To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, December 28, 1848.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 356, 30 December 1848, Page 3

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, December 28, 1848.

Sir, — Omi Nomi seems to have been put to bis wit's ends to find out what ' temporary measure' was the cause of Ireland's ills. Having been told that it was not the want of representation, but its abuse when exercised by an oligarchy that caused those ills, he has endeavoured to attribute them to Lord Str afford. As he has quite left his original ground, here I might stop ; but he says that his government rendered the war of races and sects interminable. Now his government had little or nothing to do with these ; he was one among many Governors who carried on the same bad system. The war of races began in the reign of Henry the Second and has continued more or less ever since; and the war of sects began with Henry the Eighth, reached its height in that of Elizabeth, and may be- said to have lasted, — that is, differences on this subject, — to the present day: but neither was much aggravated by Strafford. But when he classes Strafford, though a tool of Charles the First's, among 'weak minded individuals,' he shews that history, with all his pretensions, is not his forte. Nobody can execrate, more than I, the conduct of Strnfford and his master, but to deny his talent and to call him weak minded, is to make a great historical blunder. One of the most impartial and philosophical writers of modern historj' says — " Great he # surely was, since that epithet can never be denied without pardon to so much comprehension of mind, such ardour and energy, such courage and eloquence." One or two extracts from the same writer will confirm the assertion I made before and repeat now, that it was representation given to one race and denied to the other that was the root which has borne such bitter fruit in after times : —"The while common law and cv.cry privilege it was deemed to convey became the birthright of the Anglo-Irish colonists in the reign of John." "None of Irish blood had ever sat, either lords or commoners, till near the end. of Henry the Eighth's reign." " It cannot be said that the English Government or those who represented it in Dublin displayed any reluctance to emancipate the Irish from thraldrom ; whatever obstruction might be interposed to this was from the assembly, whose concurrence was necessary to every general measure." "The Irish renewed their supplication more than once; they found some readiness in the English court ; they sank at home through, the same unconquerable oligarchy." For Omi Nomi to talk of " uninformed and puerile minds" is rather too good a joke, but I say no more. I am Sir, your obedient servant, A Lover of Truth.