WAIKATO.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5413, 2 August 1878, Page 2

WAIKATO.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Meetings and electioneering squibs have been the order of the day of late, but things have settled. Had a little longer time been allowed them, Mr. McMinn’s Government friends would have lost their game, so great was the disgust excited iu Waikato by their disgraceful manoeuvres, Xu the Waipa electoral district there are some forty halt-caste and Maori votes. Tawhiao issued a “Pamti" forbidding these people to exercise the franchise, on the ground that all Maoris and half-castes belong to “ nctma watia ” (i.c. t No. 1, the King), that ho has no interest whatever in the pakeha Parliament, and he will not permit his subjects to be used for the benefit of the pakeha ! Some of Eewi’s people who have returned from Waitara state that the Government are trying to obtain from him permission to make a road through to Waikato. Rowi says that he will let them make roads, railways, and wires anywhere provided that they return “ all the confiscated land iu the island.” ■ I believe that this is correct, and that it is the sole condition upon which the Kingites will consent to roads being made through the country still remaining in their possession. It will be easy perhaps for the great magician, Hori Kerei, to satisfy his servile following that even this concession is necessary to be made for his own glorification arid in the interest of the whole human race.

Ondit from Auckland that for variety the evening paper is going into opposition. Too much sweetness cloys it appears, and a little salt of opposition is beginning to be desired as a change— Mataitai , as the Maoris call it.