military settlers they introduced most of the best of the land in the district, whilst the provincial authorities of Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago were disposing of their lands for £1 and £2 an acre and spending it in improving their towns. When, in 1866, Mr. Hulke, with Melbourne capital at bis back, wanted to run a railway where the present one now goes at the back of the Mountain, so as to open up the country, the Colonial Government put its veto on the scheme. Had the projeot been put into execution it would have speedily settled the war, and the distriot would have made headway at once. The latter, however, was what Wellington has always dreaded, and from the first has done everything in its power to crush Tar&uaki out of existence. Jb'rom the progress Taranaki has mado during the lait ten years, wo feel we ahull .not be overstating tho rnnouut when we say that a million pounds would nothing like make good tho damage tbia distriot sustained during the ten years war, which was brought on by the colony. Eeferring to matters in later years, the breach of faith with regard to the building of the presont harbour is a disgrace to any colony. The Houae voted £10,0U0 for a central prison establishment at Moturoa, and the Minister of Justioe made arrangement* with the Harbour

Board that the prisoners were to build the harbour, taking over at the same time our land revenue and endowments. The Government pnrohased the site for the prison, and called for tenders for the erection of the building. They had the harbour surveyed and everything settled ; but, Wellington iofluence being used, all the arrangements were upset. In the meanwhile the Powerß there used the money and bnilt a gaol in tho centre of their city, an emblem, we suppose.of I what Wellington has hitherto proved to be, at least toward Taranaki — a place for robbers. Time, however, went on, Taranaki was found to be still moving ahead, in spite of all that had been j done to crush the distriot out of existence. Wellington again took alarm, and as it was found that the Harbour Board was deriving a revenue from the land, means wero devised to take even that from it. Consequently the land laws of the distriot were altered to please the Socialistic fad of some Minister, and Wellington has thus agaiu sucoeeded in giving another turn to the screw by making the Taranaki sottlers impoverish themselves to pay a harbour rate, there would have been no need for had this distriot been justly treated and not robbed of its land revenue. IS is only two years since the •• Oity of Corruption " attempted to "grab" some eduoational reserves for a Wellington University, and the Power there wil have them yet, for poor Taranaki " Joseph" has not been quite deprived of all it possesses. The Wanganui Herald tries to divert the question of the district being robbed, and says — "How absurd it is to suppose that the land laws of the colony are to be moulded to suit the interests of the New Plymouth Harbour Board," but it is far more absurd that the land laws of tbe colony should be allowed to be tinkered to please the " socialist views" of the few to the detriment of tho many where the fads are to be put on trial. The land laws of 1876 were liberal enough for any country ; but by Acts of 1885 and the Amendment in 1887 by lowering the value of property, are injuring the colony as a whole, and have been the means of the settlers being most unjustly taxed when there was no necessity for it.