• Mr. Charles Buxton, in a letter to the Times
of Thursday, takes occasion to find fault with our description of the Confiscation Act, as "An Act for the Confiscation of some of the Land of the Rebellious Maories," and maintains that in reality it confiscates "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." Mr. Buxton has perhaps had the advantage of having seen the Act, which we have not yet bad, but every account we have read of it, and we have read many very authoritative accounts, is entirely inconsistent with such a statement ; and though Mr. Cardwell said that its terms were so vague and sweeping that he believed it might be used to confiscate either loyal Maori land, "or in some cases the land of European settlers," he spoke of it as an empower- ing Act which "the Governor in Council" could alone put in force ; not as an Act which actually confiscates, but only which gives power to confiscate. It is quite certain that no one, cer- tainly not even Mr. Gorst, who is an authority with Mr. Buxton though not with us, has ever supposed that the Government intend to confiscate the land of loyal Maories, and that practically it is intended to do exactly what we said, "to confiscate some of the land of the rebellious Maories." The Colonial Secretary in intro- ducing it used these terms :—" If we take the total of the land in the rebel districts it will be found that it amounts to eight and a
half million of acres [the northern island contains, we suppose, near twenty million acres] and of this one-half will be availab
for settlement Suppose we set aside 1,000,000 for loyal natives, there will still remain 1,500;000 for sale." It is clear therefore theiColonisil Secretary did not propose to confiscate the land of loyal natives—End if the Act gives the Governor toe large powers—power even to encroach on the property of loyal Maories and of Europeans, then it is a clumsy Act, but not on that account an Act intended to confiscate the whole northern island "from end to end at one fell swoop," which is the drift of Mr. Buxton's accusation. Mr. Buxton has, we suspect, allowed him- self to be led away by his generous zeal for the natives into gross injustice to the settlers.
