The Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1877

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 387, 20 July 1877, Page 2

The Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1877

The address of his Excellency is the weakest of Gubernatorial speeches that the Colony has ever been treated to : indeed, after reading it through carefully, we have concluded that it is the concentrated essence of nothing. How men who are chosen as the intelligence of the land can sit resignedly and listen to such a farce as that enacted yesterday, .it is not in our power to comprehend. Congratulations on the prosperity of the Colony have become so much the custom of Governors since the days of Sir Geokoe Fekgosso>* Bowex that wo verily believe that if a famine were raging in the land Vice-Royalty would so far forget itself as to rehearse the old tale, which, from custom, it has learned to repeat so well, i Few would be prepared to assert that congratulations were entirely out of place : and anyone who has watched the course of events will have long since concluded that the only bugbear to the unqualified success of the Colony is its Government. Tate, for instance, the Native land laws. These are altered almost every year. At one time, the serious difficulties that arose through allowing the land jobber full swing, necessitated the retention by the Government of the sole power to purchase from the natives. At another time, the Government, having given its agents so much per acre for the purchase of native lands, finds itself in

possession of lands that are not worth the commission that has been paid for them, to say nothing of the purchase money ; in fact, the majority of them are unfit fur settlement. This is the result, not of the system, but of the unscruptdoitsness of the agents employed by the Government, and who are very fair specimens of Government servants. Of course, it is only reasonable that the land jobbers of the North will exultingly point to the miserable failure of Government purchases, and to the stoppage of settlement consequent thereon. Were this done in order (.hat the faulty administration of the Act might be rectiricd, great good would result. But such is not the case. The object of the land-shark party, of which the House far too largely consists, is to add to their already gigantic I possessions in the North Island. That great statesman, Mr. Fox, in the session of ISG2, when the Doiiett-Bell Government was passing through the House the first Native Lands Bill, stigmatised the measure as the "Land Shark Bill." But like the political weathercock that he is, he is favouring the new Act, which is, in the main, similar to that which lie then opposed. Then, as now, the Whitaker-Russell party were its instigators. So infamous were the transactions of the land jobbers of the North with the Natives that, in order to maintain peace with the Maoris, it was deemed advisable to amend the Act. Since then the Government has been very much in the position of a tennis ball, buuetted about between what it knew to be its duty to the country, and its obligations to a part}" that had gathered such strength as to be able to keep any Government in power, or oust it at pleasure. The North Island wants Separation in order that it nury be able at some future time to enjoy a land fund similar to those of Otago and Canterbury ; but it may bid adieu to all benefits from such a source unless the legitimate settlement party is sufiiciently powerful to checkmate the northern land sharks by successfully opposing the passage of the new Act through the House, or the Government is lire-pared to rupture that delightfully reconeiliatory state of the natives referred to in the speech by aggressive movements beyond the Confiscation Boundary. This, we think, they dare not do. as his supreme highness " King" Tawhiao will not even permit us to make roads into the territory, which, in order to maintain the present much-belauded peace lias, by the proclamation of a boundary line, been tacitly called his. This is what is called prosperity in that thing which is a poor imitation of a usually meaningless Im; ..rial Parliamentary opening speech, ami. upon which the blessing of the Almighty is blasphemously invoked. By a very large proportion of the North Islanders a native war would be welcomed as a good thing in consequence of the local expenditure it would entail, and we fear that these blood-suckers may yet have their wish, it matters little to them, as they are not likely to be found amongst the shun. The press of the North Island is loud in its denunciations of the ]iev.' "Native Lands Act," and we sincerely hope, as wo look forward to the unequalled prosperity of this Colony, that it will never become law.