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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 172, 24 March 1847, Page 3

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Sir, — In your, last Saturday's paper, you announced that his Excellency the Governor had agreed to pay the natives (the Ngatitoas) £3000 for the Wairau district, and you then proceeded to indulge in some very warm commendation's of the course thus adopted by his Excellency. If the natives had been the authors of the eulogiums thus lavished upon the Governor — if' they had themselves boasted of the triumph they have obtained by this payment — if they had openly proclaimed this £3000 as a complete and. sa'tisfactoryjustification of their part in the Wairau massacre, as the most decisive verdict in their favour, and as a severe, condemnation of the conduct of their unhappy victims, —no one could possibly have blamed them, for they would have been most fully justified in availing themselves of the opportunity thus afforded them by his Excellency of announcing to the

world their entire innocence of the blood of our: fellow-settlers. But, Sir, when you express your approval of this transaction, more especially in a Pqper t which has all along denouncedthe exis-> tence of any valid claim on the part of the natives to the district in question, and' which has been constantly urging and demanding that the Company's claim to it should be investigated and decided upon, we have a right to assume both that some fresh light has been thrown upon the subject, and also that you are not ignorant of the grounds upon which hi 3 Excellency has come to this strange determination— "a determination most unaccountably at variance with the opinion repeatedly expressed b - hinti to many of the settlers both here and at Nelson. This cannot surely be his contribution to the Wairau monument. You, however, will not' object to putting us in possession of all the information you have on this subject — for until a full explanation be afforded, the settlers cannot be expected to retract all their previous opinions so repeatedly and publicly recorded — much less to unite with you in any expression of satisfaction at this payment. All we at present know of the Wairau claim is, that at Mr. Spain's request the Company forebore to press their claim to it when his Court was open at Nelson (see Mr. Fox's letter published ia your 88th number), and we have never heard of its ever having beeh subsequently investigated. We know, indeed, that the Wairau was included in the s-me/ deed as Blind Bay, which was declared by the Commissioner to have been validly purchased; and we know further that the perpetrators of the massacre openly announced tlusir intention to abandon all claim to the district. With such knowledge as this, it cannot be expected that the settlers should give their sanction to such an arrangement as that just effected by his Excellency, seeing that the effect of it is, not merely to decide in favour of the natives, but also t<i cast a stigma upon the memory of all who fell at the Wairau. i I ask you now to inform vs — when, where, and by whom hus the Wairau claim been investigated, and what evidence in support of, or adverse to the Company's alleged purchase has been brought forward? When a satisfactory answer is given to these inquiries, we shall be in a position to estimate the grounds upon which his Excellency has made, or agreed to make, this payment; but in the meantime we must hesitate to give our adhesion tc£this arrangement, simply because his Excellency Captain Grey has made it. We-believe in the infallability of no man. j. Many, perhaps, are so inebriated with the glorious Government expenditure at present going on, that they are unwilling that the acts of the Governor, who authorizes it, should be minutely examined or criticized — but, Sir, I submit, that the Press ought not to lend itself to any such unworthy truckling — ought not to prostitute its power to any such dishonest purposes. Whether the local press has not already on many subjects counected with his Excellency's administration maintained a most indecorous silence will in all probability be fully decided by our first intelligence from England after the meeting of Parliament. If, for example, the trial by court martial of the natives at Porirua, several weeks after they had been captured, — the hanging of one — and the transporting of the others to Van Diemen's Land — if the detention of Rauparaha for so long a period without any charge being brought against him — if, I say, these acts should be by the authorities at home declared illegal and unconstitutional, and if his Excellency, in consequence of them, should require (as in the case of Lord Durham and the Canadian prisoners) an act of indemnity — will it not appear strange that the local press should either have maintained a strict silence upon, or openly expressed an approval of these acts. There are, Sir, certain great fundamental principles — the violation of which can never be justified by any plea of expediency or necessity ; — and which no community can ever permit those in power (more especially those clothed with despotic power) for a moment to violate without degradation to themselves and a betrayal of the duty imposed upon every Englishman. I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, Justitm. March 23, 1847.