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Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6474, 26 November 1881, Page 4

Whih the leading journals of Australia take to enlightening their readers about tbo doings of their neighbours they should at least be careful to ascertain the facts. There are two styles of journalism. One of them is tbo easy style, which consists in echoing the opinions expressed by other journalists. The other is the independent method of arriving at conclusions alter a study of the facts. The Native difficulty baa given tbe Editors of the Amfrnlmian and of the Sydney Mail , an opportunity of choosing between these styles, of which they have, we regret to say, availed themselves by selecting the wrong one. Both have written strongly in favour of the Government policy.

The Mail shows how little it understands the question by speaking of the murderer Hiroki, as a chief who bas

aided and abetted Te Whiti. "a prophet,’’ whose policy has always been hostile and high-handed, who erer been a “terror to all peaceably disposed citizens.” This journal means well, bat should hare more regard for the Government whose action it supports, than to venture upon the bold statement that "a short time ago the Government laid hold of a body of troublesome Natives and locked them up in Wellington.” The Australasian is better informed, for it has heard of the West Coast Settlement Act, under which this operation of laying hold and locking up, not in Wellington, waa performed. Bat it forfeits its claims to be considered really well instructed when it speaks of the Waimate Plains having been '"jumped”, by the Natives between the fiat of confiscation and the act of taking possession. The Australasian does not know that on the country between Wanganui and New Plymouth, which it sketchily includes in its definition of the Waimate Plains, there are three classes of loyal Natives—those who remained loyal throughout the rebellion, those who made timely submission, and those who rebelled. Neither

does it seem to know that the first two*

1 of these classes have lived on their lands ever since the Proclamation of coafiscation, by especial permission of the Governments of the day, and that the actual rebels were encouraged to come back, and expressly enjoined to fence and cultivate land by Sir Donald M'Leaa, Mr Parris and others. The description of the continued occupation of the first two classes, and of the return of the third, by the general use of the term “ jumping,'" is evidence of that absence of full comprehension of the subject which alone justifies sweeping comments. The Australasian is evidently alinv under the strange belief that the surveyors who were turned off in 1878 were the firs: who ever entered the confiscated country, whereas the fact Is that they were turned off because they had departed bom the method of survey which had proved successful in settling the compensation problem throughout the country lying between the Waingongoro and the Wsutotara, outside theWaimate Plains altogether. The readers of the Australasian are led to believe that the turning off. by the order of *• Te Whiti. a prophet,” was the resistance to the first act of taking possession, whereas in reality it was a protest against a departure from a proved satisfactory method of carrying out the confiscation. In justice to the Awshalanan, we give the passage from the article, which is as follows; plains, which lie between Wanganui and New Plymouth, in the Counties of Taranaki and Patea, were not taken possession of lor some time afterwards not, in fact, until 1878; and they were ‘jumped' m the meantime by the Maori es, who ordered off a party of surveyors at the instigation of Te Whiti a ‘ prophet,' who has obtained an extraordinary ascendancy over certain of bis countrymen by claiming to exercise supernatural powers.” The Australasian evidently thought itself sale in accepting the Government theory of the situation at Parihaka, or it would not have made the astonishing assertion that Ministers have the support of the Press of all shades of opinion.” Had this journal taken the trouble to ascertain that there are two sides to the question, it might have achieved a judicial attitude. Having preferred journalism made easy, it has enlightened its readers by giving them opinions for which it cannot vouch. For a leading journal the position is not dignified. We may add that with regard to New Zealand affairs it is the usual position of the Australasian.