Untitled

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3216, 20 October 1881, Page 2

Me J. Bkyce bas rejoined the Ministry, and has once more the charge of native affairs. In calliog him again to their councils Ministers acknowledge that they blundered when they refused to listen to bis advice ; and, necessarily, his return to office signifies the adoption of the policy he previously urged upon his colleagues. If we mistake not Mr JBryce's character he would have insisted upon this as a sine qua non of rejoining the Cabinet, and the proclamation that was issued the same-day that he accepted the portfolio shows that a vigorous course is to be pursued with Te Whiti aid his followers. The presence of Mr Bryce in tbe Cabinet will very greatly strengthen tbe Miniatry, and will undoubtedly largely influence the coming elections. Mr Bryce's hatred of humbug, his thoroughness of purpose, and his desire to sweep away the incubus of a native difficulty, made him the most popular member of the Government. His retirement was the worst day's work to which Mr Hall's Cabinet can look back, aDd caused that feeling of want of confidence which was so strongly manifested throughout the whole of last session. Mr Bryce declared a definite policy that greatly recommended itself to the country on the fall of the Grey Ministry, and the course that he followed during his tenure of office, the reforms that he institutpd in the department for native affairs, gave an assurance that the Augean Stable was at last to be cleansed. Tor the future there was to be no mystery, neither jobbery nor corruption in the relations between the Government and the Maoris, but an earnest effort was to be made to bring the natives to a sense of their responsibilities as citizens of this country. When, however, Mr Bryce was stopped from putting his policy in its entirety into operation, and in consequence retired from the Cabinet, there was a feeling of disappointment from one end of the colony to the other, and this feeling deepened into want of confidence in the Government as the unsettled state of native affairs on the West Coast developed itself gradually into open defiance of law and order. Mr Bryce's return to office will restore public confidence, and lead immediately to an alteration in the unsatisfactory position that has been held by the Government with regard to the Parihaka natives.