The Lyttelton Times MONDAY, NOV. 28, 1881.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6475, 28 November 1881, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times MONDAY, NOV. 28, 1881.

We have mack pleasure in thanking Mr Bolleston m the most cordial manner for the excellent service he did the Lyttelton Times on Saturday evening. He has unwittingly, bat that is his mis* fortune—described this journal as the only one in New Zealand which possesses sufficient impartiality to alter its opinions on the receipt of good fresh evidence, and sufficient honourable candour to say so in the face of an adverse public opinion. He quoted from an article of ours of July 1879, a period he alludes to as one in which this journal wrote, as every other newspaper did, on the Native question. At that time all the information which the public possessed pointed to the conclusion that To Wbiti was dangerously in the wrong. Twelve months after that date the Boyal Commission gave its three reports to the public. These reports were at once accepted by all our leading politicians as not only completely exhaustive, but as throwing a flood of new light on the Native question of the West Coast, For our part we at once accepted the reports, as fresh evidence of most conclusive character. The other journals of the Colony continued to hold their original opinion unaffected by the new light. I We feel highly indebted to Mr Holieston for drawing attention pointedly to the fact We can well understand that so much independence of judgment should be incomprehensible to Mr Bolleston, but he should not allow his want of comprehension to betray him into absurdities. He really should not, for instance, charge us with pandering to that public ignorance for which we ourselves are largely responsible. In so doing, he should remember that just before be charged ns with knowing only as much as everybody else. How can the attempt to make everybody else change their views in accordance with newer and better information, with which we fill our columns from day to day, be pandering to ignorance for which we are responsible? Mr Eolleston makes a feeble attempt to set aside the Commission reports from their pride of place as the only authoritative complete intelligible exposition of the Native question in Taranaki. But this is a great deal too thin. Every man of any note as of experience in the Native question complimented the Commission on their report. Before the Commission reported, everyone of any pretension to knowledge declared that question to be involved in mystery. The appearance of the report was hailed as the end of the mystic period. It is more than absurd to try and filch from the well-earned reputation of the Commission. In spite of his very ill-meant attempt to do so before] an audience necessarily ignorant, we cannot forbear thanking Mr Eolieston for having taken so much pains to pot the Lyttelton Times in the place of honour, in the sight of all New Zealand, as the only journal conducted with fair impartiality, outspoken candour, and courageous spirit. In dealing with Sir George Grey, Mr

Rolleston baa performed a great feat. He quotes Sir George as quoting some person who once said that he hollered in true prophets and abhorred false ones. Bui this gentleman evidently contented himself with believing that true pro* phots and false prophets are very distinct and very different people. Mr Rolleston has found in Sir George himself both a true and a false prophet It is not a little amusing that aft«r quoting Sir G. Grey in support of the present Native policy, he should take such pains to prove that as an authority Sir G. Grey is, in his opinion, utterly unreliable. The logical freak bad not even the merit of necessity, for Mr Rolleston baa times out of mind given opinions about Sir G. Grey which effectually prevent him from ever acknowledging indebtedness to that gentleman for support or approval. ' But that is not the whole absurdity of the position. Not content with vilifying the favourable witness, Sir G. Grey, Mr Rolleston went on to exalt os able honest and most respectable, Mr Stout, the witness who is hostile. We do not care to follow tho peculiar twistings by which Mr Rolleston must have arrived at his fantastic conclusions respecting these two witnesses. We can only agree with Mr Rolleston that he has established his case, viz., that Mr Stout is reliable and that Sir G. Grey is not. For choice, we always prefer reliable witnesses. But we will not be too hard on Mr Rolleston, for muddiness of intellect is a man’s misfortune not by any means his fault. What but a more than ordinarily muddy brain would deliberately state that it would not have been wise for the Government to have gone to law with the Natives, because the Courts would have decided in favour oi the Government ? In other words, Mr Rolleston seeks to justify the abnormal method of settlement by stating- -os he did in effect to a questioner—that the legal course was most plain sailing and certain. In this diverting manner do the arguments of Mr Rolleston return back upon himself.

Quotation of opinion fairly and openly abandoned, and diverting absurdities of reasoning, will not change oar opinions, neither will the story o! the confiscation which Mr Bolleston tells, for the simple reason that he has not told it hall as exhaustively as we have told it in these columns, nor half so favourably for the Government side as we have done. Neither will the old ground that Mr Bolleston goes over, because we disposed of the same kind of thing in replying to the Premier last week. Neither will the new points, for in justice to Mr Bolleston, we must notice that he tries ns with new matter. But, in justice to the cause of truth, we cannot say that it makes any difference. The new points are two. They are letters of 186? in the Blue Books which show that in a great measure through Te Whiti a peaceful solution was then impossible; and the particulars of Mr Bolleston’s negotiations the other day with Te Whiti. The first point either means nothing, or it means thatsinoe 186? to the great day of Fanhaka, on the sth November, 1881, peace has been absolutely impossible. One of these alternatives is a new fact which is given by Mr Holies* ton to enable us to properly understand the Commissioners’ reports. If the first alternative, nothing, be the new fact, we have nothing to say. If the second be the fact, we turn to Mr Roileston’s remarks in which he tells ns that in 1869 he saw that peace was quite possible, and brought forward a motion in Parliament for a Commission to settle everything peaceably. With his usual luck, Mr Bolleston has upset his qwn argument about the impossibility of peace since 1867. Everybody, of coarse, knows that in 1868 we had Titokowaru’a war, with which Te Whiti, as those Commissioners who are so hard to understand have emphatically declared, had no connection whatever, remote or otherwise. To mention Te Whiti in close connection with that period of strife as in some way responsible for unquietness, is not a feat of logical tumbling. It is simply disingenuous.

We come to Mr Eolleston’s negotiations with Te Whiti. This is the first time an account of these has been given authoritatively to the public. Mr Bolleston is true to himself. He accuses a newspaper of keeping the public in ignorance of facts, and he himself keeps a fact which he evidently considers moat material to the issue carefully up his sleeve lor months. Did he expect the editors of newspapers to invent jiie details of his negotiations with me prophet P If Mr Bolleaton wants the public to be instructed, he ought not to keep it in ignorance himself. If he values independent public opinion he ought to allow independent journalists to bo present at his interviews with To Whiti. The foot that he went up in mystery to Farihaka, and kept the details quiet until he got to the Fapanoi platform, is proof that he does not value publicity, independent or otherwise. It does not make the matter any better that Mr Bolleaton should, like the Premier, have withheld the name of the person who ho says translated the reports to Te Whiti, and pointed out the reserves to him. Assuming, however, that the long delayed detailed statement of Mr BoUes-_ ton, which in one respect is contrary to the sworn testimony of Government officers, is an exactly correct statement of the case, it does not follow that To Whiti meant sedition. As a fact he preferred that process of law which Mr Bolleaton does not like, because it is snch plain sailing. Titokowaru’a position is, of course, not To Whiti's, as we hove pointed out, asserting, at the same time, that he has very little claim to public sympathy. But why quote what be wrote when at war P The Commission quoted what ho said when defeat had brought him to his senses; and if he must be looked up, why look him up and trump up a charge upon hie behaviour while under arrest, mid subject to the banter of the soldiery ? But we need not follow Mr Hollos ton any farther. Wo will end with the only thing in his treatment of the Native question that is consistent. He begins with the proposition that the Government has

had to deal ataorroally *jth an abnormal difficulty.. Hie whole method of justification is extremely abnormal.