NATIVE AFFAIRS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2036, 2 September 1880, Page 3

NATIVE AFFAIRS.

[Br Telbsbaph.] [fbom oub owh oobbebfondbnt.J WELLINGTON, September 1. With reference to the Press Association telegram that Mr Bryoe is very ill at the camp, I find on enquiry that the Government bare received no information of hia illness at all. On the other hand, two long telegrams on Native matters were received from him today, in which he makes no mention of indisposition. He states that the last batoh of Maori fencers were very insolent and abuaivo when interfered witb, and Mr Bryce had to send an armed picket to be ready in case of need. Hitherto the arresting constabulary have always been quite unarmed. Te Whiti says that the present work of fencing is nothing to us, and that the present is no time for talk, because no man is big enough to talk with him (Te Whiti) or to arrange matters until he chooses. He says that when the Government met Tawhaio nothing was arranged, and what he (Te Whiti) has to ay is a much greater matter than what the Maori king spoke about. Mr Bryce reports that the Maoris are now sticking green boughs across the road line, but carts can easily pass over them. Te Whiti is now sending children to fonce, but the constabulary do not arrest them. Yesterday there wore thirteen fencers, comprising three young man, one old man, and nine boys. They pulled down five chairs of fencing which the constabulary had erected to protect the ground sown with wheat, and began to re-erect the fonce across the road, but the constabulary then pulled it down, and carted it away. The Maoris persist in this conduct, and are very violent, so that Mr Bryce wonders that the constabulary keep their tempers as well as thoy do. He had some talk with the leader of the fencing, who declared that he was merely Te Whiti's voice, and that the latter was really speaking through him. He asked how the piga were to_ be kept from the crops. Mr Bryce reminded him that he and his people had pulled down the fence which the constabulary had placed so as to protect the crops. The Natives persisted for a time in bringing fencing material from a distance, which the Constabulary at once removed and casried to thecamp. The Maoris then desisted and remained sitting by the camp. They say that they " feel insulted at not being arrested, as it is making little of them." Appearances are somewhat more menacing, but it is hoped that violenoe will be averted.