New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, November 5, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 653, 5 November 1851, Page 3

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, November 5, 1851.

The systematic attacks on personal character. the repeated violations by the Independent of all the established conventionalities and decencies of private life which are qom-

monly respected in controversy or political warfare, have come at length to be considered a distinctive characteristic of that paper, and have given to it and its present manager (who is generally understood to be Dr. Featherston) an unenviable notoriety. Under the plea of discussing questions of public interest occasion is taken to introduce some violent personal attack, in which the writer seeks to gratify his personal animosities, or by which he hopes thoroughly to disgust all who are not as unscrupulous and unprincipled as himself, and to make them indifferent to local politics and averse to their taking anv active part in them; while every now and then some fresh outrage outheroding all that had gone before excites a general feeling of indignation at the infamy of such conduct. Of this nature is the attack recently made in the Independent on Mr. Mantell on his appointment as Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Southern District. In exposing the motives by which this dastardly outrage has been prompted we shall not condescend to vindicate Mr, Mantell from the attacks of such a writer, it will be sufficient to remind our readers that towards the end of the year 1848, Mr. Mantell was appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor a Commissioner for completing the arrangements for the purchase from the natives of a very extensive tract of country in the Middle Island, including the Canterbury block and the districts adjoining that settlement and Otago, and that these arrangements were so judiciously and satisfactorily made by him as to have elicited ■ the warm approval of the Lieutenant-Governor and of Sir George Grey, who, in his reply acknowledging Mr. Eyre’s despatch informing him of the purchase, observes, “that Mr. Mantell appears fully to have merited the encomiums you have bestowed on the careful and zealous manner in which he has executed the duties intrusted to him.” While engaged in the discharge of these difficult and somewhat troublesome duties, Mr. Mantell found time to make those researches which have caused his name to be so widely known in the scientific circles of Europe in connection with New Zealand, the fruits of which, in the collection of the remains of the Moa and other extinct birds deposited in the British Museum, form an enduring and honorable monument of his industry and scientific zeal. With a full knowledge of these facts his recent appointment was regarded by every one, except the writer in the Independent, as the fittest and most judicious Sir George Grey could have made. That the author of such gross and unwarrantable personalities as those to which we have alluded can “ have no wish to appear squeamish” will be readily admitted. That he is utterly devoid of all “ squeamishness,’ or of any of those finer feelings which regulate the intercourse of society, and would interfere with the gratification of bis personal spite may shortly be made to appear from the following considerations. In the beginning of 1848, Mr. Commissioner Cowell’s report on the memorial of the land purchasers in the first and principal settlement to the New Zealand Company for compensation was received in Wellington, and excited a very general feeling of indignation. At the time it was believed that Mr. Cowell relied implicitly on. the authority and acted on the suggestions and information of Mr. E. Jerningham Wakefield, then in England; and in one of the resolutions (9th) passed at the meeting of land purchasers Feb. 28, 1848 (which resolution was drawn up by Dr. Featherston) direct reference is made to Mr. Edward Jerningham Wakefield—“ to his character as given and published in the local papers by the Rev. Mr. Turton and R. D. Hanson, Esq., late Crown Prosecutor—to his removal by Captain Fitzroy from the Commission of *he Peace on account of his g»oss immoralities,” &e. We have no desire to rake up any personal scandals connected with the private history of any one, we have always been opposed to such a course, and the reference made to the local papers in the above resolution applies exclusively to the Independent,

as we steadily refused at the time to publish either Mr. Hanson’s or Mr. Turton’s letters reflecting on Mr. E. J. Wakefield. Time passes, and Mr. J. Wakefield returns to New Zealand, and is reinstated in the Commission of the Peace by Sir George Grey. Mr. J. Wakefield shews his appreciation of this act of courtesy or justice (we leave our readers to determine which) on the part of Sir George, by becoming an active and bitter opponent of his government. Incontinently all past differences are forgotten, these two —the assailant and the assailed, so worthy of each other—swear an eternal friendship, and this stickler for morality in the Independent views with complacency “ such a conservator of public morals,” as he had previously described Mr. J. Wakefield to be, “ placed in the Commission of the Peace,” and overloads with his fulsome panegyricks one whom he had previously so fiercely denounced. Nor on Mr. Mantell’s previous appointment as Commissioner by Mr. Eyre was any objection raised by the Independent, these attacks on his personal character are made only from motives of personal animosity, andbecauseMr. Mantell, now he has received a permanent Appointment, is guilty of being—unpardonable offence in the eyes of his detractor—a Government officer. If political antagonists are to contend after this fashion, those who dare to propose such a scrutiny would themselves soonest shrink from the ordeal. Are we to look for a pattern of morality in the chairman of the so-called Constitutional Association, or are we to drag each individual member of that Association before the public after the example their Coryphaeus has set us ? No, we desire to knew nothing of them, or in any way to allude to them, except when by their conduct with reference to public questions they make, themselves ridiculous and become amenable to public criticism.

In conclusion we may safely predict that Mr. Mantell, in his present appointment, will shew himself worthy the encomiums bestowed upon him by those whose praise is worth having, and, while zealous in the discharge of his official duties, will neglect no opportunity in the rich untrodden field before him of extending his reputation bv his exertions in the cause of science, and of benefiting the Colony by making known its mineral productions. He can well afford to treat his assailant with contempt, for few will pay any attention to the attacks of a disappointed placehunter, or look up to a duel list as the standard of their morality.