Original Correspondence.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 347, 28 August 1849, Page 3

Original Correspondence.

To the Editor of the New Zeahnder, Sir, — You will report, in to-morrow's paper, the proceedings of Council of Satui day last. Suffer ma to make a few observations on a subject then discussed, which, had it not been the last day of meeting, would, on a following day, have assumed a. very different aspect.

I allude to * petition presented by Mr. Meuranf, involving the question of the law relating to the property of the half-caste race. The outline of his cusp is this. A piece of land was made over by natives to his native wife and her children in 1844, from which she was ousted by Government in 1848. A portion of it was leturned with a Ciown title to it. The l.usband resolved to petition Council, and entrnsted the preparation of that petition to a gentleman well known in this colony, placing certain documents in his hands, and giving him institutions. This petition, although temoeratc!y ( even submissively worded, gave great offence to Government, being a stumbling block in the way of the system which had hitherto been acted on ; c o that it immediately became a question how to binde r it from being printed, and included in the report of the proceedings of Council. The Governor o'jected on the grounds of its containing a charge aga nst some Government officer. The words made use of were these, "That your petitioner wrote |to Te Tawa on the subject ; that he enti listed the letter to Te Hira, but that it never reached its destination, having been taken from Te Hira by a Government officer." I take upon myself to asseit that no charge was intended ; that pains were taKen to word the paesage in which it was necessary to recoul an important hct, so as not to make a charge; and 1 fun hei more inpi-itain that no chnrge was made, being of opinion, as I ano, that the officer alluded to, after hbvmg become acquainted with the ccntcnts of the letter, would have done no more than hi * duty, if he wi re of opinion th»t it was a dangerous letter to send among na'ives; always of course supposing him to have immediately informed and reprimanded the writer. I will now tell you what did take place on that occasion, from Te Hiras and Mr, Meuranl's accounts. Mr. Mturant wrote a letter to Te Tawa, which lie entrusted to Te Hira. Te Hira had occasion to call at the Surveyor-General's Office, having to deal about some land. The Surveyor General, leeiug the letter in his hand, asked who it was for, and from whom ; he took it, lead it, and gave it brick to Te 11 in. Te Hira went away. Mr. Meurant afterwards met the Surveyor-Genera], who accu?ed him of tampering with the Natives, and sa,d that he had taken the letter from Te Hira. Now the truth is tbi«;— Mr. Meu'-ant, having learned from Te Tawa that he had not received the letter, was. under the impression that it had been detained at the Surveyor-General's Office; but luckily, in spite of this misapprehension, the writer's care had been such, that the asiertion still i emained literally correct, for the letter did not reach its destination. Yet on the grounds of an unfounded charge having been made— l say unfounded, for the Surveyor-General sat in silence— tha motion that the petition bo punted was negatived by s majority of six to four ; the Surveyor-General himself voting with the mnjoiity. On the following morning Mr. Meuranfc wrote toTe Hira, and obtained an answer, together with, the identical letter which Te Hira had retained in his own possession, having been '* ashamed." Whether Te Hira had ever shewn it to Te Tawa duiing that long interval of time, I have yet to ascertain. These are the letters :— [Meurant to Te Hira ] Friend—Saluting you,-— Tell tr.e the nnaie of the white man who look the letter I pave you for the Tawa when I retunvd from Port Jackson. From your fricnJ. Edward MnußWr. [Te Hiras Answer.] Friend Edward,— l have received your letter ; I have seen it, it is good. It is tiue I arrived at the house of Ligar. He saw the letter in my hand. He took it from me and read it. He returned the letter to me. My heart was daik when lie urged that we two should go to the Police House. He broke the letter. It was this letter of Edward to the Tawa. Te Hira. On the same day, at the request of the Suiveyor* General, Te Hira wrote a letter to that gentleman, not contradicting himself, but; fjuirdedly coirect. This was produced in Cmticil by tha Surveyor-Ueneral, as an answer to the pietetided char ge, to which, in strictness of words, it was not an answer; it was laid on the table, but net read. In fact, the question had now been reduced to a quibble upon words, and the reading of the letter would hava given Government the worst of that quibble. I now turn to the second chapter of the history. The petitioner, after stating the native transfer, went on to say that Mr* Meurant "applied to the Government on the 28th of May» 1344, for waiver of preemption, and was informed in answer, " that the land in ques-« tion being held m right of his wife, no purchase or deed of grant from the Crown would be required. Now there is no doubt but that this was in answer to an application for waiver, not over the land in question, but over mi adjoining piece of ground, bought by the petitioner from Jabez Bunting and Waters. This looks very strong, and is certainly sufficient to account for the consternation which prevailed among the. supporters of the memorial in Council. Bat a very little explanation materially alters the state of the casf , Mr. Meurant was uuder the impression that he had applied for waiver of preemption over both pieces of land of 30 and 14 acres respectively, in one block. He had unfortunately kept no copy of his own letter, which would have cleared all up, while the Colonial Secretary's letter contained nothing to the contrary. Of course the 30 acres only were alluded to in the memorial, the remainder being beside the question. It is curious that the Government itself should have previously fallen into the same mistake. It is a fact that \ Mr. Meurant's Crown Grant, haae<l upon the same correspondence, confuses the same two pieces of land, and makes an absolutely false recital. And this the Government were aware of at the very time when so much indignation was manifested against the petitioner. If it be only mistake on the Government side, it ia mistake only on Meurant's ; and lam willing to allow, that if it be falsehood on the one side, it ia falsehood likewise on the other. Possibly there may be correspondence in the office which has not yet come to light. There is another point which the Government might easily have perceived ; — that the animus must have been good, because the fact of that application weakened the petitioner's case. The writer of the petition was at first disinclined to make mention of it, seeing that the very application implied a doubt of the goodness of the Maori title/ upon which alone he could safely rely. The weakest point for the petitioner was his acceptance of a Crown grant; the next weakest was his api plication for waiver of pre-emption. Mention of the I later was at last reso]ved upon, only to avoid the appeaiance of having kept anything back in statement of the case. Why was not the petitioners case gone into ?_ Is it not wholly irrespective of a stray assertion in his petition—call it what you will, n istaketx or false— which the petition itself carefully excludes from the material question. I do not understand this sort of morality. If the woman's land has been unjustly taken from her, restore it at once, no matter what statements the husband may have made about the mattei } if with justice,

Jet Government exoneiate itself from blame, the sooner the better. And wuy was not Mr. Barstow s motion pressed, for "taking into consideration the disabilities of the halfcaste race." His first notice of motion on Friday, was <f to take into consideration the petition." At the Governor's suggestion he altered the woiding, for the sake of discennecting the motion with the petition, and on Satmday, declined to press it, because of a mistake in the petition. I do not understand this sort of reasoning. It was necessary to get rid of one of the most awkward cases ever brought forward, and the Governor proved too quick-witted for all the non-official members. Metoikos.