The Oamaru Mail TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1215, 9 March 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1880.

The Hon. Mr. Bryce, Native Minister, has treated us to the unseemly spectacle of a Minister of the Crown stooping to mediate in a land dispute between a political follower and the Maoris with whom that political follower has had some very peculiar transactions. For some years past there has been going on a struggle in Napier between a ring of land sharks and a large, body, of natives, who, not without some show of reason, aver that they have been cheated out of thenland by iho said ring, of which Mr. Frederick Sutton, M.H.8., is one of the most prominent members. For many years he was—and is still, we believe—the proprietor of a general store, wherein are dispensed miscellaneous things, including spirituous liquors. The natives were very large patrons of Mr. Sutton's grog and drapery store; they bought freely of rum and gaudy prints, and Mr. Sutton, with an eye tofuture advantages, allowed the unsophisticated dark-skins to run into his debt until they were hopelessly involved. A gentle amount of pressure was then put upon the natives, and they, afraid of the consequences of their in' volvement, and, to avoid unpleasantness, mortgaged to their generous benefactor and his friends very nice blocks of land. In tome cases, if we are not mistaken, many of the original owners of the soil were not parties to these transactions. They were neither partakers of the rum nor were thev arrayed in the "loud" prints so freely dealt in by Mr. Sutton, and they naturally objected to their tribal lands being hypothecated to satisfy claims for grog that had for the most part gone down the throats of their chiefs.' Mr. Sutton was sorry to do it, but he foreclosed. To appease the wrath of the other claimants, small sums of money were handed to the chiefs to settle the claims of these people, but the wily tribal rulers, so the story goes, divided the money in anything but a fair manner by pocketing the greatest share and putting their subjects off • with ; some promises of further considera- : tions to come. These ._ considerations have not been realised, and the natives, in many cases reduced to a condition next door to starvation, have naturally made some noise about the matter. They have given the grog-selling and land-sharking member some amount of trouble, and we suppose that it is in order to relieve his political supporter from further trouble and annoyance that the Native Minister has dragged his 1 official position through the mire by becoming an intercessor between the parties to such transactions as these. It may be interesting to remark that Mr. Sutton did not always appear prominently in these transactions. To do so would have been to sully his fair fame, for which there was no necessity, as many willing and not over-scrupulous tools were obtainable. Amongst those whom he engaged to negotiate with the natives was a man named Wogan, who is at present undergoing imprisonment in the Wanganui gaol. This person was the moving spirit in one at least of the many transactions that have tended to enrich Mr. Sutton and make the natives poor. We have no desire to go fully into the nature of the many " Hawke's Bay land purchases" that have rendered Mr. Sutton, Mr. Ormond, and manv others notorious throughout the Colony. Suffice it to say that the settlement of the disputes arising out of these transactions is about the last thing that the Native Minister should have undertaken, more especially seeing that Mr. Sutton is a political supporter, and that Mr. Bryce's decision may be such that he will probably be met with the accusation that he was prejudiced in favor of Mr. Sutton. It will be said that he will, perhaps unwittingly, be prone to give too much heed to his political supporter's side of the question, and too little to that of the natives—that he will be liable to accept a white He and discard the black truth. At the very best Mr. Bryce's action is undignified and unseemly. The law Courts could very properly hare dealt with the dispute, because they are, or, at least, are supposed Jo be, beyond political influence. The Government have quite enough to do on the We3t Coast to occupy the whole of Mr*. Bryce's attention. Besides, even M, the rtative Minister had ample time to attend to this dirty business of Mr. Sutton, it is highly improper for him, as one of thp Government, to identify himself with it. What if the natives refuse to listen to Mr. Bryce and to accept his ultimatum ? Supposing they should insult him, arid treat him with contempt, as they will very probably do. Supposing that Mr. Bryce's interference should involve the Government in expense, and complicate and aggravate. the native difficulty.—What then ?—We suppose that the taxpayer must bear it for the sake of Mr. Sutton.