WANGANUI.

Wellington Independent, Volume II, Issue 60, 22 April 1846, Page 3

WANGANUI.

t >ur friendu at Wanganui have urged us to call iittntion to the great inconvenienre they have lately sustained by the discontinuance of the overland mail on the coast. It is etsi I that while the mail continued the postage paid a considerable part of the expence, and there seems little reasm toi doubt that the rapid progress which that place will make when Captnin Gr«y settles the Lani qu stion, will justify the expence to the Government. If the merchant* here encourage the trade *o well commenced and established by the owners of the Katherink Johnstone, the regular trips of that vessel will lessen th.- evil in the mean time. It will hardly be ntcestaiy to call the a:tention, of our iriends to the figm-i-e in the Government returne publish* d by us last werk, as reasons why we do not further prese the matter at present. A letter from Wauganui, dated 30th March, states that the body of George Smith, who was unfortunately drowned by the upsetting of a boat on the occasion of the Governor's visit, was found by ihe natives on the 28th March, about four miles on the P. N. eide of the heads, in a very extraordinary state of decomposition, so that it was almost impossible j;o identify the body. That by direction i,f one of the Magistrates the remains were interred in the intended cemet y against the wUhee of the friends and of a majority of the inhabitants ; and the writer as'*s is it right to inter without an inquest being held ? Prom the importance of holding a prompt enquiry in the MS'jg.oae ifmt, by violence or accident, as a means of securing evidence where unfair dealing' may have happened, the law h.ag given the Coroner no discretion in such cases.

Another letter, dated April 7, complains that one of the Maptrates'at Wanganui sold flints to the Taupo natives, and that another Magistrate refused to entenaia a charge against him, oa the ground that it had been done inadvertently. The fact of his attention bei:>g called to the law respecting the sale of arms. &c, would, we should suppose, be qui;e sufii ient. If, as appears by a letter published in the Spectator on Seturday last, the settlei s there are subjected to con tinned rebberies by the native*, without any redress being obtained, and the Magistrates have failed to represent this to the Governor on his visit, they have failed in their duty. The Government cannot be benefited by those holdirg Her Majesty's commissions suppressing or sof.euing down information reipectiog the natives.