CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 62, 18 June 1873, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[Our columns are open for free discussion; but we do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions of our Correspondents.]

to the editor or the standard. Sir, —I understand the Superintendent of Auckland has sent a circular to all those who applied (and were recommended) for a license (wholesale and retail) at the annual meeting of Justices, for that purpose, held at Gisborne last April 22nd. to the effect that their licences would not be granted unless they obtain the assent of all the Maori assessors in the district. Surely, sir, the clause his Honor refers to in the 1870 Act was never intended to be applied to a district like Poverty Bay where, we may now congratulate ourselves, the Europeans are two to one to the natives. However, great a respect I may have for these assessors, eight in number, still I hold it to be an insult to European settlers and to the Bench of Magistrates at Poverty Bay, nr anywhere ejse, that eight Maoris should act as a Court of Appeal, as it were, with power to upset the decisions of two Resident Magistrates and three Justices of the Peace who are, I take it, equals in point of intelligence and integrity to the said assessors. Why not have a Maori Governor, a Maori Parliament, Maori Judges, —to make laws for Europeans and to administer those laws, —as well as a beneh of Maori Assessors—in a settlement the majority of which is European—able to throw aside the decision of a bench of European Magistrates. Our present Superintendent has insulted our district time after time: has neglected it even throughout his office ; but this is the greatest insult of all, —it is an insult to Europeans. Let us hope the successful candidate at the coming election for Superintendency may do greater justice to an outlying settlement, and refrain from committing such an insult as the present Superintendent has now, —I am, sir,