THE MANAWATU LAND DISPUTE.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 31, 5 August 1867, Page 2

THE MANAWATU LAND DISPUTE.

The following remark of the “ Wanganui Chronicle ” deserve the widest publicity:—

WeAbmit that the General Assembly, as a matte?of solemn duty, alike to the natives and the settlers, is bound to take action in this matter. We feel quite assured that it only requires a pledge from the Government, that the matter in dispute shall be submitted to a, proper tribunal, to prevent these petitions bemg sent to England, and such a pledge should be given at once. It were a thousand pities that any such documents found their way to England. The repeal of the clause exempting the Manawatu from the operation of the Native Lands Act would be the easiest and simplest form of bringing this affair to a conclusion, but we are not wedded to any particular form of settlement, if only substantial justice is done; and no considerations either of money or of party should prevent such a course being followed. “ Fiat justitia, ruat coelum.” But there is no fear of heaven or even of earth. Our interests,—we mean colonial and provincial interests largely understood,— are not in this instance, any more than in any other instance, at variance with the eternal principles ofj'ustice and humanity. And 0 n behalf of those principles wc make an earnest appeal to the legislature."

It has always appeared to us that if ever a block of land ought to have been broiight under the operation of the Native Lands Act that of Manawatu was the one. The North Island, in a fit of senseless generosity, made the Middla Island a present of its land fund, and the latter in return consented to the exclusion of the block in dispute from the operation of the Act. Thus in this as in other cases one false step led to another.