WANGANUI.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 47, 30 August 1845, Page 2

WANGANUI.

By the K'therine Johnstone we learn from our Wanganui correspondent that the natives of that district are very quiet, and well disposed towards the settlers. Although their former memorials and petitions to the Governor have been treated with indifference and neglect, his Excellency has vouchsafed a reply to the last memorial from the settlers in this district, intreating him to settle the land claims, and to put them in possession of their land. To this reasonable request his Excellency has returned for answer — "that if they want the land, they are to make the best terms they can with the natives, but that they were not to trouble him any more about it." It was expected this answer would have the effect of encouraging the natives to acts of violence and depredation ; but they fully appreciate the advantages which the colonists confer upon them, by living among them, and sensible of his inconsistency and imbecility, are shrewd enough to estimate our Governor at his real worth. They say "he is all the same as a child, but in a little time he will go away, and another Governor will come and settle all things ; and so, confident in this expectation, they remain very peaceable." And this is all Captain Fitzroy has gained by his injustice to the settlers, and his favouritism of the maoris ! the very natives repay his uujust partiality with scorn and contempt. They consider him "to be all the same as a child," and look for his removal with as much anxiety as the settler, in the hope of a wise and prudent successor, who will do justice to both races, and put an end to the questions which at present harrass and irritate them.