The Native Minister.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4484, 19 May 1883, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Native Minister.

As was generally anticipated by those who have followed the tactics pursued by the Government in relation to native matters, the triumphant march of the Hon J. Bryce and his party through the Northern portion of the island, is being made capital of with a certain amount of- indecent haste. A congratulatory dinner was given.to Mr Bryce last night in New Plymouth, and that modest Minister could not miss the opportunity of enlarging upon the imaginary advantages derived from his hazardous four days' trip from Alexandra to r Taranaki. Doubtless his enthusiastic eulogies; of the secondary chiefs, who acted as his guides through the harmless country, which he would fain have us believe bristled with danger before his advent in it, are well de« served; these men, most probably for some consideration, deigned to accompany, the Minister over laud belonging to other tribes, and shewed the mightis right party over a road unknown to it. Had anything more been demanded of the same chiefs—had the Bryce people fallen foul of a tribe, or had trouble arisen—mayhap the loyalty displayed by ,Te :Wetere and Co. might have borne a different complexion. We still maintain —even in the face of Mr Bryce's asseverations—that the King Country is net open to Europeans; that surveys will not be permitted throughout the country ; and, in addition, we would' say that half a dozen similar excursions by the Native Minister and his followers will not open the country until some legislation is provided by which land sharking will beat least to some extent—arrested, and opportunities placed in the bands of the original owners of the soil, to make their titles good before the whole value of the properties involved are swallowed up in expenses connected with land's, Court procedure and lawyers' bills of costs. it has been the policy of the present Ministry to make a " stalking horse " of the Native question immediately before the commencement of each session, and during the last two years, a run of fortuitous circumstances seems to have occurred to enable them to do so. We have no doubt that with the spirit of fors giveness in his breast, while his heart is almost quailing at the thought of. the danger he has but recently passed through, the Native Minister will-rwith a voice quivering with emotion, and breathing a prayer to Heaven in thankfulness for his deliverance from danger while passing through the territory of tbe foe—deliver within the senatorial walls such an ao count of his travels, as will send a thrill of wild excitement through his hearers, and cause the assembly to bless tbe Hon. John Bryce as a Heaven-born Minister.