THE Bay of Plenty Times AND THAMES VALLEY WARDEN.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXI, Issue 3268, 22 May 1895, Page 2

THE Bay of Plenty Times AND THAMES VALLEY WARDEN.

TheSpiritofthe Timet shall ieach me spbid — KiigJouß,ietiT Wednesday, Mav 22, 1895. The Colony has been put to a very considerable expense during the last two or three years in the Bay of Plenty owing to the defiant attitude of a small part of the Native population which is seeking to obstruct the opening and settlement of the country. Within the past few weeks a force of some forty armed men has been despatched from Auckland and kept in the field for several days to overawe by a show of force the turbulent j spirits among the Urewera. The cost of this expedition must have run into hundreds of pounds and what was achieved by it ? Practically nothing. This week a similar occurrence is taking plaoe about forty miles from j the scene of the recent obstructive disturbance of the peace and similar tactics are being pursued and wili pro* bably have a similar result. These affairs cost the Maoris absolutely nothing, indeed they are rather better off in consequence as the presence of the armed force enables them to dispose profitably of some of their live stock and produce- The Government, however, which really means the European inhabitants of the Colony, are ' the losers, absolutely and irredeeml ably. Now this is distinctly a wrong state of affairs, that the law breakers should go scot free and the law abid- . ing citizens should as it were pay the f fine. The fact that the former are Maoris and the latter Europeans seems to indicate that there yet survives a trace of the old * flour and sugar ' policy and of the Exeter Hall spirit of sympathy with alleged unsophisticated,/ and illused aborigines. In this as in other matters we think it is time & sterner policy were adopted in dealing with Native affairs and that the differ> ences in the rights, privileges and treatment of the two races in the Colony were swept away. The cohf stant repetition of the current method of treating such matters as the nresent obstruction is most demoralising to the Native mind amounting as it does to a puerile repetition of the threajt '. if you do it again we'll punish youj' Such a number of big barks to an occasional very small bite are more likely to intensify the trouble of dealing with such disaffected Natives afc the Urewera and we should counse| in future that things be made muclr" more unpleasant for the disturbers of Her Majesty's peace, by means of arrests, fines and imprisonments in exaotly the same way as they would . be meted out to Europeans guilty of , similar threats and offences. — ■ U