The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1879.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1068, 29 April 1879, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1879.

___ ; Equal and exaot justice to aU men, ■ Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or uoUtioal. Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain.

What will be the nature of the great native meeting which takes place to 'day, appears to be so, difficult a matter for solution as to have puzzled every one, native and European alike. On the oae hand it is stated that the Premier and Native Minister are invited guests, on! the other hand that they have been altogether passed over, and may come if they chose, as other Europeans are welcome, upon a general invitation. It is just possible that both parties may be right, both wrong, that Ministers have not been invited but that they may still be present as invited guests. In its issue yesterday the ' Herald ' states that there is no certainty as yet as to the ptoceedingsof Ministers, thatno invitation has been sent. The ' Herald' theu goes on to speculate on the reason why Ministers have not. been invitod, and gives to why it should < be so, the one that Tawhiao may have chosen it to be a purely native meeting to discuss matters amongst themselves, the other that unseen hostileiufl^encesin the interest of land speculators —a land ring is as necessary to the plot as the stereotyped villain to, a three volume novel— r may have been at work to prevent a settlement being brought about at present between the Government and the natives. With the 'Herald's' deductions drawn from these premisses, we need not trouble ourselves, as we believe the latter to be wrong. What may have transpired between Sir George Qrey and Tawhiao, is, perhaps, only known to themselves. At any rate, it is as little known to, the natives as to the Europeans. From what we have gathered from a native source, we learn that this is the case/that probably the more' important portion of the programme of to-day's meeting is as yet only, know,n to Te Ngakau and the King, that at the commencement of the meeting the proposed relations between the two racos will be discussed by the assembled tribes, and the terms upon which a settlement may be arrived at, and that then Ministers will recaiye a direct and special invitation ~to enter upon negotiations from which the difficulties of preliminary discussion, pn the one side, have been settled and cleared away. We do not say that this is so, but its a native view of what is intended, and, as we have said, with them, as with us, much is necessarily left to speculation. As regards the meeting itself, means have been taken by which the readers of the Waikato Times will have the fullest and most authentic intelligence of what takes place j there. I