The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIX, Issue 1945, 10 October 1863, Page 3

The Daily Southern Cross.

LUCEO NO>T VUO. "If Iliive been extinguished, jet there ris» A UiousMid beiicons frtm the sy irk I liort."

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, ISG3.

It is not long ago since we took occasion to re- t mark upon the subject of the removal of settlers' a cattle from the forest lands in the out-districts, ii We are sorry that after what has been said on t the subject, il should appear necessary to refer s to it once more. This, however, seems to be B the case. Our remarks on that former occasion 1 were directed solely to placing before the Com- j missariat department the evils that might, and as te then thought would arise, from a neglect ' c of the rights of private individuals, and also of \ their feelings, of which in not a few instances.men j prove even more tenacious than of their rights, s We then showed that the statements made in t the notice issued by the commissariat were ? highly objectionable in various respects ; and c in none more so than in the apparent disregard j of the fact that they were in reality calling 1 upon settlers to submit to a great loss and to r unnumbered inconveniences, to which legally those settlers had not the smallest need to submit. This notice has not been altered. A Some explanation has been given, although not \ as it ought to have been, officially, that the most i offensively tyrannical part of the notice was j merely a piece of stupid blundering ; for this ] is the only true" way of putting such a mistake. , The greatest blunder of all is committed when < so u#just and so unworkable a notice is allowed 1 to remain unaltered and unretracted for weeks, ' by the authorities. Sure]}-, it cannot be that ] the authorities have a vague notion that their j dignity would be injured by such a tacit con- , fession that they had rather stupidly blundered ; ; it cannot surely be necessary to inform them, that such dignity would be clear at a very low price indeed, and that to the minds of sensible men the continuance of an absurd and almost insolent notice from week to week, w hen confessedly those placing it there did not fully xmderstand the meaning of what they wrote, must be far more damnatory than any amount of retraction and amendment. It may at first sight appear unnecessary to ■write in so severe a strain ns this about what may seem after all rather contemptible than injurious. It may be said that no harm can have been done by leaving the notice as it originally stood, since the hurt to the feelings of the settlers was inflicted when if; was first published in the newspapers. In some sense this is true. In some sense, howhowever, it is equally false and shortsighted. We do not complain so much of the hurt to the colonists' feelings so unnecessarily wounded by the cavalier way in which their rights and interests are supposed to be at the mercy of men who have literally no control over them ; what we do specially complain of is, that such a document as this, issuing from high authority, gives a colour and an excuse to another class of proceedings which the persons thus in some degree responsible for them would, we feel persuaded, be the first to condemn. We may say, without fear of contradiction, that in no place, not eveu Taranaki, has there been a more entire consent in the body of the population in sacrificing all they had sooner than compromise their loyalty, than in the province of Auckland. Its inhabitants have spared no pains, and have grudged no loss of time or expenditure of bodily exertion to seouro the ends of the presentwar. They have seen theirhomestcads deserted, and their farms going to ruin, in many cases before their eyes ; they have even been patient under the infliction of Maori plundering expeditions, which have in 'many cases done a world of damage to their properties. All this, and in lopie cases a good deal more than this, ; have they borne uncomplainingly. There is, how- J ever, a new phase which is beginning to manifest itself of late in several districts, especially out-lying ones, which the settlers feel no inclination to countenance in any way. That phase is, ruin to settlers, not' from their enemies, but from their professed friends. It was trying pnpughtQ have a man's house sacked, and every r thing in it carried off or destroyed by Maori* ; it is ton times more trying to have everything outside of his house wantonly mined, or »hamo» lesriy pillaged by forcei professedly in the district, for the purpose of paving from the nativei , these very homesteads, of which .they are themselves worse enemies than the rebels. This sounds- oxtrav»gahtr'lmt -we 1 need hardly say that we are not going one jot beyond tho plain truth. Case* we very numerous ; bo numerous

hat fow can fail to have heard of. some one of them ; and nothing, absolutely nothing, has yet been done to put a stop to them. It ib difficult to say which of the two classes into which they naturally divide themselves is the most provoking, but we suppose there can bo little question as to which is morally the worst. The theft of the stock of settlers is, and has been carried on in the most utterly shameless way by somo corps, whilo all that others are accused of is an absolutely reckless spirit of destruction resulting in the cutting down ornamental trees, and uprooting gardens, in the destroying young and choice pasture, and generally leaving a wilderness whero, comparatively speaking, thoy found an Eden. It may possibly be asked by some what the notice about cattle has to do with the illegal and cowardly outrages committed \\pon the property of private settlers. Wo answer, very much. The Government, for to them the thing must eventually be traced, show an utter disregard of the rights and feelings of some hundreds of settlers. They refuso to alter & mosfc injurious and offensive proclamation ; and can wo wonder that those who are in a position whoro all the tendency is merely to fall in with the spirit of the time, should do in their wajr what they soe thoir suporiors are not ashamed to do in theira. 'Nona could regret more than, ourselves such outrages as that reported to have taken place at the Bald Hills, when a shot was fired at tho soldiery by au aggrieved settler ; but we think it far more than doubtful whether that settler could at law have had those men severely punished for their illegal trespass, much more for illegal outrages ou properly.