JOHN BRYCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 19, 23 January 1929, Page 6

JOHN BRYCE.

Probably at one period of the colon*"* history there was no public man's name so prominent in it than the late Hon. John Bryce. Native Minister at the time of the Parihaka raid, when Tc Whiti and Tohu were arrested and sent away for nearly two years to the South Island. The flight of time even among the older generation has so much obscured the history of the past that at this week's meeting of the Hospital Board, when i letter of appreciation was read concerning the treatment of a patient named Bryce at the Auckland Hospital, who proved to be the sixth son of John Bryce, someone asked if John Bryce had not been Native Minister at one time, and the replies were so uncertain and vague that it was clearly seen that the stirring days of 1881 were not fixed very clearly in the minds of members. Four great native Ministers succeeded one another in quick succession just before and after the year mentioned. Sir Donald McLean, who resumed friendly relations with the Maori king in 1870, was perhaps the greatest Native Minister New Zealand ever knew. Then the Hon. John Sheehan, Native Minister during Sir George Grey's term as Prime Minister, was one of the most active administrators who ever held the oflice. It was during Grey's term that 180 Maoris were arrested and imprisoned for ploughing and causing disturbances against the white settlers on the Waimute Plains near Hawcra. Then when Grey was defeated Sir John Hall's Ministry was formed and John Bryce became Native Minister, and it was left to hiin with the full confidence of the settlers to bring a large force to Parihaka to show white man's power. He was known as ''Honest John Bryce" and was without doubt a great Native Minister. He was followed later by the Hon. John Ballance, who inaugurated the* "one man policeman policy" on the West Coast after the Parihaka Prophet's return. He completed a group of Native Ministers whose operations arc written large in the development of this country. Bryce, whatever his faults, was a man of wonderful courage who never took the slightest personal advantage of the many chances he had with others in those days of long ago to become the possessor of property, and to the end of his life he remained a comparatively poor man. His visit to England, where he staked his all to clear his name of stigmas broadcast by the writings of Rusden, the historian, who charged him "with killing Maori women and children when he was a trooper in Wauganui long before he entered Parliament, was watched with close interest in the young colony, and when he arrived back he felt satisfied that he had not only cleared his own name but also had given a true version of how the settlers as a whole invariably treated the Maori people. One of the greatest things he ever did, which at the time was not endorsed by the great bulk of the settlers in the North Island, was to shake hands with the rebel Te Kooti and grant him a free pardon. Many of Bryce's friends would not shake hands with him for months afterwards. On the East Coast, especially where the people had suffered most, when Te Kooti wanted to go back to view as a free man the scenes of his former days, Bryce came in for strong censure, but as the years rolled by it was seen to be a far-sighted action on the part of the Native Minister. The gift of vision which was said to be his in his treatment of the Maori people brought about, despite what prejudiced and selfcentred people have said to the contrary and very, often with much unfairness, the peace and prosperity of the Taranaki Province, although it was John Ballance who also had the vision to weld a lasting peace between the two races based upon the work which John Sheehan and John Bryce had previously done. It is a greater chapter* in New Zealand history than is realised to-day, but a come when unbiased writers of the future -will tell the story as it should be told. —W.K.H.