THE NATIVE MEETING.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5662, 23 May 1879, Page 3

THE NATIVE MEETING.

“Honorable Legislative Councillors, “ and gentlemen of the House of Representatives: I congratulate you on the “ fact that peaceful relations have at last “ been established with the Waikato and “ Ngatimaniapoto tribes “ There is now a fair prospect that before “ long European enterprise and settle- “ ment will be welcomed by these great “ tribes, and that they will gladly avail “ themselves of the advantages which “ roads, railways, and telegraphs will “ bring to their magnificent territory. . . . . ..In consequence “ of the disposition thus recently mnni- “ fested on the part of these natives, you “ will be asked to consider the question “,of extending the North-Island trunk “railway from Auckland to Tara- “ naki Several long

“ pending questions, out of which more or “less ill feeling has arisen, have been “ finally and satisfactorily settled. The “ question of the survey and settlement “ of the West Coast of this island jhas “ been firmly taken in hand. One largo “ block has been surveyed, aud will “ shortly be open for sale, and the im- “ mediate survey of the Waimate Plains “ has been ordered. . . . . . A

“ large extent of country will be “ open for sale and settlement.” Thus, at the instance of his responsible advisers, spoke his Excellency the Governor at the opening of the session of the New Zealand Parliament on the 26th July last. We need not tell our readers that a Governor’s speech on such an occasion is a Ministerial manifesto; that the docu : menc is concocted in Cabinet, and that the Governor is invited to deliver it, and does deliver it upon the responsibility of his constitutional advisers - the Ministers, who are accountable to Parliament and to the country for the truthfulness of the words, which, so to say, are put by them into the mouth of her Majesty’s representative. Were these words truthful at the time they were spoken? There is abundant proof now available that the words were not truthful, and there is sufficient ground for the inference that Ministers, when they advised Lord Normanby to utter them officially in presence of the representatives of the people and of the members of the Legislative Council in Parliament assembled, knew that they were not truthful words, and that her Majesty’s representative at their instance was unconsciously lending himself, and the authority of his high position, to a political party fraud. It is with a deep sense of pain and a feeling of profound regret for the tarnished honor of New Zealand public men that this conviction has forced itself upon us. It has long been the desire and the practice of the leading politicians in this colony that purely native questions should be discussed and dealt with on broad principles and in a statesmanlike fashion, and that they should be lifted as far as practicable out of the arena of mere party politics. Sir George Grey, as leader of the Opposition, was the first to break through that salutary practice, and his virulent personal attacks upon the late Sir Donald McLean, and upon the native policy which he represented, unfortunately appear to have imposed upon himself, when he attained to the position of Premier, the necessity of doing something very startling in order to justify his adverse criticism, and to exhibit that personal influence and authority with the natives of which he was always boasting, and which his vanity led him to suppose that he really possessed and could exercise upon occasion. His first encounter with the Waikato Kingites at the Whakairoiro meeting to which, as it now turns out, he was invited by Major Te Wheoro, a well paid officer of the Government, and not by leading chiefs of Waikato and Ngatimaniapoto tribes, as he said—must have shown him the true state of the case as regarded his own influence and as regarded that prospect of ' achieving a party triumph by means of it, which was his real object; if he had had prudenoa then he might have been spared the pain of such an exposure as that which has recently been made at Kopua, and the people of the colony have bean saved also from the danger and the humiliation into

which hia vanity and egoism have now recklessly plunged them. No Government in New Zealand has ever been placed in such a contemptible position before the native people, and it would be well if evil consequences from the folly and dishonesty of Ministers can now be prevented even by their early expulsion from office. The labors of the last seven years in the cause of peace have, as w e see, been completely frustrated, and a very large section of the native people, a section who now command the sympathy and would obtain the active support of the large majority in the island, have been driven into open defiance of or passive hostility to the Government. Tb WhitTs late speech at Parihaka and Tawhiao’s late speech at Kopua will read strangely now in juxtaposition with those passages in the Governor’s speech with which we have commenced this article. Tb Whiti told the Honorable Mr. Sheehan, the Native Minister, that he was a “thief,” and that he ought to be tried himself before he demanded that the murderer Hikoki should be surrendered to justice. This is what Tawhiao, the King, was pleased to say a few days ago publicly before thousands of Maoris, his guests and sympathisers, and in presence of the Honorable Sir George Grey, ex-Gover-nor and Premier of this colony, who had forced himself into the presence of the Maori potentate, after having received a very significant invitation to stay away from the meeting, and to rest himself at Alexandra ; “Listen!” Tawhiao is reported to have said. “ Listen my “ancestors, listen my parents, listen all “ the tribes from the North to the South, “ the people, the chiefs of the island. “ Potatau was the parent of you all, the “ chief over you all. Bewi is another. “ I followed 'Poiatau. These are my “ supporters. All the island is mine. “ Everything rests with me alone. On ‘ < ‘ which side is Bewi V Bewi presently, for answer, arose from amongst his people, walked across the open space, and sat down by Tawhiao. “ I will not conceal “ my thoughts but will throw them before you that you may all hear. The Queen sent a letter telling Poxaxau the “ Europeans were coming, and he re- “ plied, keep them away. I say, listen “to me while the sun is shining. Listen “to this word. I will not permit Grey “to manage these things in his way. He “is sitting there now. Everything in my “ island rests with me. I will not have “ anything to do with Grey. I will not “ consent to his management. Let fight- “ ing be kept away. I will not hear of “ it. = There shall not be fighting in the “ Waikato ; there will not be any fight- “ ing about leasing or selling land, be- “ cause these things I shall cause to cease. “ I will not permit these things in my “ island.” This is the result of eighteen months of labor on the part of Ministers, their under secretaries, private secretaries, lying agents, male and female, and of their ardent supporters and toadies on a subsidised Press, from Mr. McCulloch Beed downwards to the late and present editors of the. “New Zealand Herald.” The Honorable Colonial Treasurer will be able—but probably not willing—to tell how many thousands of pounds of the money of the people of this colony have been wasted in a futile attempt to prove that Sir George Grey was, as he pretended lobe, aMaori “Ariki” of enormous power, and in the “great” efforts by which relations so entirely friendly have “at “ last” been established with the Waikato and Ngatimaniapoto tribes, and with the people ot the Waimate Plains.

The groat To Kopua meeting closed on Monday, the 12lh instant. Sir George Grey then threw down his cards and completely exposed his hand. Having shown that he had very little more to add to the bribes offered by him at Hikuraugi, he proceeded to declare that if these magnanimous offers of his were not accepted before ten o’clock yesterday a new order of things would be entered upon. The great and liberal gifts of the “generous “ people of New Zealand ” were absolutely going begging. Our auctioneerPremier put up positively for the last time grants of land, to Tawiiiao and his people—“ land endowments for native “ schools, and town acres in every one “of the towns in the Waikato district, ‘ ‘ so that you might have the means “ of getting an immediate revenue ‘ ‘ from your land.” But this wonderful opportunity was not appreciated by the buyers, andat the fallof the hammer at ten o’clock yesterday morning these tempting bribes, offered with all the persuasive eloquence of one who prides himself upon having the divine gift of the wab, were withdrawn without a single bid. Even the proffered explanation about the sections of land at Harapipi did not convince : the Maoris, and his audience were unable to appreciate the force of the eloquent enumeration of God’s mercies to the King Maoris, given in the following passage:— “ Nature has made here for you level “ plains of rich country, through which “ a railroad can run with the - greatest “ ease. Was God wrong in doing that 1 “ Then God has put into the earth up “ here abundance of iron by which the “ rails for the road can be made at any “ time, and the iron is a valuable pro- “ perty which will make many men and “ many families rich. Was God wrong “in- making that provision for you 2” We cannot but rejoice that upon this occasion the leading questions put by the Premier in the above passage were left unanswered. A sceptical Hauhau was quite likely to dispute the wisdom of the Deity in thus placing what the King natives might fairly regard as additional temptations to the land-grasping pakeha, and might regret the presence of coal and iron in the King country accordingly. A theological dispute between a ° hostile savage and Sir George is a spectacle we can well aflord to dispense with, though doubtless, it would give a spice of sensationalism to the news of the day during the silly season. After Sir George had held forth in the same strain as that given above, about the coals placed by Providence within the King country, evidently for the special purpose of driving railway locomotives, he said I :— “Providence has “done all that is good for you,” but he immediately afterwards qualified this statement by making a special exception in favor of the doctors. Providence omitted to supply medical men to care for the sick Maoris, and the “gene- “ rous Europeans” would be most happy to make good this one strange omission. Wicked persons, who made money by dealing in land, had tried to shut out all other persons from dealing in land, and the doctors wore unfortunately excluded along with the rest. The_ inspiration could hardly have been Divine which induced Sir G. Grey, after sitting for twenty minutes “ under the shelter of an “ umbrella, looking the very impersona- “ tion of patience,” to deliver such childish nonsense as the passages we have quoted above. Englishmen are noted for sound common sense, and we do not believe that there is a single thoughtful man in the community who would be prepared to endorse with his approval the Premier’s last speech. Setting aside for the moment every political or partisan difference, does anyone believe that the shallow and childish style of reasoning set forth in the paragraphs we have quoted would have weight with natives so astute as the King Maoris have shown themselves to be '! We regret the humiliation which the Premier has sustained, because the country can ill afford to sacrifice any of the respect and prestige due to the law and the Government representedjin the persons of the Premier and the Native Minister. But we are thankful that the King showed that he had some idea of the dignity of his office, and declined to recognise officially the presence of the uninvited guests, and graciously resolved to spare them the further indignity of open contumely and

direct insult. At the very outset Tawhiao expressed his complete want of confidence in Sir George Grey ; “ I will have nothing to do with Grey,” he said, and we are heartily glad that he adhered to this determination. The Waikatos are persuaded that the object of the Governmentisto stir up strife between the tribes ; if hard and angry words had once passed between the two parties the narrow boundary between words and blows might at any moment have been overleaped. A policy of “ masterly “inactivity” is yet apparently open to us, and though the difficulty of maintaining the present status of affairs has, in our opinion, been enormously increased by the meddling and muddling native policy of the present Government, fortune has so far favoied us that there has been up to the present nothing done which can be j ustly regarded as necessitating a war. Both Te Whiti and Tawhiao plainly desire peace, and all that they require is to be left alone, undisturbed and unmolested. The colony will be only too glad to accept these terms. The treatment which Ministers have met with at the hands of the native chiefs, either at Parihaka or Te Kopua, whose privacy they have wilfully invaded, has certainly not been such as to encourage any repetition of such visits. Tawhiao may be likened to the deaf adder of Scripture, whiohstopped her ears and refused to listen to the voice of the charmer “charm he never so wisely judging by the samples of wisdom which we have quoted, we are not in the least surprised at the resultless nature of the incantation. Our judgment may bo at fault, our criticism too hostile ; others may bo able to detect latent beauties which we are unable to discover or to appreciate, but in any case our remarks will serve to direct further attention to the speech itself ; it deserves a careful consideration because it contains the key to the whole of the boasted native policy of the present Ministry.