Untitled

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1187, 5 February 1880, Page 2

On: exchanges are pregnant with information concerning the disquietude of that ambitious and covetous class termed land sharks. The policy now being adopted by the Government regarding the A\ aimate j Plains scarcely suits their book. If they once permit this difficulty to be settled, and this tract of country to be safely j placed in the hands of the Government, another chance will have gone from them j for ever of their following ihe example of those who now rule the north, and, in fact, the rest of the Colony—of their helping to found a colonial aristocracy by a stroke of the pen. Those who have not lived in ihe north and watched the manoeuvring of these gentry can scarcely realise the extent to which Pakeha-Maori-isni prevails there. To tell the truth, the continuance of the Native Office is necessitated .by the trickery of these schemers and fomenters of disaffection, and tho Native Office itself is little better than the nursery of this self-saine scoundrelism. The temptation to its oltieers is great. It would not be so if these functionaries were ordinary men ; but they are not. One of the peculiarities of the service is that those who join it must be acquainted with the Maori language and Maori customs. There is but one way of acquiring such knowledge. The most intimate relationships aro absolutely requisite to the obtaimnent of this end. But years of familiar intercourse and of utter demoralisation arc no barriers to some minds. The}" make the necessary sacrifices—they become menials of the natives, as some of the political pillars of the Colony have d-jne in their day, and give themselves over to a life of vagabondism and abandonment. When they have become entirely divested of the eft'ects of till carl}" associations —when they have thrown oil' all moral restraint—they are lit for the Native Oltice, and to act as tools in the hands of designing land sharks. Those who have graduated in such a school arc by no means fools—they are finished rogues. Let the Native Office be disbanded to-day, and to-morrow would be let loose such a swarm of villains throughout the country as would assist in reinstating the private laud purchase system in all its pristine vigor. The special correspondents of southern papers in the north deal very gently with the Government in giving their accounts of the destructiveness and chicanery of Pakeha-Maoris. They say that the Government is fully on the allert as to the extent of th<3 danger, and is using every care to guard against it. Mr. Bryce may be doing this, and some of his colleagues may be assisting him; 1 but there are conflicting interests in the Cabinet. One section desires the reinstatement of the system of private land purchase, another is operating against it, not personally, perhaps, but through tools that have been well tutored in the corrupt precincts of the Native Office, during the reign of corrupt Governments. Next session will bring forward some disclosures not very creditable to some members of Parliament and guardians of the public weal. ,