CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 13, 26 September 1861, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Hawke's Bay Times.

Sir, —To be “ forewarned is to be forearmed” saith the proverb ; but it would seem as if in Hawke’s Bay that veritable saying had no significance. How many times has the attention of the ruling powers been called to the lawless state of things under which we unhappily live in this Province ? How many dozen cases of unblushing aggression on the part of the Natives, have been prominently brought before the Bench, and yet no notice taken of them or steps pursued to prevent a repetition of the like/ Truly there is no king in Israel, every man doeth just what he chooses. Instance upon instance, case upon case, of the most aggravating conduct, of the Maories, has been laid before the Judicial wisdom of this province without effect ; and, although nearly every other man whom you meet is a J.P., yet, notwithstanding this formidable array of big wigs, and in spite of this lively display of executors of the law, the law in Hawke’s Bay is a dead letter.

We have for too long a time tamely submitted to the present lamentable state of attairs : we have for too long a time allowed our hopes of some alteration for the Letter to sway our judgment: and wo have fur too long by far been bound down by a kind of , superstitious fear of the petty tyranny of Y those iu authority, to raise an united cry against the alarming condition with respect to the Natives under which we exist. There can be no manner of reasonable doubt in the minds of all impartial men that had the Resident Magistrate of this province convicted those individuals whose happy lot it proved to be summoned before him some time since, under the provisions of the Native Land Purchase Ordinance, Sec. 7, No. 19, and had he with firmness set himself against the gross and palpable breach of that Ordinance, which breach has become an insufferable abomination, endangering the prosperity of this community, a check, altliough possibly slight, would have been put on the growing impudence of the Natives, and they would have learned at least that, although loth to use it, there might still be found either behind the door, or in the dust bin, or at all events somewhere about the precincts of the Magisterial domicile, some sort of a law which, upon being dusted and polished up a little, might still upon occasion be made to cut a tolerably respectable figure, and if not permanently, yet still for a time have the effect of intimidating the wholesale and unflinching defiance with which our Ordinances are treated, indifferently by both races inhabiting these parts. It is a startling fact, hut not the less true, that if any of the Ordinances of this country be found to pinch rather too closely the interests of a class, however numerically small, which has sufli•tffent influence in the State to insure success, those Statutes are straightway found to be far more honored in the breach than the observance, and are forthwith contemned to that limbo of all inconvenient necessities and truths—the waste paper basket; from whence their mutilated remains may possibly be exhumed and resuscitated when there be no need of such vanities. The present attitude assumed by some of the Natives here is alarming in the extreme; they recognise no constituted authority of any kind. One tiling, however, is perfectly certain, so stiff-necked and perverse is the larger half of this generation of colonists, that in spite of tiie strenuous endeavours of Ministries, lay and clerical, to make us quietly and without resistance succumb to the new Code Maori, we linger yet fondly in the hope of being able to effect , in the fulh ess of time, such a perfect recognition of our rights as British subjects to the protection of British law, as will effectually silence all opposition whether from Natives black or white. Be

not surprised to hear my Rev. friend the Brahmin exclaim with upturned eyes and clasped hands against the high-handed conduct of benighted settlers in setting at nought the customs of a superior race, who, beiim very properly masters of the country, are determined to make good their claim to that dignity by subjecting us, the unhappy settlers, to a system equalled alone by that of the Israelites in Egypt, whom we are told were reduced to the disagreeable and humiliating condition of making bricks, and to find themselves in straw.

If such lawless outrages as the taking forcible possession of men’s properties upon slight pretext be not speedily stopped, it is plain to foresee that some terrible disaster will presently ensue ; for it is not every man who would quietly allow his stock to be unconditionally pillaged without using his right to enforce the difference between mine and thine, by summarily shooting the first thief who touched a single hair or horn. What security has any man against an irruption of these lawless hordes of scriptural cattle hunters ? What security has that matronly sow, I see before me, attended by her orderly family of young hams and bacons, just now engaged in the agreeable task of eating a kit of potatoes, from being mercilessly slain and devoured before my very eyes, by these unwashed Philistines? Alas Sir! nothing! nothing! nothing! except perchance the temporary obstacle my fists might interpose between the conception and consummation of the ungodly sacrifice. I know of many instances apart from those with which your columns are now pretty regularly decorated, where settlers’ properties have been confiscated by the Natives, upon very small provocation, and without more ado converted to their own use ; yet had the owners of those properties taken the law into their own hands and visited condign punishment upon or retributive exaction of goods and chattels from the perpetrators of the lawless act, they would have been incontinently fined, lectured, and finally imprisoned, to vindicate the strength of the arm and redoubtable majesty of the law, as our highly valued E.M. would most likely call it, led away by the intensity of his entlmsiam. Not so with the Native, he (fortunate fellow !) hath not the terror of the Bench before his respectable eyes !! No !no ! not he!

I protest, in the name of (he outlying lawful settlers throughout New Zealand against these lawless and unwarrantable aggressions on the part of the Natives; I protest in the name of every tie which binds us to the laws and institutions of our country—in the name of those many instances of manly self-denial and unflinching perseverance which mark the arduous career of hundreds of our settlers, against the continuance of the present utterly lawless state of things—a state of things the like of which cannot be found to exist in any community under the sun —a state of things the like of which it is impossible for the most ardent admirers of, and most profound researchers in the annals of past time to discover a precedent for. Now is the time, now, or never ! ! If we are not put in secure and peaceable possession of our properties at this time while we have the power, while we are supported by the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, we are as good as a lost race; and we shall frequently be numbered amongst the lost tribes, making No. 13, or thereabouts as nearly as can be ascertained, and no man shall hereafter find a sign or a trace of us under the sun, excepting, perchance, by the remains of some of our national usages such as touching your hat to the heavies, and making yourself generally acceptable in the eyes of all great men, such as Superintendents, etc. These mystical customs will be the only fragments remaining which will be picked up by the inquiring Arebiologist of future ages of the once bounceable, screeching, pro-mis-sionary British Colonist of New Zealand. Yours, &c.. No Missionary. Country District 23rd September, 1861.