MR SHEEHAN ON THE PARIHAKA BUSINESS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3246, 25 November 1881, Page 3

MR SHEEHAN ON THE PARIHAKA BUSINESS.

(Auckland Herald.)

Most emphatic testimony to the absolute necessity of the recent proceedings at Parihaka was givm last night by Mr Sheehan in addressing the Thames volunteers on their return from Taranaki. "We hope that what he has said will be well weighed all over the country by [those hysterical people who, rather than see Farihaka broken up by Te "Whiti being taken charge of, and his deluded followers packed off to their homes, would have had a war, a massacre of settlers, and a shooting of mo3t of the natives. To that we certainly were coming, had not the Government resolved to deal with the matter at all risks. Mr Sheehan is better qualified than any other person m the country to form an opinion upon the West Coast difficulty, and how it was to be got rid of, and from the fact that he is in opposition, and that the men who have directed the operations are his political opponents, it cannot be expected that he should have any eagerness to sound their praises. It is evidence of Mr Sheehan's perfect honesty and frankness, that he does not attempt to carp, or sneer, or find petty faults, because it might be difficult to discover law for this or for that. Instead of showing such pettiness he cordially expresses his opinion that what has been done is the best for the country, and above all, the best for the natives themselves. Mr Sheehan is qualified and ontitled to speak, because ho was face to face with the problem during the whole time he was in office. He knows how obstinate was the knot of West Coast affairs, lie himself having had a try to disentangle it. He knows how great a danger there was in that quarter for the colony, ho knows how impossible it was to solve the difficulty in any other way than has been taken.