TE WHITES LATEST VIEWS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume I, Issue 30, 25 December 1878, Page 3

TE WHITES LATEST VIEWS.

[From the Taranaki Herald.] Te Whiti, a leading chief of the Taranaki tribe, whose residence is Parihaka, has, as is well known, for many years exercised a profound influence over a certain section of the West Coast tribes. Of late his influence has extended beyond his own people, and his political policy, like some of bis white-faced political contemporaries, has been a constant succession of surprises. Fortunately, he has not had the difficulty of even a local finance to mar his political programme, and a deficit instead of a surplus at the end of the year lias no terror for him. Unlimited faith, however, is necessary, and that is a bank which appears to honor his drafts to an unlimited extent. The spiritual world, with its splendid possibilities, is the region where his chief plots are laid: there, in the misty obscurity to all but him, is writ in mystic language the future political career of the Maori race. Each vision fades away but to reveal another of equally startling import, and his faithful, if credulous and deluded followers, view with awe and wonder each succeeding inspired deliverance of the Prophet chief. Perhaps Te Whiti is himself among the deluded, and is but the victim of his disordered fancy; but, like other visionaries, there is a method in his madness that indicates an ambition for things terrestrial, or at any rate, for wielding power over the Maori people. Among his latest utterances lie lias said that at the March meeting at Waitara, Tawhiao will be present with Rewi, and all the leading chiefs will go Parihaka, and the ills of the land will be healed. In time there will be a new king. Tawhiao will be superseded, just as Moses was superseded by Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is now superseded by Joseph. Who that future king will be Te Whiti has not yet announced. It will, ho says, be for the Maori and Pakeha, when both united, to say. Such ara the curious ideas which ?his man promulgates among his followers; fortunately he is sagacious enough to preach peace, his leading doctrine being that there is to be no more killing. We are curious to learn how he will ultimately deal with Hiroki, wno has broken that law, but who has neverthe less taken refuge in Parihaka. A railway laborer in Otago met with a peculiar accident the other day. His thigh bone was broken by the handle of his wheelbarrow through the wind overturning the barrow.