WANGANUI.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 80, 18 April 1846, Page 3

WANGANUI.

We have received the following letter from Wanganui by the Katherine Johnstone :—: — Wanganui, April 7th, 1846. Robberies by natives continue to be very frequent, scarcely a day or night passes without one or more taking place. Pigs, poultry, garden produce, or in fact anything they can lay their hands on without immediate detection is sure to go. At a very moderate calculation £60 worth of property has been taken from the settlers, within the last two months. In a letter which appeared iD the Independent of March 4th, dated from Wanganui, the natives are described as peaceable,, friendly, and, well Behaved. Now, as no attemptis ever made to recover possession of lost property, they retain their equanimity, and may be said to merit the first of these appellations, but it ia not a little surprising that any one, even under an assumed signature, in the face of facts to the contrary, can venture to patch up a character for morals, so little deserved. There appears to be a strong disposition among some two or three individuals here, (who from the responsibility of their position ought to be first to claim protection for their countrymen,) to discountenance any discussion having for its object the proper and legal control of the natives, and it is said that, the Police Magistrate took a very early opportunity of volunteering an opinion to his Excellency when here, that protection was not required. # From the constant levies on the inhabitants by their dark brethren, the danger in which the settlement has more than once been placed, — peace having been preserved solely by the qaiet submission of the Europeans, — and the avowed inability of the magistracy to gire redress, for 'fear of the consequences,' many of outmost industrious settlers have left us, and without a small military force or a military police it mat'

tew not which, I am afr«id Wanganui will not be a desirable resting place for the remainder, for whatever wonders are expected to arise from the settlement of the land question, a respect for the property of otheri by the natives will not be one of them.