MR DONOVAN’S OPINIONS OR A MAORI MEETING.

Kumara Times, Issue 862, 5 July 1879, Page 2

MR DONOVAN’S OPINIONS OR A MAORI MEETING.

At the conclusion of a meeting of settlers, lately held at New Plymouth, a Mr Donovan said : I have been listening all the morning to your half-senseless speeches, and can assure ye they were more windy than sensible. I came from the other Island, where you will scarcely find a Maori, and where there is no Government institutions in which they take just twenty years to calculate where to put up a gate post.—[Applause.] I have never had 'the honour of seeing Major Atkinson till to-day, hut I have heai-d of his gallantry. I fear ye are like the Prince of Hesse Cassel. who had more officers than men; or like the Police Force at Hokitika, which numbered fourteen officers and eleven private- 1 , I don’t care who is in office, or who is Premier—not a jot; I don’t suppose I shall ever reach that position. The question is this : That the greatest blunder was made when the surve/ >rs were removed from the Plains— ml the result was a handful of letters f •>, i the Premier. The next blunder -v ;s the permitting half-a-dozen fellow; i.> plough the land, and not taking th mi. Oh, admirable law ! What, in the name of wonder, have we got in the shape of law] Ye have got good land—infinitely better than the crags and rocky fastnesses of Otago, which has been so much cracked-up—md have got every facility for creating a, beautiful and fertile settlement, and’yo are kept at bay by a handful of b irbarian savages. This, too, after the hard struggle ye have made to provide the district with a harbour. If it g ics abroad that yer Volunteers have resigned at this critical time, ye will get, as fine a reputation as the Yankees gob at Bulls Run. History tells us that y» arc floored by religious fanatici ,ui. Wei! I don’t wonder at it, after the natives -have so long been subjected to a bastard Christianity. There’s enough of ye to floor any savagoi I would like to bring in Te tho scruff of his neck, and give him a dose of the cat-o-ninetails—that would knock the fanaticism out of him. All over the world will be asked whether ye have got a Defence Minister. If tho Government permit the Maoris to take the Plains, let. them permit them to

come and tear down the c >urt-hun.-.e I —it would not he impeded ayaiu [■ Seems as if ti e Maoris had taken one step forward and the Government two backwaid. Don’t let it go abroad fl l ■ i the Taranaki Volunteers resigned for want of clothes. The summer is coming, boys,when ye will not wr t much clothing. I work on the Mountain Road, and I will defy any force to come there oh account of the mud. Ye must call on the Governnvmt, ami toake them do their duty. When the Atkinson party were in olhee they adopted the sugar-aml-hlanket policy as well as the others. New Plymouth tops all in the course of over-government. Ye have Ministers, native assessors, commissioners and councillors—some patriotic, and some seeking their own aggrandisement—and }mt ye c>nnot put down a native aggressor.

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