THE GREATER AND LESSER PROPHETS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3230, 5 November 1881, Page 3

THE GREATER AND LESSER PROPHETS.

A correspondent to the Wanganui Chronicle says :•—lt is worthy of remark how naturally disaffection breeds disaffection and disloyalty sympathises -with, disloyalty. In Ireland we have human nature running riot to an almost inconceivable degree, and in New Zealand we have a small but lawless class who palliate if they do nob extol the worst atrocities committed at the instigation of the Land League, and who, to show the genuineness of their sympathy, start a branch of that organization here. In Victoria they have the larrikin trouble, and are powerless to suppress it because the Legislature is larrikin in spirit. In New Zealand we have the present native trouble, and the hands of the greater and lesser prophets are being strengthened by the disaffected among our race. Mr Stout, who, in his place in Parliament, while a Cabinet Minister, made it his boast that he would use his ability to shield even notorious criminals froni the just consequences of thoH" misdeeds, is now making frenzied appeala that the "poor Maoris" should not be murdered by a ruthless Government; and Mr Ballance, Mr Stout's less able and less courageous ally, would fain echo those appeals if he only dared : as it is, even the desire for self-preservation scarcely suffices to keep his unpatriotic leanings within due bounds. So much do these two politicians sympathise with all opposition to l aw — or so much do they hate a Ministry whose successful conduct of affairs is an enduring reflection upon the incapacity of the Ministry to which Mr Robert Stout and Mr John Ballance belonged—and they seem to desire nothing better than that-Tβ Whiti and his followers should continue a standing menanoe to the peace of the country. Mr Stout says the Natives have done no wrong. What would he have ? What would he consider wrong ? Evidently something even more serious than alarming the country and causing the establishment and maintenance of a large armed force, at an enormous cost to the colony. Either Te Whiti's attitude necessitated the creation of this force, or its creation is simply another blunder to be , to the long list of blunders perpetrated by that Ministry whose ouster from office they themselves have never ceased to deplore. Messrs Stout and Ballance, unlike Messrs Tβ Whiti and Tohu, may preach sedition and yet go unpunished, ac they address themselves to audiences less inflammable than those addressed by the native prophets.