Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23,1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 145, 23 October 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23,1863.

When diaries 11. of Nell Gwynne notoriety, otherwise Defender of the Faith and King of England, in the exuberance of that generosity' in giving away what did not belong to him, for which he was remarkable, thought it desirable, as a special distinction and mark of his august regard, to some one or other of his numerous admirers a tract of country not very clearly defined certainly, but supposed to be somewhere in North America, that illustrious monarch never troubled himself about the possible question of priority of ownership of the land thus given away, or in fact about ownership in any shape. It was sufficient for all parties concerned, except perhaps the occupants, that the land was above water, and might therefore be fairly considered as terra firma. This most essential point being admitted, nothing more remained to be done by the grantee than to take himself off with all speed to the latitudes wherein he might expect to find his Most Gracious Majesty’s most gracious and most liberal gift under his feet as nearly within a few hundred miles as it was possible under then existing circumstances to discover. Up to this point, the occupancy of the land, all went on swimmingly, and no one, not even the royal donor himself, doubted for a moment but that a grant from the Crown of England of lands in certain parts of Northern America, not already occupied by any other European peoples, was a very correct and just transaction, about which no

dispute worth a moment’s thought could possibly arise. But it so unfortunately happened for the enterprising immigrants that certain tribes of warlike and adventurous savages had conceived an idea, so long fixed and cultivated that it had become a national belief, that the very lands so generously and with such astonishing magnanimity given away by His Majesty of merry memory were not in the gift of that jocular monarch, and that therefore if any person attempted to take possession of those lands, they, the preoccupiers, should certainly turn him off. Such, however, was the perversity and obstinacy of our respected ancestors, that, having greater faith in and for a piece of sheepskin signed with the sign of Charles Rex than in or for claims which any other people (particularly benighted savages who never head of Nell Gwynne) could by any possibility or stretch of an excitable imagination conceive as touching their rights to such lands, those redoubtably tough old soldiers very soon made the question of who should possess the land a question not of priority of choice and occupancy, but of sheer strength and pluck. The natural consequence of this difference of opinion between the newlylanded immigrant and the aboriginal inhabitant was—that they fell to hard knocks, in the course of which both parties took and gave some very rough usage. The upshot of all which was that those hardy old veterans, notwithstanding the disparity of numbers and the stupendous difficulties by which they were beset, succeeded in gaining such a secure footing upon the continent of America that at this day their descendants in those parts are counted amongst the mightiest nations of the earth.

What a startling difference between the doings of th ise brave old fellows in buff gerkins, and with long and cumbrous arquebuses, fighting against tremendous odds in a wild, rough, and desolate country, cut off by thousands of miles from any sort of assistance, and us, their refined and exquisitely polished descendents, located here and backed by every conceivable contrivance which the destructive as well as constructive ingenuity of man can devise, to say nothing of the control over space given to us by steam.

That the circumstances which have attended the acquisition of land here, and the circumstances which attended the acquisition in past times of land on the continent of America, are essentially different, does not in the least affect the question of who is to be master of that land, no matter how or where acquired. Clearly, if a king gives away land which he considers to be his because it does not belong to anybody else that he knew of, and is satisfied that if the land is not actually his it ought to be, those who accept the gift of that land under these cloudy conditions, must be prepared to make good this claim as best they may. But when, by a fair and indisputable exchange or sale, a race of savages, to whom land, beyond just so much as they require for immediate use, is of no value, sell certain tracts of that country to men their superior in more ways than one, and to whom land in any shape or of any sort or kind, and to any extent, is of great value, it naturally occurs to the disinterested observer that, under the circumstances of a satisfactory understanding having been come to between the seller and the buyer, no questions ought to arise in reference to the ownership of the land, to disturb the friendly relations thus established between them.

But such is the weakness of the judgment of man, and so false are many of the calculations he makes, that there is now going on in this little Island a war, arising out of a disputed question of ownership of a very insignificant piece of land, the like of which war, for magnitude of the interests at stake, the prodigous army and the wonderfully destructive contrivances brought into action against the enemy, was never seen or heard of in the early struggles of the settlers in the back woods of America with the ferocious

and warlike races by whom these woods were nhabited, although the ownership of a Continent was at stake. Herein we see that it matters not how savage races are treated, whether by fair means or by foul, so averse are they to us and to progressive and subversive notions and ideas, that sooner or later, by some means or other*, they will find an excuse for endeavoring to dispossess us of that which is our own, either by right of conquest or hy right of purchase, acquired either by superior valor or superior craft. The only way, therefore, to keep these restless and misguided hordes of barbarians in order is, not to be continually thrusting before them the olive branch of peace and the hand of friendship, but to let them distinctly understand that so long as they remain at peace with us all will be well, but that should they in an evil hour begin to make a row, then their lands shall be assuredly seized and themselves banished from the inheritance of their fathers, to perish in a place where their name, their language .and their country are unknown and unknowable.

That this question of the confiscation of the native lands is the great one of the present session of the House of Representatives we all know, and it would seem but natural that, under the circumstance of the unprovoiced nature of the war proclaimed by the Waikato tribes against us, the Bill, making a forfeiture of their lands a law only remaining to be enforced, should be at once without much discussion passed by both Houses, and proclaimed to the furthest part of the Island a fact accomplished. To us it appears perfectly certain that the only safeguard we have against a general rising of the natives is the fear of losing their lands. They value laud more than live; and we must urge upon our representatives in both Houses the extreme necessity of supporting the Coufiscatiou Bill, and by every means in their power guard against the probability of the Natives, being the aggressors, going unpunished.