To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, 20th June, 1845.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 38, 28 June 1845, Page 2

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, 20th June, 1845.

Mr. Editor, — Many write for the sake of notoriety, but the following observations concerning the prosperity and colonization of these islands pretend to nothing but a rade sketch of a plan that has often occurred to me as the most simple and advantageous for both races, which will bear along with it the greatest amount of good both for maories and for Europeans, particularly as it is now obvious, and even acknowledged by every unbiassed and honest mmd — that by giving to the natives large sums of money or other property as a payment for what they never possessed, nor ever would have possessed, has had a most baneful effect on their minds, by exciting their cupidity and desire for plunder, a thing that they would perhaps never have thought of or expected had they been treated with honesty and firmness — as it appears to me dishonesty to give any set of men large sums of money for what they have no claim to, and will always do much hurt to them as moral and intelligent beings. My plan is simply this ; in place of giving purchase money for a right' to the soil, I would establish a very small annual rent for every acre of land brought into a state of cultivation, fit for bearing crops of any kind — say for the first ten years one penny, and for the next ten years one half penny 4 then, let it be considered by an act of the Colonial Council, to be confirmed by the British Parliament, what further annuity should be continued to them for the purpose of moral and religious instruction. „ All waste uncultivated land left at the end of twenty years to continue under the above plan, or be so regulated as to produce a fund for their sick or destitute, and also educational purposes. As it would be found that even at one-farthing per acre many of the chiefs would arrive at a very large, and what might become a very dangerous income ; this would be a stimulus to the natives to have as much land in a state of cultivation as possible, as their income would entirely depend on the amount of acres brought into that state. This plan, although evidently crude, might, in the hands of some of our calculating minds be brought to a more satisfactory plan, and I should be glad to see some one more capable spend a few moments of his time in bringing it into a condition fit for being acted upon. Philanthropos.