Mount Ida Chronicle AND St. Bathans' Weekly News. NASEBY, SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1883.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 708, 5 May 1883, Page 2

Mount Ida Chronicle AND St. Bathans' Weekly News. NASEBY, SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1883.

MR BRYCE AND MR RUSDI3N. At a banquet in which Mr Beyce was entertained by his friends and supporters in New Plymouth on the 24th ult., that gentleman used .some very strong language indeed in allusion to certain persons who had criticised;his general conduct in dealing with Native affairs. "I have been told," said the Native Ministeb, " that in a recent publication, which I have not seen, there are falsehoods told of ithe grossest kind respecting namely, in a book which bears the ostentatious title of' A History of New Zealand.' It asserts that, during the war of 1869, I was virtually a: murderer of Native women and children, arid that is not a nice thing to say about a man"—after which Mr Bbtos is reported to have called the author of the book ia question "a liar, a slanderer and a coward." There are hardly any circumstances which can justify a Minister of the Crown in using such language, for ia -whatever degree the dictates of truth, justice and good taste may be transgressed by private individuals, the quality of self-restraint is preeminently expected from persons occupying the high official position of Mr Betce. Nevertheless, it must, we think, be admitted that the strong language of Mr Betce was called forth under considerable provocation. The book which Mr Betce had not seen—" A History of New Zealand," by G-. "W. Rtjsben—is now before us, and we can quote some of the passages to which Mr Betce obviously referred. . "The literary cravers for. blood," says Mr Etjsden, who thus alludes to the New Zealand newspapers, "were soon to be gratified on the West and East Coast by events of which some were not officially reported; nor told in Mr Gudgeon's 'Reminiscences of the War.' Lieut. Betce, who was in after . years a .Native Minister, distinguished himself. Some women and young children emerged from a pah to hunt -pigs. Lieutenant Betce and Serjeant Maxwell, of the - Kia-Iwi Cavalry, dashed upon them, and cut them down gleefully and wiili case. This exploit will be looked for in vain, in Mr Gudgeon's book, which records a rash and unfortunate affair, in which subsequently (2Sth December) Sergeant Maxwell, riding up to Titokowartj's pab, was shot." Further on in his book Mr Rttsden , repeats silly story ; declares that Mr Betce is known to the ■Maoris.by the title of Jcohuru (murderer) ; has some thinly-disguised! sneers at his having originally been " a cow-boy " ; and thinks moroovor that he must

have been of the '" inferior order of cow-boy," who,' in dealing with his herd, would probably " inflict as much torture as ne can by hurling~stones at the eyes of the patient beast which unwittingly offends him."' This it the sort of stuff that is palmed off upon ,us as a history of the Colony of .New .Zealand;.!..• It is a great pity that Mr Bryge had noif'.seeh;,the-bbok before ■he unwisely- invested its author with all" these ugly epithets which we have already quoted: he would then probably have dismissed the attacks upon himself with ; the contempt that they merited. By means of such fustian as this Mr BusDEtf can h ardly hurt Mr Bhtce ; but Mr Beyce can injure himself by making use of language which may be all very well in a " history " of New Zealand after the manner of BtrsDEHT, but which is somewhat unhappy as coming from a Minister of the Crown in the same Colony. If MkcAraAY'a P History of England •could be stigmatised as a ",h,uge„whig pamphlet," it was-at least an astonishingly brilliant one; and in its'-brilliance the partiality which some profess to have discovered in it might fairly be overlooked. Mr -UirsDEir has given us for a history of the Colony a Maori pamphlet in three volumes, but he has effectually contrived to avoid the imputation of following Macattlay too closely by making his book as dull and mediocre as anything of the kind could well be. He casts mud in every direction. The Maoris are all angels, and most of our leading statesmen something akin to scoundrels. Mr Betce, as .we have seen, is a cruel cow-boy, grown to,maturity; and the Hall Ministry,, generally, were simply a band of ''plotters," engaged in "midnight.conspiracies" for the sole purpose" of provoking : 'the Maoris t© a fi rebellion, which would offer an excuse ifo'r. further,,outrages;upon them. Even our humane.and poverty-fighting Ma joe is dubbed with the title of " the ruthless ATErsrsoisr." To a New Zealand colonist,all this sort of thing ought to be amusing-.; but Mr Ktjsden, with his dry, stilted, fragmentary style, has contrived to throw a pa of dulness over it all. He has manufactured history mainly by boiling-down iEansard, and in., the process he has contrived to skim off all that is interesting as well as nearly all that is truthful. n

We have the best reason for believing that Mr Etjsden, in getting up the materials for "the later portions of his history, drew a great deal of his inspii ration from Sir Aethue Gordon,' and that fact is enough to account for the absurd and extravagant bias which he displays in dealing with Maori matters, especially with the'recent "West Coast disturbances. The book is a mere travesty upon history; and, although it may for a while give a weapon to the hand of Mr Bryce's enemies, can have no ; effect whatever upon the mind of any honest or impartial man, who has even a meagre knowledge of ,the facts as they occurred here. Mr Bryce's conduct in regard to the disturbances on the West Coast has, in the main, the almost unanimous approval of the Colony, including that of Mr Sheehan,: who occupied the post of Native jjjlinister before him, and Sir G-eoeqe Xjeey himself, who in his place in Parliament declared of Mr Beyce that ."his hands are unstained with blood ; he has committed no act of 'cruelty; it cannot be said he has done _ anything which has cast a slur on the' name of this Colony, while he has brought the difficulty to a peaceful solution." "With such testimony, and with the universal approval of those best acquainted with the facts, Mr Bryce- need care little-for malicious attacks made upon him under the guise of history or in any other form. And, , though he may feel aggrieved at the slanders of Mr Etjsdek, he has reason to be grateful to that gentleman for writing his book in such a way that the slanders in question are by no means likely to 'be extensively read.