PETITION OF CERTAIN INHABITANTS OF TARANAKI, RELATIVE TO MAKING A GRANT OF LAND TO DR. MOUAT.

Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1866 Session I, G-05

G.—No. 5.

PETITION OF CERTAIN INHABITANTS OF TARANAKI, RELATIVE TO MAKING A GRANT OF LAND TO DR. MOUAT.

ORDERED TO BE PRINTED 26th SEPTEMBER, 1866.

WELLINGTON.

1866.

G.—No. 5.

To the Honorable the House of Representatives of New Zealand in Parliament assembled, the Petition of the undersigned Inhabitants of the Province of Taranaki, — Humbly Sheweth, — That your Petitioners are informed that instructions have been issued by the Honorable the Defence Minister for the laying off (300 acres of land at Patea, in this Province, for Dr. Mouat, late principal Medical Officer of the Imperial Forces serving in New Zealand. That your Petitioners feel that any grant or promise of land to Dr. Mouat could only be made in ignorance of the expressed views and sentiments of that officer on the war in New Zealand, with especial reference to its origin and justice. That whilst Major-General Pratt was prosecuting the war in Taranaki in ] 860-1, Dr. Mouat (who was attached to the General's staff) lost no opportunity of charging your Petitioners and the Colonists generally with having originated the war for the purpose of profiting by the Commissariat expenditure, and of robbing the Natives of their lands. That such allegations were made by Dr. Mouat can be testified to your Honorable House by the evidence of several of your Petitioners, and of others to whom Dr. Mouat made no concealment of his sentiments. That your Petitioners submit that some consideration is due to them in this matter, and that the utterances of such calumnies by a high Imperial officer should, whilst still uncontradicted, incapacitate him from receiving any reward from the Colony for services rendered in New Zealand. That your Petitioners further submit that some violence would be done to the feelings of Dr. Mouat himself by making him a participator in what that officer regarded as a spoil wrung from the Natives by the rapacious greed of the Colonists. That if it be considered expedient that Dr. Mouat's services to the Colony should receive a special recognition, your Petitioners submit that it should be done in a manner more grateful to that officer's feelings than by a grant of land in Taranaki taken from the Natives, and that the Province in which the services may have been rendered should have the distinction of conferring the reward. Your Petitioners pray that this their Petition may be favorably considered by your Honorable House; and your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. (Here follows 250 signatures.)

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PETITION OF CERTAIN INHABITANTS OF TARANAKI.