Death of Sir Donald McLean.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 711, 6 January 1877, Page 2

Death of Sir Donald McLean.

The intelligence of the d«ath of Sir . Donald McLean will be received, with i very general feeling of regret throughout the Colony. However much some portion of the native policy of the last few years may have become distasteful to the .colonists, it cannot but be remembered, and especially by the settlers m this part of the Colony, that to his, personal .influence, to the diplomacy of Sir Donald McLean in ' native matters, we^owe the enjoyment of those years ot peace during . which colonisation has struck its roots deeply and firmly into the soil. If we can now afford to lay aside the temporising policy which has. beceme irksome to many, it is only because that pelioy has been for the last seven years the leadiug principle dii native administration. .

Sir Donald McLean has been long ailing, and, though, his disease was an insidious and a deadly one, hopes, up to the very morning of his death, had been entertained of , his temporary recovery.. A private telegram from his son, dated yesterday morning, spoke of his father as better, and that the doctors were more, hopeful. By half-past four o'clock the same afternoon he was dead. Sir Donald has died m the prime of life, iirtire ? T^^tjiLa±li--^aiu^Ji^ age, and almost, we may say, m the" harness of official life, having -only ceased to act as a Minister of: the Crown when no longer physically competent. For over thirty-two years, Sir Donald has served the polony m one capacity or another, having entered the Civil Service of New Zealand m 1844,; and though tfor some years past he has held the ; office of Native Minister^ it was as Chief Land Purchase Commissioner to the Government, that he was more. : generally known, and that lie -acquired ihe power and influence aver the native mind «which he held to -the last; Greatly as his loss "will be regretted amongst his. European fellow colonists, we are much mistaken if the receipt of the dntelili- : gence of the death of Makerana will not carry with it a far deeper feeling of lamentation and wailing m many a Maori hajpu m this island.