■wholesomejirend before their, eyes of a liosl of cbmpeYmtion'olaimants springTng"up elsewhere — spoke of reinstatement, but gave no note of Members, too, spoke of the settlement of Taranaki not being blotted oubjxf the roll of New Zealand's provinces, and readuy voted money that it might be re-established. No word was, however, said of voting it for the benefit of " some spot in the Southern island where they might be untrammelled by a native difficulty." The careful examination which would have elicited these facts has, however, not been given to them. The newspapers to which we have alluded have systematically held to their own reading ; and it is not to be wondered at that they should have made faith ful converts of every man, woman, and child (of areasoning age) in Taranaki, to their opiuions. This is natural, we say, and we are far from complaining of it, or blaming the T.iranaki settlers for their ready belief in a doctrine in which the wish was but too likely to become parent to the thought. We have, however, a complaint to make, though it is not against the settlers of Taranaki, and our complaint is, that the Responsible Ministers of the country should either have given way to a strong public feeling in the province, in which they chanced to be at the time, and that in contradiction of what they knew to be correct and strictly lawful ; or that, on the other hand, they them selves brought forward in the Assembly a bill which was worded so ambiguously as to enable them to put upon it any interpretation which they might please. No one looking over the debates of the Assem bly on this Bill, can doubt for an instant that the idea of using the .£200,000 loan for paying compensations for past losses, was never enter tained by the house. Had it been, we should never have heard the style of arguments used that were actually made use of. We should never have been told that we could not honor ably stand by, and see a settlement blotted out of <;he map of New Zealand, had the only question been whether Messis. 