JACKSON'S BAY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 142, 4 October 1876, Page 2

JACKSON'S BAY.

The West Coast Times very properly castigates t!ie authorities for the cruel and shameful manner in wliich the poor deluded settlers at Jackson's Bay are being treated. Our contemporary says : —" The settlers at Jackson's Bay must hs by this time in a state of semi-starvation. When the Maori visited the Bay on her recent trip, the Settlement was short of provisions, and unfortunately the steamer could only supply a ton or so of potatoas. When the Maori "left, on the 11th instant, there was no flour to be obtained, and no substitute for it, neither rice, barley, or oatmeal, so that bj r this time the two hundred families, who, by a fiction, are supposed to be under the care of a paternal Government, are in 110 enviable state. There are numbers of children at the ••Settlement, and it is positively disgraceful to allow them to starve, or to sow the seeds of disease in their bodies by causing them to undergo privations which are trying enough to adults. The ResidentAgent and the Government are decidedly blamcable for this state of things. It is the duty of the former to so arrange that the settlement shall always have a fair stock of provisions, and the Government ought to subsidise a steamer to make periodical visits to Jackson's Bay. It is no excuse to say that this port has been practically closed until recently. There arc other ports on the Coast, and a steamer should have been sent down long before this. It is manifestly absurd, after spending a lot of money to create a flourishing community in so remote a spot, to allow the settlers to be actually starved out of it.