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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1276, 10 May 1880, Page 2

Te Whiti, the Maori Prophet, has scored a trick against the Government, For months past two large bodies of men, numbering, in all about a thousand, have been engaged constructing a road to Parihaka, starting from two different points. From the commencement of the work Te Whiti has openly declared thai the sections would never meet —in other words, that the road would not be completed. The Government have been particularly desirous of getting the work completed in order to show the natiyes that Te Whiti is not a true prophet, and to test the extent of his influence over his followers. The road has been foriqed for several miles, at a cost of about LCOO

a day, extending over some months ; and now comes the intelligence that this work, the completion of which it is estimated would cost something over a million and a quarter of money, has been abandoned, because it has been ascertained that, while the ends of each section start from nowhere, the other ends terminate in an impassable swamp. Of this road we have heard a great deal of late, and from time to time we have been informed of the amount of work already done, and the great results that must flow from its completion. It was started with the avowed intention of for ever settling the "native difficulty." It is true that it has been asserted that . the road was a very good thing for poor down-trodden Taranaki, whose interests it is the special mission of the hon. and gallant Major Atkinson to protect; that it would cause the free circulation of coin of the realm in the second Arcadia, the land of the Atkinsons, the Richmonds, and the Hursthouses. Whether this is so or not we will not pause to inquire. That it has been the means of providing lucrative employment for Mr. Decimus Atkinson (a brother of the Colonial Treasurer, and one of the noble band of political larrikins who attempted the demolition of the triumphal arch erected ,in honor of Sir George Grey on the occasion of his visit to New Plymouth) we are aware. It has also been the means of finding employment for other friends and relatives of members of the Ministry, including a Mr. Hursthouse, another of the heroes of the triumphal arch business. It has, in fact, effected many things about [ which the Ministry and their trumpeters have said nothing ; but it has not accomplished an iota of the good that it was so freely asserted it would accomplish. It has not had the slightest bearing upon the native question, at any rate in the desired direction ; if it has done anything that will operate in future upon the native question, it has taken the very opposite direction to that claimed for it at the time of its inception. The roads have not met, and Te Whiti's '' prophecy" has been fully verified, Therefore, instead of testing the extent of Te Whiti's influence over the natives by showing that he is no prophet, it bears witness in the most indisputable manner that Te Whiti was right and the Government wrong. The verification of Te Whiti's " prophecy " will tend to strengthen his " mana"' 'with the natives. Thousands of pounds have been expended without any good results having begn obtained, through the blundering of some idiot or idiots in the Government employ. The peaceful settlement of the native difficulty and' occupation of the block are as far off as ever. A new route j for the road has been decided upon, and so '' the settlement of the native difficulty" has to be commenced ffe novo. How much longer is this political tampering with the questions at issue between the Government and the natives to be permitted ? and how much of the Colonial estate will remain when it is over ?