HAWKE’S BAY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 89, 13 February 1863, Page 4

HAWKE’S BAY.

[From the New Zealander, January 23.] The Brovin ca of Hawke has been suffering from the electoral fever, a malady which, in the little jobbing oligarchies created by the New Provinces Act, has, at each recurring electoral period, assumed a lower and more virulent type. There are some ugly blotches on the body politic of Hawke, and there are also symptoms of exhaustion of the circulating medium which appear to demand prompt and vigorous treatment. But the doctors differ, as usual, as to the remedy, one section being of opinion that Mr. Donald M'Lean would prove to be a specific, and the other and weaker side holding, with equal tenacity, that no good can come out of Scotland. Hitherto, while the money, or rather we should say the land fund, lasted, Napier presented a happy family, but when poverty comes in at the door, love is said to take wing and escape by the window. The revenue, one candidate for election said, was “dwindling away,” and would probably not exceed £IO,OOO for 1863. Another candidate is reported to have said that “he was sorry to think that so little of the public estate was now left to the province—so much having been absorbed by the runholders at a nominal price. The history of the Province in this particular was truly lamentable. Beautiful tracts of country, the Waipukurau plains for instance, had been bought at a nominal rate, he believed —taking the value of the scrip used for the purpose —at 3s. 6d. per acre. The land had been thrown away in the first place, and the money squandered in the second. The favourite remedy appears to be to get more land from the Natives, and to repeat the process of throwing away and squandering, Mr. Donald M'Lean’s influence with the Natives is relied upon to obtain the land, and he is accordingly to be made Superintendent of the Province. It appears to be quietly assumed that he is to continue to hold the appointment, and to draw the pay, of Chief Land Purchase Commissioner under the Government ot the Colony ; and, amongst other advantages, the “ saving ” to the Province of the salary of Superintendent by this arrangement is not lost sight of. Mr. M'Lean himself, in undergoing the ordeal of “ question ” by independent electors, appeared to have got into a dilemma. Having been asked whether he had been amongst the first to “occupy Native lands, and to pay rent for the same,” Mr. M‘Lean explained that “ for a succession of years his sheep had trespassed on Native lands;” that he had once paid £3O as compensation ; but “ that he had always given the Natives to understand that the law prohibited leasing.” Mr. M'Lean’s brother had, however, become an “occupant” of Native lands. The Native Lands purchase Act of last session will, probably, soon be in operation in this island. Is it very dillicult to forsee the result of its working in the Province of Hawke I The Land will very certainly bo “ thrown away,” but there will be no money “to squander” on roads ; as for immigration, we suspect that the efforts of the Province in that direction have culminated ; we are assured upon very good authority, that ns many as FOETT-FiTE immigrants hare actually been introduced during the past year; that is the highest point which has ever been reached.