POLITICAL

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 29, 2 April 1881, Page 305

POLITICAL

NOTES AND NOTIONS,

The Hon. John Bryce is a farmer, a fortunate aand owner, and a man blessed with this Avorld's goods in a very fair degree. He is self-made, self-educated, and of considerable ability. Like most such men, he has an intense belief in himself—and in very little else. Above all things die is what men of his kind call "practical," not understanding thereby the careful consideration of appropriate means to gain large ends, •but a practice of confining themselves to the limited range of their own personal vision and of their own narrow world. Silent, cold and unsympethetic, John Bryce passed for wise till his time of trial came. His reputation quickly collapsed among all who then had an opportunity of closely watching his course. It was his chief ambition to be thought exceptionally honest. He fought for this with a pertinacity that often savoured of protesting overmuch. The climax was reached when, on one occasion, he deemed it consistent with selfrespect to boast from his seat on the Treasury benches, that he had never told a lie nor deceived an opponent in his life. No one, for all that, ever proved himself more capable of saying and doing the most artful things in the most simple and artless way. Witness his cleverness in claiming credit for retrenchment in native affairs in cases where large sums amounting to many thousands had only been transferred to other accounts. Thirteen thousand five hundred pounds for Land Courts' were thus transferred to the Minister of Justice, and Bryce's estimates relieved thereby.

Other "savings" effected by Mr. Bryce were retrenchments of a very paltry and injurious nature. The reduction of the pension so long enjoyed by Paul of Orakei, was a saving of this character. It had been given to Paul for long and valuable service by his uncle and himself when the Pakeha was weak and the Maori strong. It is not too much to assert that but for the protection of Paul's uncle, old Apihi, Auckland City would have shared the fate of Kororarika, and could nothave existed at all. Apihi patrolled the Waitemata with his canoes, and saved the city from a threatened attack of the overwhelming force which the Northern Maories could then have brought against it. In his old age Paul's pension has been suddenly reduced to half, and a saving of one hundred pounds effected. So also with chiefs in other parts of the North. They had received for many years salaries as Assessors, varying from £20"to £60 per annum. In return, they kept the peace and settled all disputes among the thousands of natives at Hokianga and elsewhere. They were all cut down suddenly and a small immediate saving was effected at Avliat may yet prove a great ultimate cost.

It is, however;' in his general management that Mr. Bryce proved the greatest failure. His gaze was fixed on Parihaka and he was not able to see beyond it. With no large policy, with no idea of the duty lie owed to the native race as well as to the Europeans, he pursued a cold, unjust and merciless course which has alienated the natives from us throughout the Colony. He took from them their equal rights of suffrage under the residental qualification, and entirely destroyed the nascent respect they were begining to feel for our laws. They had been always told that they were on an equal footing with all the Queen's subjects, and that the law was supreme and must be obeyed by all. For years they had been suffering acknowledged and great injustice at our hands at Parihaka and on the West Coast generally. Careless governments liad appointed as their agents, some of the greatest scoundrels in the country. One of them, a pet of the late Sir Donald Maclean and now an inmate of the Wanganui gaol for forgery, long occupied the most conspicuous place. He was made the commissioner for settling native titles to the West Coast lands, and in that capacity was secretly allied with land purchasers in a partnership that proved disastrous to the natives and to the colony. Sir W. Fox and Sir Dillon Bell tell us in their report how patiently the natives bore these wrongs for fifteen weary years, and that it is to Te _Whiti we owe their peaceable conduct during that time. No one was better acquainted with these facts than John Bryce. Yet lie left in prison some two hundred natives who trusted to our law— kept them without trial or knoAvledge of the offence with which they are •charged. For the first time in New Zealand history the natives had been willing to trust us and to try our law. They hare lingered in prison without trial ever since. Are they likely to trust it or us again ? It was a glorious opportunity lost. A great Minister would have -seized it eagerly ; but Mr. Bryce did not.

Mr. Bryce's only avowed regret is that he was •not allowed to march on Parihaka and add Te Whiti to the number of untried prisoners now in gaol. Te Whiti had committed no offence, and his life has been confessedly spent in keeping his followers peaceable and patient. " Let all the great men of the Island behold your present and peaceable attitude as you are gathered here before me." This was said by Te Whiti to his followers at the last great meeting at Parihaka, a few days ago. Again—" Let not love die, nor evil days arise. On the day that you commenced your career of patience under suffering and oppression the attainment of that happy time of which I speak was initiated." So spake this ignorant and truculent savage, as those who wish to get the native lands in that part of the colony would have us believe him to be.

Mr. Bryce, with accustomed simplicity, tells us that his own polioy was, from the first, one of •'justice to the natives, hand-in-hand with a thorough determination on the part of the Government to establish the authority of law upon the coast." Yet he would have seized Te