WEST COAST COMMISSION.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 139, 20 July 1880, Page 4

WEST COAST COMMISSION.

Our Wellington correspondent writes; —The Report of the West Coast Commission was brought down on Wednesday last. Its conclusions are as follows : “ We have, endeavored to trace in the preceding pages the history, of this trouble, one'phase of which your Excellency had allowed us to bring before you in our interim Report last March. We wished to toll your Excellency why we said the difficulty was but the natural outcome of events in which successive Ministries had for so many years tried their hand and failed ; and why wo end as we began, bv saying that at any moment in all these years the trouble north of Waingongoro would have vanished, if, instead of talking about doing the right tiling, any Minister had only set himself to do it.

“The story speaks for itself. Wc entirely believe the moving cause of all our difficulties to have been ever the same, that the tribes we had encouraged to return to the Waimate Plains have never known what land they might really call their own ; and if any of its arc tempted, as an easy way of escaping from reproach, to say that the fault is. all' Te Whiti’s, wo ought not to. forget how our own records show bp never' took up arms against us, but did his best in all that time to restrain from violence his unruly tribe. If the story we have told lias not made.this clear, we have told it to your Excellency in vain. “It still remains for us, however, to say what we think should be done in addition to the measures we advised in our first Eeport, in order that the Crown may fulfil its promises and heal every real grievance on the Coast. One thing is certain, that nothing can he done without new legislation, as every power which existed lias been repealed. In this Report, long as it is, we have only been able to speak of the past ; and we ask your

Excellency’s permission to offer to you in a few days hence, our suggestions as to what such legislation should do for the future. We hope a brighter time may come. In January the Armed Constabulary crossed the Waingongoro, to carry through the Pavihaka country the road which for years a handful of disaffected Natives had (to the humiliation of our people) forbidden to be made. Simultaneously we tried to learn what promises had to he fulfilled, what grievances to be redressed. This inquiry lias now been completed. The road lias been pushed through from end to end. The really essential Reserve has been marked out upon the ground. A line cut through the forest from Stratford to Opunake has shown a level fertile country fit for settlement. Cross-lines have been cut to unite this line with Wairnate Plain. The Plain itself is being re-surveyed to open the land for settlement next spring. As yet this work has all been done without serious opposition : and though the greatest care and caution must continue to lie exercised at every step, we say to your Excellency that the Natives are now realising, for the first time since the insurrection, that there is a Government which will treat their claims with generosity, but is resolved to be master. TIIB NATIVE PLOUGHING OPERATIONS. Alluding to these, the Commissioners explain : —-Mr Mackay promised To AVliiti on the 2nd and 3rd of April —as we have seen —to communicate what had passed to the Government, and if anything resulted to let him know; but nothing did result. AVc think it was because Te AVhiti saw he was to have no response to his overtures' from the Government, that ho resorted to some more forcible demonstration as a means of bringing matters to an issue. At any rate, on the 25tli May lie entered upon a new course, setting up a claim to be the proprietor of all the land in New Zealand, and in assertion of his title sending several parties of his followers to plough up land belonging to settlers, which was held under Crown grant, and which they had purchased from Government, not only within the confiscated boundaries, but in territory, which had been bought from the Natives by the Government nearly 40 years before. His followers who engaged in the ploughing expressly said that it was done “ in order to force a settlement, and that Te AVhiti only wanted the Governor to come to settle affairs.” It is probable that other motives also may have operated to induce Te AVhiti to take this course ; vanity wounded by the Government not taking any further notice of him; a sense of his own greatly increased importance, froi’n the success that had attended his removal of the surveyors, a removal which the Government neither resisted nor resented, and had thus confirmed his followers’ faith in his supernatural powers; the natural love of power; and lastly, the prospect which seemed to open to him of retaining possession of all his own lands : these might well account for the enlarged pretentions which Te AVhiti now made. And if this view be true, it is important as regards the prospect of final adjustment which yet remains to be effected; for it certainly will prove more difficult now to bring Te AVliiti to reasonable terms, than it would have been at the date of his interview with Mr Mackay, or before he had committed himself bv the ploughing to schemes of a wider intent than any at which he had previously aimed.