The Waikato Times. THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1879.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1090, 19 June 1879, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1879.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. Hero shall the Press the People's right maintain, (Jnawed by influenoo and uribribed by gain.

The ' Herald,' a morning paper j published m Daneclin, a copy of which has been forwarded to us by post, either hard up for a subject for a leading article or a peg on which to hang a scurrilous attack upon tho Defence Minister, works itself into a state of virtuous indignation at what it terms the review of a Volunteer Company by Rewi at Te Awamutu. Colonel Whitmore is a soldier, and conld not have been guilty of allowing s"ch a thing to occur ; Sir George Grey too has been a soldier and must, the 'Dunedin Herald' feels assured, possess sufficient soldierly spirit not to have directly authoristd so flagrant a breach of military discipline. It feels sure that " the work must be that of Mr Sheehan, who is just the sort of mau to drag the honor of the country m the mire to aid what he calls his negotiations with Rewi," and having got the Native Ministers' head into chancery, the ' Herald' goes on to administer the heavy punishment which was apparently the real object of noticiDg the matter at all. Now, as a matter of right, the ' Banedin Herald, 1 or any other journal is perfectly justified m writing as it pleases on the public acts of public men, but native affairs and especially at tho present moment are far too serioas a matter to bo allowed to become the arena of party contest 1 That Nero fiddled was held to be no crime; but that he fiddled while Rome was burning formed the gravamen of the offence. The fime is not opportune for attacking Ministers on their native policy. Ie will come m due course, and then our Dancdin contemporary may with all propriecy abuse the Native Minister to his hearts content, and speak of Rewi m whatever terras ha likes. To allude to the latter" as a savage, and to the Native Minister as involving the colony m disgrace m his dealings with Rewi is neither wise true nor decent. Unfortunately, however, for the position taken up by the ' Dunedin Herald' Rewi did not review a "Volunteer Cor ps at Te Awam ntu. An English company was " not called out to be reviewed by a semi-hostile Maori." The facts of the case simply were, that the Te Avarautu Troop were going through, their half-yearly weeks' drill, at the time that' the Native Minister and Rewi were together. If we refer to our issue of the 23rd of May we shall find that on the day m question, the 120 th of that month, the troop was inspected by th<) Defence Minister. Rewi and jlajor Kemp, a native also, were present as spectators, scores of natives as well as Europeans were looking on indeed at the inspection, for it can scarcely be called a review. It is quite true that Rswi at the invitation of Mr Sheehan addressed a few words to the troop, which tho latter very properly, with no fear " of dragging the honor of the nation through the mire," with more grace than our Southern contemporary would have done, and certainly with a hotter estimation of Rewi and what was due to him, responded to with three cheers for that chief. Our Dunedin contemporary for purposes of his own has made a mountain oat of a molehill, but we cannot too strongly condemn the practice of Middle Island politicians, safe m their isolation from Maori disturbances, making political capital out of a stato of things which they not only do not understan r ',but which they are too selfish or too obtuse to see are matters of life or death to their less securely situated fellow 'colonists. That, we think, to use the words of this very Southern paper is "conduct which must be condemned as indecent and outrageous."