Evening Sitting.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3377, 18 October 1879, Page 2

Evening Sitting.

Statement of kTativo Minister.

Upon the House resuming, Mr Bryce snid ho thought the Opposition would give him credit for being a silent member, one who did not occupy the House with many remarks, he asked therefore, to be allowed to say a few words regarding the postiou of Government, He claimed ihe Government had been put there fairly. They got there under no false pretences, and Mr Sheehan had announced during the late no-confideueo debate that a coalition was impossible, and it was in view of the fact that the Government would, have to be formed from their own party, that the division was taken, so it was unfair to say anything to the contrary. The Opposition may, as they state, have a majority, stiil ho would ask them to concede what was evident, that as a Government they represented a very considerable section of the House. Ho made these remarks as hedid not intend taking any part in thp proposed want of confidence motion. It had amused him to see the alarm with which what was called by the Opposition, the detective Ministry was regarded, it reminded him of the high scriptural authority which says " the wicked fieeth when no man pursueth." Ho would now proceed to to deal with the mode in which his Department had been conducted; the system of personal Government that had lieen pursued, and he would afterwards uCll wjth the tables cbxmivied T?* a *ao department itself, The 'i&fiisC jof jthe members of the House desired to see a grfhifc' clkpgs in lliic Department, to sco the personal GoFernnieut of the .Native Minister done away with; that was the feeling of the country, and he quite agreed with the feeling. Ho could, remember the good old days when personal Government in this Department

was in fnll bloom, but he was mistaken if the lato Sir Donald McLean was of the same opinion towards tho end of his days. One time a littlo outlay weut a great length with tho Maori, a few blankets,

and sugar and tea was all thoy asked ;

now, however, their demands had risen with the change in the administration of affairs, and now they talked about aa much as n million of money. Under Sir -1). McLean ho believed the Department was being ridiculed, but under the late Government it had returned to all its pristine glory. The late Native Minister had been waited on and communicated with far too much by the Maoris. It was no uncommon thing for bim to receive 100 or 150 telegrams, all of the same tenor —demands for money or moneys worth. He read a specimen telegram in which £2000 was demanded. That was one of many similar communications on the same subject. He was absolutely astonished at the amount of money taken out of the control of the House and appropriated by the Native Minister in this way. The Opposition said that they knew of all this before. Well he could only say that not lone ago they were of a very different opinion as to its policy. He gave another example of the mode of personal" Government in 1878-79; £20,000 were placed in the estimates for roads in native districts nnd

bridges, and ifc was, practically speaking, given over to his sole disposal. Now the Native Minister could not b * acquainted with all the works for which he appropriated it; persons came to him and said, give us oafc of the vote for this and that work, and he seems to have done

so without anything like enquiry. Ho then went on to enumerate a variety of sums expended in this way on different County roads amounting to as much as

£40,0C0. In the Thames County alone the

sum of £12,050 had been expended in this way. He understood these roads were, at least to a great extent, in a goldmining district, and not strictly a native district. That alone would show thatthe detailed

expenditure of a very large sum of money had passed away from the control of this House. There were 150 native pensioners, 80 native assessors, and 80 native policemen, between whom a sum of £8,500 was spent. Then he would show that the expenditure was spreading in another direction. A native chief brought a trial against a European and after two trials those bills of costs are sent for payment to the Native Office, and would have been paid if payment had not disqualified members of this House. These things were apt to grow upon a Native Minister, and he could quite believe that if he was left too long in office it would bo the same with himself. He contended that,the Native Minister had no more right to make these

disbursements than any private member

in the House. Another direction in which these pernicious effects were seen was this—some Maoris had given their sons a tolerably "fcood education and then

insisted upon getting them into the Civil Service, there is no proper employment for them, and they are kept going about Wellington at a cost of £700 per annum. At present the matter was but trifling, but it was a thing that was rapidly growing, and unless promptly checked

all the young natives would be sent to Wellington to be a burden on the Government. Last year the appropriations in

this department were £47,330, and the

expenditure £54,498. In one of these items for contingencies the vote was £2500 and the expenditure £18 598. The land purchase department had attained a great magnitude and a return showing the state

of the department was prepared and would be laid on the table. It had been

argued that this branch of the department might be successful for promoting settlement and yet not be a commercial success. He denied the correctness of that theory, and said if land was as good as commercial speculation then it must of

necessity promote speculation. He quoted figures in support of that theory, and showed that when the land handed

over from the Maoris was really good

land it was readily taken up, whereas the bad land was left on the hands of the

Government. The total appropriation between the years 1870 and 1879 for the purchase of native land was £732,000, the amount expended £605,000. That left a small balauce, which, however, had disappeared last quarter in which the purchases amounted to £124,000, and for the current year he estimated the expenditure at £200,000. To complete transactions entered into a sum of £1,181,000 would

required. The salaries for officers of the department; amount to £18,255. That was roted in a lump sum, and the House had no control over the allocation of the money. Then again he thought the time had arrived to consider the policy of this land purchase system. In a late report from a land agent on the West Coast he stated that two or three years ago he could hare got land for 2s 6d per acre, tor which as much as 7t 6d and 10s was now demanded. He knew of his own knowledge that a very great deal of it was, practically speaking, useless for settlement. He instanced cases in which speaking from his own knowledge the land being so dealt with was not worth more than Is 6d per acre. When the lata

Government took office the native affairs

were in a hopeful state. He would ask were native affairs in a hopeful state now? It only required a little patience and a little firmness to make things beneficial to both races; but going amongst them, fondling tliera, and making them believe we wanted something from them, had been most disastrous to the interests of all concerned. He could see no reason for keeping an armed defenco force iv the Waikato. There was a probability of the late Native Minister coming back to office within the next few days. He (Bryce) would take good care that if he could do no good in the interim he would do no harm. He thought it was but right that the Waimate Plains grievance should be inquiredjinto, still ho did not thiuk that the late Native troubles would be healed by anything that could bo done iv that direction. These troubles lay much deeper than this Waimate Plains difficulty. He passed a warm eulogism upon the forbearance shown by the natives affected by these outbreaks. It was painful to see the low estimation in which English law was apparently being held by the natives, and he would ask the House whether or not this personal Government had not something to do with it; To cure this melancholy state of affairs, he would be for doing away with the Native Department as a He would relegate the Nltif'e Schools to f! m Education Department, Native roads &c, should bo placed UQt nominally, but actually under the Public Works Department appropriation vote by the iisiial parliamentary authority, and native pensions he would place under the Colonial Secretary's

Department. Then again tlte Maories should have somo mean* of .placing their luticis before th» public by sale—either the Waste Lauds Board or otherwise. A Board could pro?irl« for the survey and sub-division of these lands, together with a small per eentage for opening up the laud by roads; the net balance could then be handed over to the Maori owners. He tvould also provide means for investment, so that the Maori might have an opportunity of making permanent provision for himself. These, however, were lur own sentiments, and had not becu fully considered as yet in. the Cabinet; these were his views on the point; if members approved of them, well and pood, if not, they knew the course to pursue the circumstances in which they were about to be pluced.. He moved the adjournment of the House. Mr Sheehan said that it waa quite true that a 9 a Government they had refused coalition, what they wanted was reconstruction. He admitted the present Government had a support, but it was just suilicient to give them a decent minority. Mr Bryce had made a fair statement, they had been told a deal about personal Government, but the fact was merely a name, every Minister in the exorcise of the duties of his Department to a certain extent exercised personal Government. It was true that the ideas of the Maories were more extravagant than they had been years ago. Ho thought that was simply a natural result of the present condition of affairs. He defenc?ed the policy of the members of the Government going amongst the native tribes. There was a native gentlemen in the House who took part with the late Government in these meetings, and if he had had the opportunity of going amongst them again within the next few months, he would have completed a solution of the present difficulty. The facts of the £2,000 transaction to which the Native Minister alluded to were these, the Maori, an officer of the Goverament, built a house at the Thames to the honor of tha Queen, and the law, and he had to get the £2C30 to defray the cost. In this emergency he (Sheehan^found a promise of the late Sir D. McLean to give this Maori £1000 for services rendered, and he (Sheehan) paid that £1000, the other £1000 was advanced on the land of the Maori, and could be realised upon to-morrow if wanted. A great deal was made of the £15,000 expended on roads &c,, but three years ago the sum disbursed in this way was about £150,000. The money in question had been given to and disbursed by the Local Public Bodies, the Eoad Boards, and County Councils. Maori pensioners, assessors, were creations of the past, and long before he (Mr Sheehan) took office. Corrupt practices had been initiated, by previous Governments and having been so initiated and practised, the late Government felt itself compelled to do likewise, they were literally compelled to do so. The policy all through of the late Government had been to secure the Maori lands instead of allowing them to fall into the hands of private speculators. They completed more negotiations in 12 months than their predecessors had dona during a period of five years. The proposal for the disposal of the Maori lauds waa a most pernicious one, and one which would play into the hands of. the land rings, and the grievance against him was that he had taken precautions to prevent that being done. Then even at the present there were men in New Zealand who would buy the Whole'country could they do so. For his own part he would be in favor of abolishing all the Land Boards, so far at least as the North Island was concerned, and allow the land to be administered by the Government. His experience of these' Boards was" that they invariably favored some particular side or "party unduly. That was what he would do, and not as suggested by the Native Minister to increase their powers by allowing them to administer the native lands. Alluding t the West Coast difficulty he said promise had been made which had not beei fulfilled ; that was a fruitful cause of tha difficulty. The Bay of Islands difficulty had been alluded to, but the fact was tha that was a survey difficulty, with which th Native Department had nothing afc all ti do. In Great Britain and Ireland out rages similar to those which had takei place in New Zealand, were:of frequen occurrence, and yet no one there though of making the administration of Grea Britain responsible. Mr Bryce talks o abolishing the Native Department; hi own proposal, however, showed he di< not believe in what he said. He propose* to place native schools under the Eduea tion Department, and some other nativ< matters to- be handed to the Colonia Secretary; what wns that but breaking up one Department for the express pur pose of creating two or three others The fact was that so long as the Maor was a different speaking class it would be quite impossible to have their affairs ad ministered, except by a Department separate and distinct from that of Euro peans. If the House would pass a him enabling the Maoris to offer their laad cither to the Government or by public competition to the public, then it would have his support, bufc if they saddled the land with all the charges of opening up. roads, making surveys, &o. t very little would remain for the owner. His idea would be for the cost of survey to be defrayed by the Government, and that would insure accuracy of survey, and would otherwise tend to promote settlement. The excels of expenditure over appropriation was authorised by the country in order* to settle the difficulty connected with ihe King questiou. Then, again, a considerable charge on that vote was fairly chargeable against land purchase fuuds. At Cambridge, for example, somo hundreds of cases had to be put through the Land Court, and great delay took place in consequence. The Government hud had to keep the applicants there or else send them away at the Government expense, and bring them back again when these cases could be taken up. Ho warned Mr Bryce of this, if he attempted to carry out all that he proposed the result would be incalculable evil. If the impending struggle resulted in the Government retaining their seats, he (Mr Sheehan) would give him every assistance in carrying what might be fairly esteemed a souud course with regard to this matter. Major Atkinson argued that the moral standard set up by the late Government was simply one put in comparison with that of the previous Government j they never met one of the charges brought against them, but always referred back to what had been done by their predecessors. He admitted that the Government of IS7S had upnt more money on this Department than the late (Government hud done, but the whole aim of the Natire

Minister wks to show that the Parliatne" should have control of the uxpenditut and that it should' not be left wholly the Minister. Mr Thomson spoke in defence of fc remarks made by Mr Shechan. Mr > Wheoro al»o made a few remarks aff which the House rose at 1 a.m.