FIFTY YEARS AGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21164, 22 April 1932, Page 12

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Sir, —The extracts of fifty years ago, which appear daily in your paper often bring into proper perspective many of the events which happened in those days. In the later seventies and early eighties Taranaki was practically an armed camp, because of serious Maori troubles. Everv township had its volunteer corps and mounted rifles, who drilled regularly and were ready for any emergency. No pioneers faced greater anxiety than the settlers in that province, because of the open hostility of the natives under Te Whiti and some of his followers, notably that rebel leader Titokowaru, whom the people feared because of what happened during liis rebellion in 1869. The Hon. John Bryce was the Native Minister who settled the Maori difficulty on the west coast of the North Island, with the warm approval of the settlers, who applauded his efforts, and brought serenity and prosperity to one of the most fertile parts of One reference in your Monday's issue that the Maoris were beginning to feel that the power which was ruling them was jusi and merciful and consistent ,and would not be humbugged, shows that John Bryce was tha just and able man all his colleagues knew hiin to be. Then in your Tuesday's paper an incident is quoted to show that when the natives had been formed that Mr. Bryce was out of they commenced to hold their meetings again, which meant further trouble for the pakehas, but they soon that Mr. Bryce was still in command. Th.s little incident." your paper says, "showed what the settlers had narrowly escaped. In these days, when young and inexperienced writers, who experienced noti.ing of the Maori troubles themselves, give a wrong bias or twist to acta® occurrences of the past, your extracts o fifty years ago come as a wholesome tome. W. K. Howirr.