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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4215, 23 September 1874, Page 2

Wb cannot help but regard it as a matter of regret that' the story which found its way into the newspapers the other’day as to tho intention of His Excellency to exercise the : clemency of the Crown’ in the case of Alexander Macdonald docs not appear to have been founded on fact. The Ministry know nothing of the matter, and wo do not suppose that any action would be taken by the Governor in the case without their recommendation or consent. Yet we are free to confess that wo should have regarded it as satisfactory had such a course been taken by tho Government, and tho person to whom wo are referring permitted to return to his homo and friends.

There is a vast difference in the cases of persons who come under the power of the Courts of Justice. We can have no sympathy with the rogue or the vagabond —to speak of no higher class of offender —whose life is spent in offences against society, and whose chief business when in prison is so to work upon the feelings of the officers in whose care ho is placed as to earn a for the solo object of obtaining such a shortening of his imprisonment as will enable him all the sooner to return to his old haunts and his old habits. Wo cannot feel with bowels of. compassion for tho welleducated person-who, enjoying the confidence of , tho i firm by whom he is employed,-abuses their ■ confidence and the trust that is placed in him, and finds himself at last in the serious quandary in which tho famous Dr. Dodd was placed, though with tho very : consolatory knowledge that ho was situated in more merciful times, and when it was not tho rule to hang a

man for writing another person’s name upon a commercial piece of paper any more than it is to transport a fellow to Botany Bav for life for snaring a hare in a hedge. It is not to be disputed that ihe burglar and thief, whose business it is to break through and steal, receives no more than his desert when the law places him in so secure a place of retirement that the burden of his song, like that of Swift’s starling, is “I can’t get out, I can’t get out.” A splendid swindler, like Montefiore or O’Ferrall, would well deserve the highest punishment the law allowed' (if the officers of the law had been able to catch them) \ the thief, who in the night invades a quiet home and . clears it of its valuables and mementoes ; a common ruffian, who assaults his wife or his neighbors, or floors a friend of the moment merely to keep his hand in ; a pickpocket, a brawler, a welcher, a receiver, a fire-raiser, a horse stealer or cattle-duffer— all these are offenders not merely against society collectively, but individually, and deserve punishment, not merely for what they have done and because they are the guilty parties, but for the sake of example, and the necessity which lies in the magistrate of being a terror to evil-doers. But no argument of that kind applies to the case of Macdonald ; and the more wo consider the whole circumstances of the case of the Orona Bridge outrage, the more wo are satisfied that the views we expressed upon it some weeks ago are correct. We go farther now and say rhat unless there are matters involved of which the public are ignorant, Sir Donald McLean will not be true to the high character he has achieved and deserves if this case is not looked into without delay. We know no more of the matter than the public at large do, but that appears to be quite sufficient. ' There was a long-standing trouble in the district in which Macdonald resided, and with the Natives over a number of whom ho was believed to exercise influence. That trouble began in the matter of that Bangitikei-Mana-watu affair in which Sir Donald himself had so much unthankful labor. As we understand it, that sale would never have been completed but for the arrangements made by the Native Minister ; and a part of the bargain was that certain lands should he reserved for the Natives whom Macdonald may be regarded as representing, and the whole contention since has arisen out of the fact that the promised Crown grants were not issued, that the Natives were never sure of their title, and that the suspicion was not unnatural that they had been the victims of a smart piece of work. Sir Donald McLean confessed, in the discussion over the matter in the late session of Parliament, that it was the most disagreeable business he ever had to do with and we gathered from his remarks that he threw the blame on the Provincial Government, who were so largely interested in the purchase of the land in question, for whom he had acted, and by whom ho had been so lightly treated. If we are correctly informed, the Natives interested have since received their Crown grants. We feel almost warranted in saying that they have obtained them through Macdonald’s conviction for wounding a horse—employed in drawing a mail coach over the boundary _ line involved in those Crown grants—in vindication of a right, not imaginary but real. If this is so, on what good ground can Macdonald be. detained in prison? He may have been troublesome in the assertion of a right which affected him but little, but the people in whom he was interested a great deal; but there was every excuse ,for.Jiiin„,.la Jt.case in wMoffithoProvinco of Wellington and the General Government were at variance, it must have been hard for the Natives interested to obtain justice; and it was creditable to them, rather than otherwise, that there should have been no greater outrage than the throwing down of a trigonometrical station, or the stoppage of a mail coach, by the Dick Turpin process of wounding a leader. As we have already remarked, Macdonald’s trial has brought about the issue of the Crown grants. Even before that was done the Natives interested had shown their confidence in the justice of the Government by withdrawing their objection to the passage of the mail-coach over the bridge which marked the boundary-line, and through the territory which they wished to protect. The Government in making these grants, has at last admitted that the Natives were not in the wrong, and were to some extent excusable if impatience at last found a limit; and, therefore, to hold Macdonald longer in prison would be something worse than a crime—it would bo a blunder.