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Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume III, Issue 1, 31 January 1857, Page 1

The year 1857 has now commenced, and we hope that the natives will turn every day and month of it to good account. We are glad to observe that many of the differences which have for some lime existed between the Natives and Europeans have disappeared; and it is to be hoped that a stale of harmony and good feeling will long continue to exist between the two races, whose interests, from living in the .same country, are so closely identified. The Natives frequently have vague suspicions, more especially those who live in the remote and interior settlements, where they have little intercourse with the English.—that the Europeans design to do them much injury. Fortunately, the greater portion of the natives, who are-in frequent communication with the white men, do not believe in such assertions, and often remark on the childish folly of those who give credence lo ihein. The persons who believe in such reports should ask themselves, "Why should the Europeans wish us any harm?" Ave not she'Natives'every day engaged in planting potatoes, sowing wheal, or producing other commodities for ihe Europeans, while they on the other hand dispose of.their' Various articles of merchandize to the Natives? Surely,

then, it is much wiser and better that the two races should continue their friendly interchanges, than that enmity or suspicion should exist between them. The Ngnpuhi, who were the first among the tribes of New Zealand to invite the English to settle among them, are now more anxious than ever that their part of the country should be settled by a large European population. This tribe feels confident that no harm will result to them from the introduction of more Europeans; on the contrary, they consider that their poverty arises from having no population to consume their surplus produce,—no means of getting ploughs, carts, horses, harrows, and other implements to improve their waste lands. Therefore, they say:—" Let us have more white people; we have been so long accustomed to them, that we cannot live without them; let our waste lands be purchased by the Government that we may see the country around us improved by having good agricultural farms, with roads, bridges, and other facilities, to enable us to travel with safety and comfort from place to place.