To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, February 3, 1854.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 888, 4 February 1854, Page 2

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, February 3, 1854.

Sir, — In your Saturday week's leai'in^ article, you termed (he spoliation Feucing Bill an "Algeiine Act," a tit'e at once too mild for the proposed fencing enactment, and a libel on 'the constitution of the Turkish Empire — the Basuaws of whose Pasbalicks (" Sovereigns, Superinten- • dents or Heads of the State " as the Independent would mouthily recite the title) are each usually satisfied with ribbing the Mahometan provincial settlers themselves, without allowing their Divans or Councils to pass Fencing Acts to enable the Turks to rob each other, and therefore would wiselj check such a plundering system with bowstring or scymitar. The Independent Editor absurdly misapplies to the land owners of Wellinjton a quotatiou from Vattel on the subject of " unenclosed common lands," which quotation all settlers not destitute of learning and common sense must infallibly perceive really strikes at neither absentee nor resident land owners, but at his own clique — the sheep jobbers. The only individuals who enjoy 11 rights of common " in ihs Province are the run-holders, whom the Council purpose exempting from nil contributions to fencing. It is not my present purpose to discuss their " right of common " on Crown lands, but regarding their I tight of common or privilege to trespass on uu«

fen e<l land, tbe private property of either absent or resident land owners, they may as consistently defend any out aw's ** fright tf burglary " on the insecure dwelling's of the i-eulrrs. Before reading Saturday's Independent, I was blindly unable to perceive the nudacious presumption of any poor ravn investing their honest earnings in buying small plots of waste laud, they hoping that although now useless to themselves, the progress and prospetiiy of tbe Province would iv future years make the land available to their children ; but now I am enlightened by the Independent Jack O' Lantern, I see the vile guiltiness of all land owners who dou't cultivate their ailment?, no matter whether their neglect proceeds from utter absence of roa is, or the 1 n<\ being too heavily timbered, rocky, swampy, black birch, or land which the Government has not yet found it convenient to survey and deliver to the buyer ; these trifles in his philosophic eyes form no excuse for no: cbangi <q rocks and gullies into a Southern Garden of Eden, and to plead our poverty would I fear add to our atroci'y. Poverty in his ey -s seems the worst of all crimes, which the Loral Government should deservedly punish wi hfi >c and confiscation of the )*n I of the criminal ; of course the guilty " forty- acre " one i must be legally crushed If the viJlany of poor men buying land is not repressed, where will our worthy legislators get shepherds nt £20 t year ? Labourers wil. liave the audacity to ask fair wages, possibly may eventually hope to own sheep tlumseNes ; their insolence mast be checked, and for legally effecting this purpose, -the Fencing and Thistle Bills do credit to the ingenuity of the sheep owners. The project of regraapiug by thistle fines and other vexatious frivolities of legislation, tbe lands for which £10,000 has been paid to tbe Government, shows an amount of clever political jobbery that sinks swindling American Repudiation into relative insignificance. It is clearly the sbeepowners' object, under a flimsy pretext of taxing absentees, io prevent all purchase of cheap land by the settlers, for it is evidently more profitable to have the perpetual use of land for sheep runs for nothing — than to purchase it at even ten sliilltugi per acre for farming, even if uncrippled by Fencing and Thistle Ordinances. Tne Independent editor wilfully over'ooks one fact, that a very large portion of the Port Nicholson district is not cultivaable land, and if eventually valuable for any purposes, it is surely not for agricultural. I need not waste time to prove a fact, which hi Dr. Featherslon's letter to tbe New Zealand Company was dwelt on ly him, and subscribed to by other resident purchasers, as the greatest wrong those buyers had suffered from the New Zealand Company, and admitted by that Company when they sanctioned the compensation job. It is false thdt all land is increased io worth by being fenced ; meadow land, whether occupied or not, may probably t>e increased in lettiog^or selling value by be'ng enclosed with fencing; but I deny that railing in the uncleared land in Karori, O tiro, O' a io, and other suburban limber districts would be tbe sflsaUest benefit to the owners ; on the contr>ry, i* would present their falling or burning wih>n xt least two chains of the party fence, an) be en impediment to all their bush clearing operations. It may perhaps su>t tlie owners cf the few fertile sections and oid native cultivations, which are di persed here and there amongst the broken, hilly, and densely wooded surburban s- c tions to fence their lands, but I can see no rrs son why th? owners of land, which our Super a tendent has admitted to be uselrss for faimsng, should be forced to contribute one-half tbe c<>&t •of to them an unrequired and unprofitable-fence. Hoping that if passed, both Tii-.de and Fencm^ Bills will hi disallowed by the Governor, I am, sir, your* respectfully, CLGDPOLE.