PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1880. "WHAT ABE WE TO THINK?"

Patea Mail, 31 July 1880, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1880. "WHAT ABE WE TO THINK?"

That able journal, tlic Lyttelton Times, presents a southern view of the native question on this coast; and settlers here would do well to observe the opinions which prevail outside concerning the course of affairs in the native districts of this island. The Times reviews the situation by the light of official reports and of known facts, and being unable to discover any clear policy, it asks “ What are we to think ?” The Times is avowedly an Opposition journal, and its opinions are to be distrusted to that extent; but what we are concerned about is the importance of a clear knowledge among colonials generally of the policy which the Government are pursuing on this coast. We know that the view expressed in the Lyttelton Times on native affairs is the view which almost universally among people in the Middle Island. That view is that native affairs have deen managed in the past, and are being managed in the present, upon n° clear principle which a plain man can understand. Southern people think that every time the Government takes a batch of native prisoners, the Government is making war, without calling it war. They think that the flames of native insurrection are on the point of breaking out; else what necessity can there he for Government to make raids among natives and take a handful of prisoners whenever they give trouble by defying the law. The southerners say, “ The Government assure us there is no war, and that there is no real danger; but the newspapers tell us every day of more prisoners taken. We do not hear of the prisoners being tried for any breach of the law, and we conclude they are military prisoners. But as there is no war, and no real danger, wc want to know what it all means ?” Can anybody tell them ?