The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 533, 30 April 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1878.

It is greatly to be regretted, on public grounds, that that rapid-success has not attended the negotiations of the Government with the Maori King and his party which the Premier assumed, with characteristic egoism, would be the result of his getting into office. Holding as we do the opinion that it is undesirable generally that purely native questions should bo made the subjects of mere party struggles, in the Parliament of the colony or out of it, wo should be prepared gratefully to accept a true and final settlement of the native difficulty at the hands of any Minister or of any Government who had tha good fortune to crown the work which has been so long in progress; no one would, wo think, be disposed to withhold the credit which they deserved for their exertions in such a cause. There has been of late much coming: and going on the part of Sir George Grey to and from Waikato; there have been, very earnest 1 solicitations to the natives from the Government side ; there has been a large expenditure of money, with certain advantages only to the storekeepers at -Alexandra;and Cambridge, who find their interests in purposeless native meetings ;, and there has been also necessarily a loss of dignity and prestige in the eyes of the Maoris by the recent failures to indace Tawhlao and his people to abandon their independent position and to submit themselves 1 to the Government. Tho excessive eagerness displayed by Sir George Grey may have awakened the old suspicion of him slumbering in the native mind, and thus tended to defeat his recent efforts. It is well known that within the last • few years the attitude of the King Party has -been peaceful; that they have given no kind of trouble or uneasiness to the authorities, all that they desired being apparently to be let alone, in view of that speedily approaching time when, as the leading men amongst them frankly admit, their isolation must end. This satisfactory state of affairs has been brought about by the judicious and forbearing management of. preceding Ministers,' notably of Sir - Donald MoLean, and by the action of Bbwi, chief of tho Maniapoto, in the withdrawal of his tribe from the influence and authority of Tawhiao, It is indeed with Rbwx, as well as with the King, that any arrangement having the character of permanence for the final solution of the native difficulty must be made. If Sir George Grey had been able to recognise facts instead of; relying conceitedly upon, a personal influence which has long; since 'passed away/ ho would- have, been saved the mortification of his recent failures in Waikato, and ho might also have been spared the need' of the disloyal suggestion that these failures were caused by the visit of his Excellency, the. Governor to that district.; - 1 -■'.> i Wo have before pointed to the uiilicultiesi which,. Sir George Grey and the present Native Minister, Mr. BheeiiAN,

would necessarily have, because of their political antecedents,'. ia ;r dealing with disaffected natives; this difficulty would, however, be less for Mr.! Sheehan than for the Premier, and if Sir George Grey could have permitted Mr. Sheehan, a dexterous and able man, to whose office the work appertains, to have managed this business without interference, much time and much expenditure might have been saved,' and . much undignified running after natives been avoided. > "Whether or not there is any foundation for it, it is true that ever since the escape of the Maori prisoners from the custody of Sir George Grey at the Kawau, the King’s people believed that a promise was made to them that Waikato should be restored, and they have not ceased to ask upon all occasions that the Europeans should be sent ' back to the Maungatawhiri. It was boastfully asserted, in an unreliable report of the proceedings at the , late meeting , with Tawhiao, that this demand was not repeated in Sir George Grey’s presence. The public proceedings on that occasion were generally ceremonial; the only significant'speech of the day was that of Manuhiri; ho Maori who heard that old chief, in his mystical style, say that “for seventeen years my heart has been fluttering,” could or did doubt that it was the old cry in a new form, and its sense was— “I havo been waiting anxiously for seventeen years for you to restore,that which you took away.”-

Thanks to the exertions of Mr; Sheehan and Major , Te : Wheoro, there is, it appears, to' be another meeting with the King natives .at. Hikurangi immediately, from which great things are confidently expected. We sincerely hope that .these expectations may be realised, and in their difficult task Ministers will have the good wishes of all. We venture to: expect that on this occasion Sir George Grey will remember what he ‘ seems so constantly to forget—that he is a Minister of the Crown, directly responsible to the Parliament of New Zealand, and not an autocratic Governor of a Crown colony ; tliat he will give ho pledges or make no arrangements .for the future except on the clearly-expressed condition that the pledges, given or the, arrangements proposed shall be subject to the sanction and approval of. the Colonial Legislature; and that ho will also remember that the final and public ceremony of reconciliation ■with. the people so, long estranged from us ought to be performed by her Majesty’s representative, , the Governor of this colony, and not alone by his most disobedient servant,' the Prime Minister. •