GOVERNMENT AND MR. BRYCE.

Patea Mail, 31 March 1881, Page 3

GOVERNMENT AND MR. BRYCE.

The Napier Mercury in an article on Mr Bryce’s speech says—As in financial matters so in Maori affairs Ministers have had to be forced by their friends to take the proper course. We have shown on previous occasions how Mr Ormond compelled the Government to amend the estimates, and retrench expenditure, and now we learn that the native difficulty would have gone on increasing its proportions had not Mr Bryce taken the bull by the horns. Up to a certain point Mr Bryce moulded the native policy of the Ministry, but when affairs came to the desired position at which it was necessary to make a decisive move then the courage of Ministers failed ' them, and Mr Bryce retired. How will the Government answer the well merited taunts and sneers of the country when Parliament meets ? We have seen how Major Atkinson took credit for the economical administration that has characterised the recess, and so, probably, Mr Itolleston will ask Parliament to applaud the Government for what has been accomplished on the West Coast. It is to bo hoped, however, that honor will be given where it is due, and that the Government will be properly regarded as merely an unwilling instrument up to a certain point, and then as thoroughly hostile to the policy they would take credit for carrying out. It is more than ever apparent that the native difficulty is, and has been, entirely owing to the vacillation of successive Ministries. If Mr Bryce had been allowed to have had his own way there would have been no more difficulty on the West Coast. too many thrive and prosper under troublous times with the natives, and, perhaps, the withdrawal of the constabulary force would not have suited Major Atkinson’s constituents. Mr Bryce would have dealt with To Whili and his followers in the only way semi-savages can understand and appreciate ; but the effeminate nature of his colleagues clung to the sugar and blanket policy of bye-gone years, and continued a state of affairs that will prolong the existence of that Augean stable, the Native Department.