THE CLAIMS OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4459, 5 July 1875, Page 2

THE CLAIMS OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.

The meeting of the old settlers on Thursday was a practical fact. It is useless to assert that no interest in the question then discussed is taken by the old settlers, or that the movement is confined to one or two individuals.. We do not say that the claims of these gentlemen will receive any more from the Legislature than a courteous attention, but we are quite prepared to recognise the fact that a number of those who saw the earlier and more troublous* times of this colony are united in a practical and earnest way to obtain what they consider their rights. Their movement will not be extinguished by a sneer, nor will it be put an end to by vulgar abuse. ' Of course they are prepared to take good humouredly the little jokes that have beenflying about at their expense, but they have certainly, shown that they deserve consideration from those who are opposed to them. For ourselves, we are inclined to regard the meeting of June 17th from a standpoint quite outside its proposed object. The men who formed the great majority of those present, were not perhaps, to a town taste, quite up to the times in superficial respects ; their oratory was not decked perhaps by the graces which a long use in the bear garden of public meetings has bestowed upon certain of our more blatant civic speakers. We have no doubt their proceedings would have thoroughly disgusted at least one gentleman, whoso overweening sense of his o\vn importance more than compensates him for the little esteem in which he Is hold by others ; but at least they were men, and that is saying a good deal for them. Whatever their present positions may be, those positions have, been gained by fair and honest combat with the difficulties that beset a now settler in a savage land, ' and have not been attained by mere brazen effrontery in the affairs of ordinary civilised life. We may not agree with their views, we may consider their desires justly unattainable, but as the men they are, we respect them, and so should every colonist.