MAJOR ROPATA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 153, 10 June 1884, Page 2

MAJOR ROPATA.

We clip the following from the Wairoa Guardian :— “ On a recent occasion, at Gisborne, when the above worthy chief was presented with an address of sympathy by his pakeha friends on the occasion of his salary being reduced by the Government, he replied in the following strain: Major Ropata said he had few words to say in reply to what had already been said in regard to him. He was pleased at their expressions of sympathy with him p his trouble. He was unable to reply to what had been said, and could only express his pleasure. If all this had been said about someone else, he could reply, but as it was all about himself, he could not very well do so. He was in the position of a dog, which when being bred gets food given him by the master, but when in its declining years, the master knocks it on the head as it is of no use. That was exactly his position. When he was young, and of service, he was fed by the Government, but now so many years had passed, and was old and declining, the Government wished to knock him on the head. He was not sad about the deduction of his . pension. If he was, he would show it by turning rebel, or some thing of that sort. One of the reasons alleged by the Government for so doing is that there is no service now for him to perform. That was not his fault. In 1872 the war ceased, and he had been waiting for years for orders from the Government to proceed to Waikato to arrest Te Kooti,—(Much applause.) But instead of that they raised the war, and got him (Te Kooti), ana were now showing mm about. He knew nothing about land purchase With reference to the sale of the land, he had to tell the Ngatiporu to sell their land, and they did so to the Europeans. He could see their object. They thought he was sad, but this showed him that they were the ones were sad, and they saw ther reason for their feelings. He greeted them with pleasure, and could only conclude by saying “ that though the Government have acted in the way they have done towards me, ;I will always remain loyal and true to the Queen and country, as will my children and children’s children.”