Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1864.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 163, 26 February 1864, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1864.

If the state of public feeling in this Province was to be gathered from articles in the Herald, acts of the Provincial Council, and deeds of the Provincial Government, we should be rightly judged as a people upon the verge of lunacy and rapidly falling into a state of drivelling impotence. That the Herald should, as the organ of the Government, with one breath complain of the site chosen for the “Military Settlements” and with another laud the sagacity of that Government in renting from

the Natives some portions of the Pakowhai plains for a term of fifteen years, by way of inducing a settlement of people thereon, is quite characteristic of the entire absence of any fixed or defined ideas on the part of that notorious Journal, and is plainly indicative of a condition of mental collapse. That some portion of these plains should bo kept from the hungry clutches of the “ squatter” is so far so good ; but that the most effectual way of doing so .is to set to work to induce people to settle there on a short lease, without any hope, however remote, of becoming the proprietors of the land, appears to us to be doing a thing which, but for the entire absence of wisdom in the doings of our local Government, would be a cause of surprise and speculation. Nothing that emanates from the present Provincial Government will bear inspection : their doings will only bear comparison to the gaudy and expensive fabrics with which a halfcivilised people delight to deck their persons. It is hardly conceivable that a people in possession of their seven senses can quietly see large sums of money taken out of the impoverished and dreadfully in debt public treasury, and expended in surveys, roads, drains, and public works upon land w T hich long before the conclusion of those w r orks must revert back to the Native owners, with all the results of our labor and our capital upon it. It is useless to talk about the Natives taking all these improvements at a valuation at the expiration of the term ; it is ridiculous to suppose that a people whose opinions upon the subject of “improvements” are widely different to our own, and who as a rule never pay for anything if they can help it, should be expected to perform the self-sacrificing operation of paying us for w ? orks which to them are of no value, or upon which they do not choose to set a value The monstrously artificial manner in winch the great outcry for “ Population” in Hawke’s Bay is being met by the Provincial Government is truly astonishing,—in fact to such a complication of perfection is their folly arising, that really its profundity of. absurdity almost borders upon wisdom.

The “ ultima Thule ” of human happiness in this Province appears to be “ Population,” no matter of what sort or of what description so that we can proudly say we have “ a people.” The ruinous consequences of inundating the country with paupers, with people dependent entirely upon Government bounty, and with a class of people only a few degrees removed from these, is but too plainly perceptible. The great question now is—Who is to pay the tremendous direct taxation looming in the distance ? and will presently merge into the equally startling question of —How are we to support, in addition to our already heavy burdens, the numbers of indigent with whom our own improvidence will presently have covered the country ? Had the Government of this Province land of good quality to sell, as is the case at Canterbury, we should very soon see a strong stream of healthy immigration naturally setting in here ; but it is impossible to hope for prosperity and progress coming from a purely artificial and unsubstantial method of filling up a great natural blank and void. One word as regards the quality and situation of the land set apart for the '• Military Settlements.” A stranger would be led to judge from the tone the Herald has assumed in this matter that Hawke’s Bay abounded in large tracts of fertile land at the disposal of the Government, and that the difficulty was not to be found in a want of land, but in a want of people to populate that land, and that out of this extensive estate the Government could readily fix upon a piece to be given away to the military settler. For once, then, we side with the Government in this case. They had no choice. The cry is for population, and that cry is met by the introduction of any and all sorts of people ; and as the last ten thousand acres in this Province of land in the hands of the Govern-

nient is to be found in the neighborhood of the Puketitiri Bush, and as that place is on the North road and frontier of Auckland or Waikato, nothing better can be done with it than to give it to our intended military protectors. There is, we have heard, plenty of wood and water, and a vast amount of the purest and most refreshing breezes, all of which great advantages, coupled to the certainty of the fortunate possessors of the soil being obliged to work pretty hard for their living, ensures us one at least of a great many blessings in our day of trouble, viz., a hardy, healthy, and industrious people in that neighborhood, something like the Scotch, working a great deal and living on very little.