TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3210, 12 October 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1881.

The visit of Ministers to Opunake gave rise to many speculations as to its purpose, and some time ago the Wellington Post hazarded tbe opinion that it had something to do with the vacant portfolio. Tbe Patea Mail has recently given currency to a report which, if true, gives considerable color to this view of the assembling of Ministers in the immediate neighbourhood of tbe native difficulty. Says the Mail:—"We have reason to believe that Mr Bryce has been invited to join the Ministry, on the understanding that his native policy would be carried out. The offer was made in a form which Mr Bryce did not consider acceptable : he declined. Oar information, which comes from a reliable source, and is supported by other evidence, is to the effect that Mr Bryce was not directly offered the position of Native Minister, which was to be retained by Mr Rollestoo, but he was expected to take another position in the Ministry, and give hi 9 help in settling the native difficulty on tbe lines of his previous plan. Mr Bryce is understood to have declined on these grounds. When he proposed to enter Parihaka, he had a strong force on the ppot, and he knew the Maoris at Parihaka were much fewer and were iv less war-like temper than tbey are now." There appears to be probability in the idea that Ministers should seek to strengthen their ranks by the return of Mr Bryce. His strength of will, honesty of purpose, and influence in the House, are undoubted, and that his native policy, so far as it was known, was generally approved by the country is equally clear. His return to the Native Office at the present moment, when the influence of Sir Arthur Gordon is removed for a time, would give the country some sense of certainty that native matters would be dealt with in a firm and satisfactory manner, and that tbe large suras which are at present being spent in the neighborhood of Opunake would not be spent in vain. We can thoroughly sympathise with Mr Bryce's objections to return to office under tbe changed aspect of native matters, but that does not lesson our regret that be can not see his way to take office at a time so favt.rab'e to the carrying out of a definite and vigorous policy. It may be that the near approach of the elections, and the doubt which continues to hang over the existeoce of the present Ministry, may have had some influence in the decision at which he has arrived