Election of Mr Bryce.

Patea Mail, 5 December 1881, Page 3

Election of Mr Bryce.

Nominations for Waitotara electorate were receivable at the Woolshed, Westmere, up to noon of Friday. At the appointed time Mr Edward Churton (Returning Officer) and a number of Wanganui residents and settlers from Waitotara and Waverley were present. Nominations being called for, Mr Somerville nominated the Hon. John Bryce as a fit and proper person to represent the electorate in the Assembly ; and spoke culogistically of the positions Mr Bryce had respectively held as a settler, as member for the district, and as Minister for 'feie Crown, in all which he had ever proved straightforward. Mr Geo. S. Bridge, Waverley, seconded the nomination, saying any district would be proud to be represented by a member like Mr Bryce. If native affairs in the past had been managed with the same firmness, discretion, and judgment as Mr Bryce had displayed, Maori troubles would not be such a factor in New Zealand politics as they unfortunately are. No other candidate was nominated, and the Returning Officer declared the HonJohn Bryce duly elected, an announcement which was received with applause.

STATEMENT ON NATIVE POLICY

Mr Bryce tendered to the electors his hearty thanks for re-election, and said perhaps no man in the district valued a seat in the House less than ne did, if unaccompanied by the confidence of his constituents ; and certainly no one valued a seat more when he had such confidence. The position on the West Coast was this. For a number of years there had been a growing confederation, hostile to settlement in the larger sense—hostile to the actual settlement of land, to the supremacy of the Queen, and to law and order in the district. There had been a constant danger to the country that hostilities might at any time break out, and this state of things became more and more intolerable. It was likely enough that in this district there were people who thought the Government had stooped to weakness in their long attempts to come to an arrangement with Te Whiti, but it must be conceded that the Government had exhausted every means to come to an understanding with that chief, and without success. He would not say that the Government had gone too far in so negotiating, but it would be admitted that they had gone as far as they could do. They felt, however, that they were obeying the behest of the whole Colony, when they determined to put an end to that state of things, and if the work could not be said to be completely done, the neck of the difficulty was broken. Much of the praise bestowed on him was really due to Colonel Roberts. It had been said that he had treated that officer as his aide-de-camp. This was not so. Col. Roberts was the officer in command of the operations, and whatever success attended them was due to that gentleman and not to himself. Referring to general politics, he said : Men who had been long in the House, and who were fitted to discuss measures before

it, had been compelled to take a back seat and remain silent. They had heard much of the freedom of debate, but the present system stifled it. There were means existing in nearly every deliberative Assembly, except in Great Britain and her dependencies, for checking the undue long-winded-ness of members, and he hoped that ere long similar measures would be introduced into the New Zealand House to secure the freedom of debate. (Cheers.)