THE LONDON “TIMES” ON TE WHITE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 539, 20 January 1882, Page 3

THE LONDON “TIMES” ON TE WHITE

This is what the London Times has to say about the Te Whiti question : “It is very much to be feared that the conception of justice entertained by a Maori prophet on the subject of land will be found very difficult to square with the views of European colonists and their rulers. The question can at best only be solved by patience and forbearance, by strict justice and unswerving fidelity to engagements once entered' intp. The melancholy history of former vrars in New Zealand is, we fear, a proof that this mode of solution has not been uniformly adopted. The discontent of Te Whiti and his followers is apparently no longer based on the disregard of their acknowledged claims, but on the fact that the process of survey and sale is now being carried on in the district where they have hitherto been left very much to themselves. If this is really the case the claims now preferred by them are deserving of very little sympathy. The making of roads is for the benefit of both races alike, and this cannot be suspended because the natives prefer their own paths, and their old ways of living in the bush. The whole question thus depends on the way in which the native claims have been satisfied in the parcelling out of the territory now being brought under European occupation arid cultivation. We cannot but hope j.hat much forbearance will be shown! and that native prejudice, and even native fanaticism, will be respected, as far as they can be respected without unduly impeding the progress of a higher civilization.”