New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1843.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 64, 10 March 1843, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1843.

The decision of the Chief Justice of New Zealand in the matter of an application for a bench warrant against Rangihaieta has been published in the Gazette. We presume that the Chief Justice is probably right in his view of the law. The only question in which this community is interested is the probable effect of that decision with regard to any disputes with the natives.

But first, a word or two may be said on the policy or justice of the proceeding, on the part of those who have urged the proceedings against Rangihaieta, and who applied for this warrant. It must be remembered that the Crown has recognised the titles of the natives to the lands which among themselves are reputed to belong them, and has not recognized the title of the Company, until it has been investigated and determined by the Commissioner of Claims. Besides this, Colonel Wakefield, as the Agent of the Company, under whom the parties, Hurley and others, claimed, had admitted this title by attempting to purchase the land from the Chiefs of the Ngati Toa tribe, Rauparaha, Rangihaieta, and others. It was well known that Rangihaieta disputed the sale of Porirua, and had threatened to prevent any person from settling there. In the full knowledge of these facts, the -persons who were afterwards ejected were placed upon the land. They were warned after their arrival that they would be driven off if they persisted in building there ; and as they did persist the house which they were erecting was pulled down. In this first proceeding, we think there was

great imprudence. From what we have heard, we believe that Mr. Hurley and his partners did not know, at ’the time they took the land, the risk that they were incurring. Those, however, who placed them upon the land, did know it. And that these latter should have allowed, or rather encouraged industrious and enterprising settlers to place themselves in a position of much personal danger, and almost assured pecuniary loss, is, at the least, rather inconsiderate. They could hardly have failed to foresee the consequences which followed; or, at any rate, they knew the possibility of their occurrence, and they ought to have guarded ignorant people from incurring any such risk. As they could f not procure a warrant from the Magistrates for the apprehension of Rangihaieta, they applied before the Chief Justice for aßench warrant. If we are not mistaken, this which, if granted, would have authorised the employment of any amount of force to compel the appearance of Rangihaieta, was applied for without any notice to him, that an indictment had been found against him, and without any requisition that he should appear. So that the first notice he would have had of the existence of any proceedings to which it was needful that he should answer, might have been the appearance of a constable and a dozen armed assistants, who could understand nothing that he said, and could scarcely in the slightest degree make themselves intelligible to him, authorised to drag him to Port Nicholson, without the delay of an hour. If this be law, surely it is not justice. To ask for a Bench warrant, under such circumstances, was therefore, we think, not merely imprudent, but unjust. With regard to its effect upon the Natives, which our contemporary seems to apprehend, we imagine they will be inapplicable. They have been abundantly taught that offences against person and property will be punished. But, as in this case, they did no more than any lord of the manor might do in England, or any freeholder might do in the Colony; the consequences of their impunity can hardly be very serious. . .. .

The Gazette tries to shuffle out of its charge against us on the subject of the Jury Law. It began by accusing us of outdeing itself in the unconstitutional character of our proposal—that freeholders should be registered conditionally. Beaten out of this point, and convicted of a blunder which implied a great lack, either of knowledge dr judgment—it now seeks to represent the matter in dispute as a mere legal question, the point in wliii h is whether the Governor can be said to have a power to make freeholders—when, as the Gazette asserts, the purchasers under the Company are even now equitable freeholders. We are truly sorry for our contemporary, whose persevering ingenuity in trying to extricate himself from one blunder, only leads him into another. He is as much mistaken in this last as in his former opinion. The purchasers of land under the Company are not equitable freeholders. After the Commissioner of Land Claims has pronounced in favour of any. one of the Company’s purchases, and before a grant from the Crown, we imagine that-purchasers of land comprised within that deed will have an equitable estate of freehold. But in spite of our contemporary’s legal lore, which he so delights to exhibit, they have no such estate at the present time. The truth is~ that our contemporary was so anxious to display his legal attainments, that he quite forgot the facts to which his law was to be applicable. The best test of the soundness of his doctrine is to carry it out to its consequences. If the Grown holds these lands as a trustee for the colonists, or if the legal freehold only is vested in the Crown, and an equitable freehold in the Settlers, it would be easy for the holders of the equitable freehold to compel a declaration of trust or a transfer of the legal estate. We suspect even our contemporary will agree, that it would be hardly expedient to try in any such manner to enforce, the rights of the equitable freeholders whom he has invented.

We are requested by the Committee of the Mechanic’s Institution, to state that Mr. Hanson’s Third and Last Lecture on the Principles

of Colonization, which was postponed on Tuesday last, in consequence of very few persons being present, will be delivered on Tuesday Evening next, when they hope that the members of the Institution, and those who are anxious to promote its interests, will attend.