TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3230, 5 November 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1881.

It may be accented aa a fact that His Excellency the Governor has by this time learned that hie responsible Ministers will not allow themselves to be interfered with in their conduct of native affairs. Although nothing: very definite was permitted to be made public, it was known well enough tbat, on his arrival from Fiji, it waa Sir Arthur's intention to reverse the policy of the Government. That there were communications opened up with the Colonial Office every one is satisfied, and it 13 equally clear the instructions His Excellency received were to the effect that be was to follow the advice of his Ministers. The New Zealand Herald upon this subject says that the Government has shown the utmost firmness in its corespondence with the Governor, and it may be presumed that oven had it been disposed to be concessive, Mr Bryce, in whose character vacillation has no place, made it a condition ot his rejoining his late colleagues that there should be no wavering, but that, the policy agreed upon, he should receive their unflinching support. There is no reason to think the Government required this incentive to firmness, but it must have been an advantage to it in its communications with Sir Arthur Gordon. We trust that it will maintain its attitude, and that, should the mediation of the Governor be offered at some further stage of the Parihaka business, it will be courteously but decidedly refused. A suggestion of this kind appears ungracious, but the personal interposition of the Governor in native affairs should always be discountenanced ; it has the effect of weakening the authority of Government and Parliament by leading the Maoris to think that there is a source of appeal. Ministers have more than once been at fault in this respect. They have allowed themselves to be obscured by the personal action of a Governor, and even encouraged it. Sir Arthur Gordon would have had an interview with Te Whiti shortly after his arrival had the Maori prophet assented. It peems to us that if they concurred they made a blunder, and one which should not be repeated. Had His Excellency carried out bis object many things might have occurred which would have been serious embarrassments at the present time. It would have been a recognition of the personal authority of the Governor in native matters, an authority which should never be admitted. A Governor would hardly interfere without the consent of bis Ministers, and in the absence of that consent they would not be bound by anything he might say or do. It is better for a Governor and for a colony that the Queen's representative should remain strictly within the circle of bis duties, and the only public representative of public feeling be the Ministers whom the country has given him as advisers. Although we hear of the 'Governor's speech , at the opening of Parliament — and there must be some means ofaddressing the legislature—it is really that of his advisers. It is highly inconvenient and absurdly inconsistent that a Governor, whose instructions and duty it is to be directed by his Ministers, should appear in the very different character of a mediator between those Ministers and a disaffected native population.