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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 578, 15 February 1851, Page 2

If our first hasty perusal of Mr. Fox’s apo- | logy for the Duppa Compensation Job con 1 g veyed the impression to our minds that it | was a virtual admission of the charge, our j first impressions have only been strengthen- | cd and confirmed by a more careful consi' | deration of his letter, which we have re-1 published in our present number. A more | weak or inconclusive defence it is iinpossi- | ble to conceive, and though Mr. Fox seemsl to have felt himself obliged to say some' | thing, it would have been better i° l g him to have remained silent altoge' g ther than to have failed so completely > n g this attempt to vindicate his character, I Foxsaysthat “ with the exception of onepofot | (the rate of interest}, every thing connected wit!* | Mr. Duppa’s claim was left unreservedly t® | these arbitrators.” The whole question turned | on that very point. The six hundred pounds | paid to the Company eleven years ago b;< . Mr. Duppa for six land orders was increase > to two thousand pounds, the sum awarded, by the admission of Mr. Fox of Mr. Duppa 9 | claim to interest and compound I terest at 10 per cent! And Mr. Fox passe* over in silence the fact that immediate $ I after the award was made he (Mr. Fox). 8 *| p

flowed the scrip to be forthwith exchanged for a compact block of 8000 acres in the Kvairau, being at the rate of ss. an acre, awhile the price of land in the Nelson settleginent was thirty shillings, that the block jontained many sections offered for selection at that price, and from its position commanded a still greater extent of country. Mr. Fox affects to consider Mr. Duppa’s ;ase as analagous to those of Mess. Deans, Hornbrook, Mrs. Sinclair, &c., whereas it has no feature in common with them. Mr. Dupja’s claim to compensation is the same with ;hose of the original purchasers in this settlement, and ought to have been treated in Rhe same way. If Mr. Fox admits Mr. ipuppa’s claim to interest, and compound interest, at 10 per cent., what is to prevent gthe other resident land-purchasers in this settlement from making similar demands ? If ||uch claims are admitted, the lands grantled to the Company would be inadequate fto meet them. Mr. Fox would have Shis connexion with Mr. Duppa considered being precisely the same as those of Mr. IjDillon, Major Richmond, or Mr. Domett, with the persons having charge of their Seattle. But he forgets that his position as Principal Agent of the Company, and his Consequent power in dealing with the land, entirely alters his relative position, and he passes over in silence the fact that this gßbwer was, as we have shewn, exerted by him in more than one instance to favor Mr. jffiuppa, to the prejudice of other settlers. need not now enter into any further ggiscussion of this question, since Mr. Fox has left those points which constitute the gcharge against him not only unanswered, hut even unnoticed.