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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 159, 29 January 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

To the Editor of the Hawke's Bay Times. Sir, —I have read with satisfaction a very clear and well-written article in the Welling' ton Advertiser of the 14th inst., headed “ The Province Vindicated.” If you can possibly find room for reprinting it in an early issue, pray do so; as very much of it is most applicable at this juncture to this Province, —merely changing the names of the two provinces and their two Superintendents. I am, yours truly, W. Colenso, Napier, Jan. 26,1864. [We have much pleasure in acceding to the request of Mr. Golenso ; as we also think the article itself to be very suitable, and highly recommend it to the serious consideration of our sudscribers and readers. — Ed. H. B. T.] THE PROVINCE VINDICATED. “ Ale Governments,” said De Tocqueville, “will be just as rascally as people will let them be,” and it cannot be expected therefore that the Wellington Government should prove any exception to the rule. It may, however, be doubted whether the men who constitute our Provincial Government have been any more corrupt and rascally than any other set of men we might have put in their places, if afforded the same opportunities of “ feathering,” as the slang phrase is, “ their own nests.” The direct result of the later

policy of Dr. Featherston hag been, to benefit one particular interest to the injury of the general interest of the community ; but we sincerely believe that next to the object of consolidating his own power—of becoming, as Junius would express it, “the little tyrant of a little corporation ” his earnest wish was in the first instance to be the Superintendent of a free and prosperous community. The policy he advocated on assuming the reins of Government was of a totally opposite character to that which he has since carried out. To open up the country by roads and bridges and to introduce into the Province a continuous stream of immigrant labor, were the objects which he not only professed to have at heart, but which he did his best to secure. It is true, he could not be made to see, that with the existing land laws and regulations the Province was, as the Independent in those days told him, as incapable of holding population as a sieve was of holding water: but iFcannot be denied that he then tried to introduce immigrants into the Province however defective his arrangements were for keeping them in it after their arrival. His immigration scheme proved a wretched and a costly failure, not because liberal facilities were denied to intending immigrants to come to the Province, but, because no inducements were held out to them to settle in it. He endeavoured to prevent laborers from becoming land owners too soon, not by raising the price of land, but by a method still more effective—the whole of the alienated lands of the Province, with the exception of some stoney plains in the Wairarapa and some bush on the West Coast, were handed over to certain holders of depasturing licenses, on such terms, under such conditions, and fenced round by such laws, as“would effectually prevent any laboring man from buying land for the purpose of settling on it. Hence the immigrant, whose primary object in emigrating was to get land, took the first opportunity of leaving a Province where that object, by the operation of partial laws, was rendered unattainable. It was the opinion of Dr. Featherston, (and the same opinion w r as held by the Provincial Council,) that the run-holder, after having invested a large sum on his station, should not be liable to be disturbed by the would-be freeholder, aud hence, instead of any encouragement being given to the occupation of the country by bona fide settlers, laws were specially made to prevent so°*desirable an object being accomplished. While, nominally, any unsold lands could be purchased at 10s. per acre ;■ no lands could be purchased ; by the small capitalist for actual settleirient by reason of the absence of surveys, by reason of the hostility of the squatters, and by reason of the run-holder being the operation of the Fencing Act. We have never asserted that any one might not purchase land upon a run—we know a case' where 13,000 acres were purchased on a run which was certified to contain only 6000 — but we have said, and we now repeat, that no one in his senses would buy a section on a run for his own occupation if he could get one elsewhere. Our rulers have thought that it is right this should be so—that when a runholder has stocked his run he should not be liable to be disturbed by interlopers, but he should have every facility afforded him of obtaining the fee simple Of the land over which he possessed only a depasturing license. The result of this policy is before us. Our few run-holders are either making rapid fortunes or are becoming the owners of princely estates; but the Province remains uncolonized; we have to import our provisions from abroad, labor cannot be obtained at any price, and town property is unsaleable. This is not so much owdng to the rascality of the Government as to the political ignorance and continual apathy of the people. In this term we include particularly our landholding and trading classes who are most injured by the present system, as it prevents the property of the one rising in value, and'deprives the other of a large and regular accession of customers. The Provincial Government is not a bit more rascally than the people Lave allowed them the opportunity of being; and have perhaps not during the last three or four years driven more persons out of the Province, than they, were the means, during the first three .or four years of Dr. Featherston’s administration, of bringing into it. The fact is upon record, and the returns laid before our Colonial Parliament render it still more manifest—not that the Province is going to the dogs though the Provincial Government may be—but that the progress of Wellington has been less rapid than that of any other Province in the Colony except that of Taranaki. Is this owing to its unfavorable situation, to its want of good land, - to its high winds and heavy earthquakes,' to it*.

harbor having no holding ground, and iu which wrecks are common, as our Auckland contemporaries assert, and for which assertions our local contemporary says there is some shadow of excuse, or is it owing to misgovernment ? This is the question. If out of eight or nine farms one is much less productive than the rest, we naturally conclude that it is either not so good a farm or that the fault is in the management. So with this Province. It is either not so good a Province, is less favorably situated commercially and its soil naturally less productive, or its inferiority to the others is owing to bad management. We maintain, that for situation, for fertility of soil, for salubritj of climate, for agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial resources it is superior to any Province in the Middle Island, and equal to any in the North, and the only conclusion at which we can arrive is that the reason why it has made no greater progress, when compared with other Provinces, is owing exclusively to mis-government and class legislation; the object of both appearing to be, to prevent the country being colonized in order that our stock-breeders and sheep-farmers may have it as much as possible to themselves. It is well known that any one of these would prevent if he could any neighbor from coming within a dozen miles of him; and only the other day it was shewn that Dr. Featherston would not allow a man to remain on unoccupied land distant six miles from the eastern boundary of his run, though in an out of the way country, infested with wild pigs, which perhaps, no one else would have thought of occupying. The next run to Dr. Featherston’s comprises 20,000 acres, and carried in the year of 1855, we don’t know how many sheep but only one shepherd ! In the same year some dozen immigrants consigned to Mr. Seed at Napier, by the Wellington Provincial Government, had to remain on his hands owing 1 to there being no demand for their services by the run-holders of Hawke’s Bay—so favorable is the system for the encouragement of immigration to the country, and for the development of its resources.