Mr. Cardwell has produced the New Zealand Act which, according
to Mr. Charles Buxton, confiscated "the whole of the land of all the natives loyal as well as rebel from end to end of the Northern island" "at one fell swoop." The Act seems vague and badly drawn, but no words can possibly describe wqrse what it really does than Mr. Buxton's. It is just what we called it, an empowering Act, giving the "Governor in Council," and him alone, power to The death of Mars'ial Pelissier has been announced this week, confiscate land at all. But even then it gives him no power to confiscate land except in districts where rebellion is active and spreading. " Whenever the Governor in Council shall be satisfied that any native tribe, or section of a tribe, or any considerable number thereof, has since the first day of January, 1863, been engaged in rebellion against Her Majesty's authority, it shall be lawful for the Governor in Council" to declare such a district one liable to the provisions of the Confiscation Act. There could be absolutely no power under this Act to confiscate the native lands north of Auckland, where there has been no rebellion, and there is certainly no intention to confiscate loyal Maoris' land at all. The settler, as usual, has been sorely libelled.
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