Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1870.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 790, 26 May 1870, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1870.

The hon. the Native and Defence Minister is shortly expected here, and may arrive before we go to press. In his private capacity as a settler we welcome him cordiall} 7 , widely though we differ fron his political opinions. At this moment, and while he is among us rather as a friend returned after absence than as a political magnate \isiting us in course of duty, we will not refer to divergent points of political faith which no argument or compromise can reconcile. We do, however, ask him to mark the epoch of his return by some wise efforts to stop that indiscriminate alienation of native land now going on all round us, which is at once a scandal and a danger to the community. There is nothing which Mr M'Lean is so fitted to accomplish,—nothing by which he can do so much good. It is an evil which, though previously existing, has attained to its present dimensions; since he left us, and his official and personal authority would enable him to stifle it before much more harm is done. This is the proper sphere for Mr M'Lean—that which he is best fitted to fill. A philanthropic policy to the natives is a farce if they are allowed to divest themselves, in a moment of drunkenness, of the last acre of their own and their children's birthright. And the drunkenness —can Mr M'Lean devise no mean«, no practical remedy for the teriible excesses he hss only to look round and see % ]\fr M'Lean will, no doubt, find this a peculiarly grateful task? —one which will be in harmony with all his past public career; and we trust his innate sense of what is right, what is due to the race with which he has spent his life, will in duce him to make a strong and succes>ful attempt to work an improvement in the two directions we have pointed out.