WELLINGTON.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 160, 5 February 1864, Page 3

WELLINGTON.

MANAWATU. Prosecution under Land Purchase Ordinance.- —Mr. Hamlin, the Native Interpreter, recently laid an information against a Mr. Haslara, for a breach of the Native Land Purchase Ordinance. Mr. Duller delivered, on the 14th inst., the following order :—“ John Haslam, you have been prosecuted by a person duly authorized by his Excellency the Governor in that behalf, for a breach of the Native Land Purchase Ordinance, by which you have rendered yourself liable to a penalty of ,£IOO. While admitting the charge, you plead ignorance of certain provisions in the Statute, and you refer to the fact of other Europeans in this district being now illegally in occupation of Native Lands. It is hardly necessary for me to tell you that the plea of ignorance can avail you nothing. It is your duty to make yourself acquainted with the laws, and you are supposed to know them whether jou do or not. That there are other offenders against the Ordinance is no justification to you. I can deal only with such cases as are brought before me, and these I must decide solely on their own merits. But I may point out that your case is a peculiar one in this respect, that your lease and purchase of Native bush was seriously calculated to retard or altogether obstruct the sale of a large block of laud now under offer to the Government and for which a Commissioner of the Crown has been for years in treaty : which your agreement with the Natives to cut and remove on your owu account upwards of two thousand aci’es of the best forest was a matter seriously affecting the prospective value of the Block as a field for European settlement. At the same time, it does not matter to me that you have acted in this matter with any wilful intention to frustrate the actions of Government, or to oppose the sale of the, land ; and considering that you have not attempted to evade the charge—that you have surrendered the agreement and forfeited your deposit to the Natives—and that you have already suffered in other ways from your illegal tenure —it appears to me that you will be sufficiently punished, and the object of this prosecution attained, by my inflicting upon you the lowest fine allowed by the Ordinance. I accordingly order you to pay a fine of ,£5 together with a further sum of £5 6s. 4d. the costs of this prosecution (including mileage).”— Advertiser, Jan. 21.