Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JAN. 30, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 85, 30 January 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JAN. 30, 1863.

That the Waste Land Regulations are bad, and that the administration of those Regulations is still worse, is too palpably known and felt throughout the Colony to need any further denunciation from us than an emphatic denunciation. If it be needful to instance in our, at first glance, sweeping assertion, look, thou unbeliever, at the fine tracks of country which have fallen to our share as part of the Egyptians, and which have been absorbed and swallowed up by a few fortunate individuals, assisted by the irresponsible administrators of the Crown Lauds. In this monstrous waste of our own lands, added to the equally injurious breach of the Native Laud Purchase Ordinance, may be attributed the present collapsed state of this Province. Neither do we find temporary consolation under these trying circumstances from the fact that the far-sighted penetration of a wise Government, foreseeing the speedy extinction of all claims on the part of the Crown to the lands, had secured to the people out of the wreck of their fine property, at least a little piece whereon to recreate themselves while living, and wherein to lay their respectable bones when dead. No, no ; to have saved anything from the greedy and insatiable maw of the wolf in sheep’s clothing would have been, in the eyes of our most profound Executive, a gross and unpardonable mistake, and therefore they in their sublime wisdom carefully avoided laying themselves open to any such objectionable charge. And the result, if possible must, we apprehend, surpass their most sanguine anticipations.

• It is not so much to the generally bad state of the Regulations, as to the present system of unchecked and irresponsible administration of them which it is our present intention to discuss ; —that state of things, as far as regards this delectable land, is past cure. The steed is gone ; therefore, as far as our limited comprehension of this sort of thing goes, we incline to think that the stable door may as well remain open as shut. But it is to those particular clauses in the Regulations which give a right of selection of laud to military men which we denounce as the very essence of all that is bad in what precedes or follows them in this marvel of law-making. By the right which these selections give the holder, a gross injustice is done to the working settler. To him, and to him alone, whom we consider to be the bone, the sinew, the very soul itself of all the lasting prosperity of a country, is denied any privilege, indulgence, or consideration, in ever so small a particular. But to the soldier who never fought for his country, and to the capitalist who has money to lend, or to the speculative but penniless individual who is able to borrow, every inducement is offered to take a share in the land, and that, too, under conditions the most disastrous which can well be conceived to the formation of a thriving settlement, or to the ultimate reclamation of New Zealand from a state of barbarism and desolation. Shew us the man amongst these military heroes who has earned, by his valor in war, or his wisdom in peace, a right to claim any special distinction from the community ; or, having earned it, has made a use of it to our advantage ; then we will hail that man with warmth as a brother and a fellow-citizen worthy of our regard, and wa will crown him with laurels, and give him a piece of land whereon he can grow a further crop of those much-coveted decorations at his leisure. Let us not bo misunderstood. T he “ military settler,” as be with unwitting facet ionsness called, (we say “ unwitting facetiousness,” for we cannot conceive it possible that people who make such bad laws would be able, even under the most distressing pressure, to make a good joke except by accident,) receiving the benefit of this liberal allowance, are divided into two classes. The one class is perfectly independent of it, and the other is perfectly undeserving of it. It has always been a matter of puzzle to us —(we admit, however, the possibility of the element of stupidity on our part having something to do with it) —as to what right we have under the sun thus, without any apparent cause, and without any very easily defined object, to give from our small store an eleemosynary bonus to either of these two classes of claimants. If the maimed and wounded warrior, driven from the shores of his country by her ingratitude, seeks from us, his brothers, who glory though we do not participate in his noble deeds, some recognition of the services ho has performed, and the gallant deeds which he lias dune indirectly in the defence of our rights, our honor, and our homes, we will with acclamation and to the utmost extent of the means within our reach reward him ; —eh! cover him with marks of our warm —our deep-felt gratitude. But it appears to us, looking at the point of view whereon we stand, that the individual above described docs not at this date exist, hut that, on his pedestal there stands a very mild sort of a warrior, divested of his scarlet and gold, and reduced, by a change of climate we suppose, to a simple condition of plain broadcloth, wherein he looks, to our unbelieving vision, remarkably like a very ordinary sort of a brother scrub, calling upon us to recognise the deeds which, according to 1 his own account, he was, during a long and well spent life, thirsting to accomplish, and to do so forthwith by a grant of land whereon be may plant bis vine and fig-tree, and under the shade thereof fight the battles o'er again which it was Ids full intention, but for the snecial iinorvention of

Providence on the part of bis country’s enemies, to have fought to their entire destruction. We cannot recognise the right of this excellently intentioned hero in esse to an unpurchased claim to our benevolence ; but if we needs must, in the overflowing exuberance of our philanthropy give away for nothing our lands, then, in the name of charity, let it be done in a manner which will convey a lasting benefit to this Province or to the Colony at large, or. to some deserving body of men who have in some way or other rendered themselves worthy by their deeds to a participation in our national bounty.