[FROM THE "PATEA COUNTY rBES9."] It is not often that an Englishman of standing and reasonable education is found deliberately defying the laws of his country nntil the utmost severity of those laws are brought to bear on him, and prove at once his inability to escape them, nnd the extent of harshness to which they can be carried. We have, however, an example of this useless bravado in the conduct of Mr. Tbos. Bayly, of Waitara, in resisting, to the bitterest end, the payment of tho New Plymouch Harbour rate. That the rate is a hardship there is no doubt, but what mto is not ? Is it not a hardship to pay 20 per cent, duty on clothing ? Is it not a hardship to pay 14a per gallon on spirits ? but, although people grumble at at the impost, none decline to pay it, and yet for this tax there is no apparent re turn, while for the harbour rate there is at leaßt the enhanced value of property which proximity to a harbour, of necessity weates, and tho enhanced value of all marketable commodities which facilities for reaching markets produce. But granting for the sake of argument, that there has been or will be no advantage returned for this rate it is still impossible now to evade its payment. This case has been fought out in the Lower Court and appealed againt and tried in the Supreme Court, and in both the decision haß been in support of tho legality of the rate. So far as the first attempt to get out of the payment of the rate (on the grounds of its'being illegally struck) wo can quite understand the ratepayers' action, but the question of legality once settled further resistance becomes folly, and expensive folly too 1 Mr. Bayly, if he has been rightly reported, when addressing those who attended the bailiff's sale of his household effects made what was intended to be a " sensational " spepch and referred to the break up of his home, and the inability of hia family to witness it. Why Mr. Bayly should have brought such misery (as he wishes people to believe it) on his household is quite beyond concep tion. 