WHAT SHOULD BE DONE AT PARIHAKA.

Patea Mail, 14 October 1881, Page 4

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE AT PARIHAKA.

The Grey River Aigus after referring to the wholesome reforms made by Mr Bryce, during his administration, of the Native Department, proceeds to say : The country as a whole applauded the way in which Mr Bryce went to work, and anxiously looked forward to see the sequel of an administrative task so well begun. The sequel we never saw. MR BRYCE HAD TOO MUCH NERVE FOR HIS PREMIER, and, being prevented from entering upon the line of action he had laid down for himself, he felt that the only course compatible with self-respect was to resign. He did so; and what has been the result? —a force of 600 A.C.’s practically laughed at, and the progress of as beautiful and fertile a piece of land as there is in New Zealand brought to a stand-still by an ignorant, a mischievous and conceited monomaniac. It is useless to tell people—as they are told day after day—that there is no danger, or that the danger is exaggerated, and that. Te Whiti is a man of peace—that he deprecates the nse of arms, and restrained his people when the lives of many settlers might have been sacrificed. The real truth is that TE AVHITI BEING, AS WE HAVE SAID, A MONOMANIAC, canuot be gauged by rules applied to ordinary human conduct. He is warlike to-day, peaceful to-morrow, just as the whim seizes him. We cannot ignore the fact that for years he has kept the West Coast of the North Island in a more or less disturbed state, ranging in intensity from suspense to excitement, until he compelled us to keep a standing army alongside of him in hope that he would thereby overawed, and that the settlers might cultivate their lands in peace. It was a vain hope. The Constabulary merely put a stop to the natives invading the lands of the settlers and ploughing them. But the CONSTABULARY HAVE CEASED TO HAVE . ANY TERROR. The sight of them has become familiar. The natives have received no injury from them; therefore they are to be defied. The natives have ascertained, probably from some of the hangers-on of the Native Office, that the Constabulary are not to take notice of their little eccentricities; it is, therefore, time to recur to the old system of annoyance and terrorism. The position taken by the Government is really incomprehensible. With a force of 500 dr 600 men camped within a stone’s throw of Parihaka, where there are never more than 200 or 300 able-bodied Maoris—and the half of these unfit to take the field—the Government are recruiting in other parts of the Colony ; and the young men at New Plymouth are refused as recruits, because they arc sure to be available, even if things come to the worst. All these facts indicate but too plainly that while Government cry out, and get their claqueurs of the Press to cry out, that there is no danger—they are doing just the very tiling to make people believe that wo are on the VERGE OF ANOTHER NATIVE WAR. Else why this recruiting in different parts of the Colony ? Is there any necessity for so doing ? In our opinion there is not. - There are men enough camped at Gtakeho and other places in the vicinity of Parihaka to march through any part of the North Island. The Government know, or ought to know by this time, thdt the'Natircs are mere automata in the hands of Te Whiti—they do jnst what he bids them do, and if his influence, were removed from them they would settle down into the ordinary life so congenial to Maori nature, and ■ cease to give their European neighbors any further trouble. It has been pointed . out time after time that so long as To Whiti is allowed to play upon the feelings of the Natives—always notoriously susceptibly to the influepce of.-so-called prophets and medicine-men—so long will the SETTLERS BE FILLED WITH ANXIETY AND FEAR, - and so long will settlement be retarded. It is Te Whiti alone who bars the way of progress, and not the Natives. They are mere Cyphers, not worth a moment’s thought, and until the arch mischiefmaker is removed, peace there never will be. ... The only thing Government should do nnder the circumstances is to Sf ZG TE. WHITI AND TOHU as disturbers of the peace, and place them where they could no longer act upon the minds of their impressionable compatriots for mischievous purposes. There ought to be no difficulty about that. We undertake to say that there are half-a-dozen police inspectors in the colony who would be glad to take 40 or 50 men and

“ RUN JN ” TE WHITI and his greasy and truculent coadjutor. And if the Government had a grain of common sense in respect to native matters they would have had these firebrands arrested long ago. They have tried everything else; they have imprisoned natives wholesale, though the one they ought to imprison they let free. The least they can now do is to try the plan we recommend, and which has been recommended before. WITH DUE PRECAUTIONS NO RISK IS ENTAILED. At present they are like men who are endeavouring to extinguish a fire by putting out the sparks, while the fire itself is left blazing. And while Te Whiti remains at Parihaka the native fire of discontent will smoulder and burn—and we may be still told that “ the potato is cooked.”