The Patea Mail. Established 1875. FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1883. THE EFFECTS OF MR BRYCE'S POLICY.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 983, 12 January 1883, Page 2

The Patea Mail. Established 1875. FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1883. THE EFFECTS OF MR BRYCE'S POLICY.

The resolute manner in which the Native Minister is carrying out his policy, and establishing the Queen’s Government as a practical thing all over the colony is already producing good * results. The silly sneers of his late Excellency, and that gentleman’s organ in the press, the Lyttelton Times, have not in the least stopped the close of the Parihaka disturbance from being re-g-arded hy every one as a decisive frlnmpli of law and order, and even the Natives are beginning to see that a similar course to that then adopted will be carried out again if necessary. We hear on good authority that this month instructions will be given for the new harbor of Kawhia to be bnoyed, and a township laid off there. Up to the present time the surveyors of the proposed railway line have not gone to work in the “ King country,” bnt will certainly do so, and are not likely to meet with any serious obstruction. It was very clear from all the accounts of the interview between Mr Bryce and Tawhiao at Whatiwhatihoe during the latter part of last year, that the poor delapidated old chief, whom it pleases some people to call a king, would gladly have closed with the liberal offer made him to buy out his “ right, title, and interest, if any ” to his mana at a reasonable figure, but that be was prevented by his nominal lieutenant, bnt actual master, Wahanni. The Maoris profess to entertain a profound reverence for blood and race, bnt are still more swayed by personal considerations, and Wahanni has just the qualifications in which Tawhiao is conspicuously deficient. He is a fine made man physically, tall and strong, a man of intelligence, a good speaker, and habitually sober. It is needless to say that his quasi-royal master is the reverse of all this, and it is only natural that the lieutenant should be the actual commander, and the nominal commander the actual lieutenant. Indeed, Tawhiao probably knows that he is played ont, and it is not at all unlikely that the visit which he is about to pay to his friends at Wairarapa is intended to be a “ Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness,” as Cardinal Wolsey puts it. There is not the least

likelihood that any son or other nearest heir to Tawhiao will attempt after his death or dethronement to set up any similar claim. Nor will the recognition of the 'Queen’s absolute sovereignty over the whole of New Zealand hasten the dying ont of the Maori race. It is a very singular circumstance, but seems to be an undoubted fact, that the negroes in the southern States of America have ceased to increase since they acquired complete freedom. A people may have an amount of liberty which they do not know how to use to their own advantage, and are sometimes far better off when they are free from too great a burden of responsibility. Of course the Maoris are never likely to fall into a condition of servitude, and it is not desirable that they should. But it docs seem to be desirable that they should jive surrounded by the appliances of civilisation which they cannot originate and at first regard with distrust. The construction of railways, telegraphs, harbors, &c., the cultivation of the land where they live, and the establishment of the authority of European law will do more for them in the way of that fusion .of the races which they profess to desire than anything else. To some extent that fusion has already taken place, and the result has been spoken of as in many respects very successful. Physically and, intellectually the Pakeha-Maoris are said to be generally fine specimens of either race, and if they have, hitherto, been morally defective, much allowance

must be made for the peculiarconditions under which they have been brought up, and the absence of that control in early life which has as much as anything to do with the formation of sound moralprinciples.