“THOROUGH.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5390, 6 July 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

“THOROUGH.”

(I’rom the Otago Daily Times, July 3;)

The meeting at Waitara has closed, and every genuine friend of New Zealand and every colonist not blinded by political rancour, must experience a sense of sincere satisfaction at the final settlement of differences between the races. To those not familiar with Maori ways there must have appeared much that was needless .in the prolixity of the proceedings, and in the verbiage and strained Tmetapbor that are essential in the negotiations of au untutored race. Civilisation is intensely practical and utilitarian, but 'it is only ignorance that prompts us to contempt for that tendency to symbol and fanciful resemblance, which since time began has been characteristic of the human mind in a state of nature. To the unreflecting there has, in many, a case, been food for mere mirth in the quaint allusions to stars and mountains and the processes of nature that have been made to convey impressions and opinions of events proceeding, but the substantial results of aT this word-painting are such as can commend themselves to the most vulgar, grubbing mind in the country. It for a man unacquainted with the sentiments that control the conduct and the relations of nations to form an estimate of the extreme difficulty encountered by chiefs like Rewi and Tawhiao in bringing to pass the existing state of things—a state on which their desires have for a considerable time been evidently very earnestly fixed. Not only bad they a-not unreasonable suspicion of pakeha encroachments, and of the ambiguous action of Government as it has hitherto been known to them, but a large share of their sway over their clansmen being based oh the prestige attaching to their bitter resistance to European advancement, it must have been a task of indescribable delicacy to conduct at once satisfactory negotiations with the Government, and yet not forfeit that influence over their own people, without which negotiations would have proved abortive. A man of the shrewd intelligence of Rewi must have long ago known the advantages likely to arise to him from such a state of things as that now brought to pass. Probably he holds in his hands little under four or five millions sterling worth of Land, and the enjoyment and the influence that should bring him have doubtless been no secret to him. The presence of the Waikatos on bis territory would have ma le them partakers in any proceeds arising from disposal of his lands, according to the laws of Maori hospitality. As he bad, as he admits, carried the torch of war from Waitara to Waikato, and caused that trouble which left the Waikatos and their King exiles and dependent on his hospitality, he could not have driven the laud* less fugitives forth even if he had wished it. The satisfactory settlement of the King's position, and the proposed removal of that potentate and his followers in an honorable way to a portion of their ancestral lands in the Waikato, must have been to Rewi a matter of no ordi-

nary interest, and the settlement of this was a preliminary that made comparatively easy the great achievement which has just been effected at Waitara.

Bat all this has been proceeding in the face of singular difficulties ; for not only had the great Ngatimaniapoto chief to deal with Ilia own and the other tribes, but his efforts have been thwarted by the malicious and diabolical interference of the wretched Europeans whose interest it was to perpetuate tho hostility and alienation between the races. Our readers have seen some of the lying telegrams that have been from time, to time transmitted by these, misrepresenting the native chiefs, and especially Eewi, as being implacable, or sneerin" towards the overtures of the Government; and they appear to have been as nothing compared to the influences directed towards the other side in order to influence the minds of the Maoris. We have seen how often Eewi has complained to Ministers and others of the falsehoods that have been spoken in the newspapers about him, and about the interviews between him and Sir George Grey ; and we have seen how at length he has provided an interpreter of his own to interpret to his people exactly what transpired, so that no longer may they be influenced by these wretched mischiefmongers, or himself be placed before the natives in a false and malicious light. If ever there existed on the border-ground of civilisation and barbarism a lot of men who deserved lynching, it is these hungry dependents of a former regime, who in native troubles, real or feigned, had come to see their bread and butter, and who, by misrepresentation on the one hand and the other, have kept suspicion ever wakeful in. the native mind, and a chronic native scare in tho minds of. the settlers, llewi has taken tho difficulty now firmly in hand, and although' even to tho last these lying statements of doubts and differences and difficulties have beeu disseminated by telegraph over tho laud, we see the result in the expressive form of native imagery employed by, the groat Commissioner-Chief when Eewi says that Sir George Grey and himself are one, that they have loosed their, hands off one another’s heads, and that Waitara is given to them. That all hostility is buried, and that reconciliation, complete and permanent, has been effected, are facts, presented in all the expressive forms that the Native tongue can frame, and wo do not hesitate to say that tho cordial greetings and mutual congratulations between the thousands of Europeans and Maoris who assembled at Waitara to celebrate the event are worthy of tho grand results of these most happy negotiations to the peace, prosperity, and advancement of tho whole Colony of New Zealand.

As an illustration. o£ the malicious statements made, most people will remember how Kewi was represented as laughing at the idea of Europeans hoping for;, a railway through his country as a result of tho negotiations then proceeding. ; This was represented as a thing, that could-never bo until Kewi and his old councillors had all joined the majority. It now turns out that not only, docs Kewi desire a railway through his country, but offers to give, all the land mjuired gratuitously.

But is thisall ? No; but'he has done that which it never entered into the heart of any European capitalist to do ; he has offered to make a present of as much land os will pay for the construction of the whole of the Northern trunk lino of railway oa far as it runs through his enormous territory, extending from Te Awamutu station in the Auckland province to Waitara station in Taranaki. And this is the chief whose hostility was stated to be so great that the desires of the Government for constructing the trunk line of railway through his land were said to be only met by a cynical sneer ! B Is *} # ° exaggeration to say that no ev&nt like this final settlement of native troubles has ever been paralleled in the history of New Zealand ; but it would seem that no event has ever been productive of more intensity of party disappointment and chagrin.