The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5455, 20 September 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1878.

In making Ministerial statements of ' a departmental character it has been usual' for the Minister to prepare a written paper and to road it to the House. The mere act of preparation of such, a paper, ’as it involved a certain ‘responsibility, secured sobriety, at least, and. an amount of acoufacy Hvhich is hot always'to, be found when a speaker trusts to his memory or is obliged to,draw upon his imagination for -his facts. The process of writing in such.cases,is mentally a sanitary one ; there is an appeal to conscience from the very letters, and the unruly member, the tongue, is kept in order. If Mr. Sheehan had sat down deliberately to write the Statement about Native Affairs which; he delivered so volubly on Tuesday night, and had been obliged to see ; it in print' and to : correct the proofs; we think well enough of him to believe that’ it would have been presented in a very different form. At the close of last yeai; a very remarkable rise of 1 the loan stock of ail the Australian colonies was notified in the English telegrams.- ‘lt was given to a Northern seer, the editor of the Auckland ft Herald; I’to discover that' the change in the value of all the colonial securities was caused solely by the accession of Sir George Geey to the Premiership of this colony. Mr. Sheehan iassumes,, with equal probability, that his being made Native- Minister operated upon the native mind just as the advent to office of his “ honorable friend,”, as he calls him, affected the English Stock Exchange ; that is, it increased the public confidence. In one case stocks went up; in the other the native difficulty went down, magically and at once. A stranger listening to* Mr. Sheehan wpuld have supposed that up to the 13th of October last no Maori criminal had ever been surrendered to justice; that nothing had been done for the education and improvement of the native people ; that there were no boarding schools for the sons of chiefs ; that Tp Tawhiao, the King’s son, had never been in the Euro- • pean towns ; that Major Brown had not been working at the settlement of the confiscated lauds on the West Coast; that high officers of State and subordinate officers had always been engaged in acquiring native land for their own personal benefit; and that in eight months he had been able to supplement the deficiencies of all his predecessors in office, to abolish jobbing in native lands by Ministers, and “at last” to establish friendly relations with all the people. Five years ago Mr. Sheehan, as seconder of the address in reply to the Governor’s speech, announced himself as the Avatar of young Now Zealand., “I am,” he modestly said, “as the voice of one crying “in the wilderness. I now stand alone. “ I shall not be so long." Others like “ myself will seek admittance. ....

“ When they take their share in the ad- “ ministration of the affairs of this colony, “ any member of this House will bo able “ to give a more unqualified adhesion to “ the address in reply to, the Governor’s ‘ ‘ speech than I have been able to do this “ evening.” Mr. Sheehan is not now crying in the wilderness, but if the Parliamentary milleniura which he prophesied has not come, it is no doubt because others “ like himself ” have not been discovered, or have not yet sought admittance to the House. *’

We are inundated with correspondence from all parts of the island on the subject of native affairs ; as a rule, we abstain from publication of them, the bubble of special influence and personal authority blown by Sir George Grey having so completely burst. Nothing but this most impudent speech of the Native Minister would have made it appear necessary again to show that those who have as good or bettor opportunities of obtaining reliable information as he has himself regard the situation in a different light from that in which his gassing would put it. We have made a few selections from the latest correspondence to hand, which will be found, in another place and to which we invite attention. ■Wo shall have more to say about the' proposals for the future, of which Mr. Sheehan has given us such startling indications. They show that the Government' have profound faith in their own impeccability and purity under the unusual temptations to jobbery to which if their administration of the new proposals have effect Ministers will be constantly exposed ; but the fact appears to be lost sight of that, some day, they may have successors not perhaps so perfect as themselves, and who ought not to be led into temptation. “Wo are as bad as our predecessors,” said Mr. Sheehan joyously the other night; “ give us seven years.” Under the new penal system the duration of hard labor depends upon “marks,” and Ministers have been scoring so rapidly of late that the period of their discharge may be nearer than they suppose.