SYDNEY TAIWHANGA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1339, 7 August 1883, Page 3

SYDNEY TAIWHANGA.

Sib Dittos Bell, Agent-General, writes the following letter to the “New Zealand Herald," of which the following passages are of Colonial interest :— “ Sir,—A tedious illness prevented me from writing to you last January about certain statements made by Sydney Taiwhanga and your article upon them. Observing, however, from recent files that you seem to be expecting a letter from me, I trouble you with a few words, It is not true that I promised the three Maoris to accompany them to the Colonial Office. I told them I would do so if asked by Lord Kimberley, but I was not asked by him. The Aborigines’ Protection Society invited me to be present, but only sent me the invitation a few hours before the deputation was to wait upon Lord Kimberley. There is not a word of truth in the statemet that Sydney Taiwhanga suggested to Parere to obtain a promise from me in writing to accompany them. AU our conversation was in Maori, and from the position in which they sat in my room it was impossible for anything of the kind to have taken place without my hearing it. If it had taken place, I should have ordered Sydney Taiwhanga out of the room. There is not a word of truth in the statement that I ever asked Lord Kimberley or suggested to him to exclude these Maoris, or did anything to prevent this interview with him. It is quite true that when efforts were being made to get them presented to the Queen I did all I could to prevent it. They could not have been presented to Her Majesty except by keeping up the false pretence of being chiefs with authority to epeak for the tribes as the character in which it had suited some of their patrons to parade them, but which I was resolved should not be used, if I could help it, to deceive the Queen, and I spoke very strongly to Wiremu Pati concerning the idea of making any pretence to represent the great chiefs—especially to represent Te Whiti, who certainly would have looked on Sydney Taiwhanga, for example, as an envoy for him with supreme comtempt. With regard to the proposed Native Land Company, you misunderstood the attitude I took about the project. I did not speak to the three Maoris themselves on the matter, but I daresay they became aware of what I said to many who consulted me afterwards. The promoters of that Company in England could only belong to one or two classes—the one consisting of good and benevolent men actuated by the highest motives, but unfortunately impressed with the belief that the Natives were an oppressed and downtrodden race, whose lands the colonists were eager to steal; the other of men with a keen eye to business, and to a fat speculation in Maori land. To all who consulted me I gave the same answer; that the pretence of any such scheme being wanted to protect the Natives from the Colony was false ; that the disposal of Native territory was regulated by law; that Government had never shown themselves unwilling to entertain any reasonable plan which was in accordance with the law, but that, so far as I understood anything of this particular scheme, I thought it was not practicable, because its effect would be to transfer the control of the Native question, and, indeed, the colonisation of the North Island, from the Government of the country to a private association directed from this side of the world—a change which I did not believe would be sanctioned by Parliament. Perhaps the most difficult task I have in England has been to defend the good name of my fellow colonists against aspersions made, not only by such insignificant people as Sydney Taiwhanga, but by men of our own race, some of them highly placed."