MR BRYCE AND TE WHITI.

Patea Mail, 5 April 1881, Page 3

MR BRYCE AND TE WHITI.

lu an article on Mr Bryce and the Parihaki difficulty, the Grey River Argus thinks “As Mr Bryce had curbed iiis impatient desire to utterly destroy the last vestige of the mana of Te Whiti, he might have waited a little while longer, and laid before Parliament the reasons which led him to hold views so much in antagonism with the rest of his colleagus. Had he done that it is not at all unlikely that he would have had the House and country with him, and ultimately enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his ideas given practical effect to. Considering the constant source of irritation and anxiety which this ill-conditioned pseudo-prophet has caused the colony, he has been treated with a degree of forbearance that he certainly had no right to expect. For years back his influence over his credulous compatriots has been like a blight upon the progress of . that part of the North Island where his Native Alsatia is situated. He not only stopped settlement, but for years he prevented the telegraph wire being stretched or communication being kept open along the Coast. Coaxing and conciliation were tried in vain to win him from his sullen hostility. The greater the efforts made to propitiate him, the more arrogant and exacting he became. In fact he has always shown in an intensified degree the cunning and intractable nature of the irreclaimable savage —too often encouraged in his troublesome tricks by the mischief-making pakeha-Maoris, who have always exercised such a pernicious activity in New Zealand in perpetuating the estrangement of the two races. Latterly, however, it is gratifying to relate that there have been symptoms that the natives are becoming amenable to reason, and are opening their eyes to the delusive guidance of Te Whiti, though it is equally certain that as long as a remnant of his old mana sticks to him he will endeavor to uphold the position of a great “ medicine-man ” amongst his people. The Argus looks forward next session to see Government take up a more decisive and vigorous policy in regard to Te Whiti and his disturbing influence, and which have been the means of causing so enormously expensive a drain upon the colony.