THE Otago Daily Times. DUNEDIN, THURSDAY, SEPT. 8.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 2680, 8 September 1870, Page 2

THE Otago Daily Times. DUNEDIN, THURSDAY, SEPT. 8.

Native questions have not been so plentifal during the present session of the Assembly as in former years. It is not surprising, therefore, that a debate should have taken place when the Estimates for the Native Department came up for discussion. The first item seized upon was that for General Contingencies, 'Food, Medical Comforts,' &c, under which £5000 is placed in the hands of the Native Minister, to do what he likes with, so long as the money is spent or appears to be spent on the Natives. Most people have a general idea of the way in which votes of this sort go. It is to support what we are accustomed to call the £ flour and sugar policy,' that sums of this sort are asked for. The manner in which it is disposed of is not to be discovered from the public accounts of the colony. It is known only to the Native Minister himself, a very few officials, and, perhaps, the members of the Audit Committee of the House of Representatives. Not even a Reynolds has yet had the temerity to ask for an account ot what becomes of these ' ten talents well expended.' The vote in its present shape appeared on the Estimates for last year as a result of the accession of Messrs Fox andM'LEAN to power, We search, the records of the previous financial year in vain for any precedent for ifc, or for any expenditure sanctioned or unsanctioned that leads the way to such a vote as this being asked for. Mr Richmond was satisfied with a little in excess of the amount which is permanently provided for the purpose on the Civil List. But the sum of £7000 was not enough for Mr M'Lean. He asked last \ear for LSOOO more, and according to the accounts which Mr Vogel laid on the table when he made his financial statement, he has carefully absorbed the whole vote to the utmost farthing. It would not, then, have been surprising if a sharp party fight had come off last week when a similar item for the current year came before Committee of Supply — always supposing that there are any parties left in the moribund Assembly to make fight. As it was, there was a little sparring; a party fight being apparently a thing to which the House is no longer equal. Of course it ended in nothing but ' the item passed as printed.' But it elicited a great variety of opinion, both on the general subject of * flour and sugar,' and on the manner in which Mr M'Lean and the officers of the Native Department are dealing with particular circumstances as they arise, and with this particular department of the public expenditure. This discussion was chiefly carried on by North Island members. It has been a scanding complaint against the representatives of this island that they would interfere with Native affairs, although they understood nothing about them. All the wars and all the blunders of the past fifteen years have been laid on the shoulders

of the South Island members. It

is refreshing therefore to find ;that this question is not, as so often alleged, one on which the North takes one side, and the South the other. The representatives of 'North Island constituencies who spoke on the subject were about equally divided in opinion, and their differences were of an irreconcileable character. Each side appealed to experience, and each side was particularly anxious to 'impress upon the representatives of the Southern Island that the statements of fact made by its opponents were ' calculated to mislead.' Mr Gillies led the assault, moving an amendment for the reduction of the vote to £2000. This gentleman is at the head of affairs in the Province of Auckland, and if any one has fair opportunities of judging what the effects of the Government policy, backed up by a vote of this surt for ' general contingencies,' are, surely it is he. The result of his observations is a conviction that we are not educating out of barbarism the natives upon whom we lavish those thousands which are now so scarce with us, but keeping them ' steeped in savagery.' To the Native Office, its diplomacy, its meddling, and its doles, he attributes all our troubles—the wars we have endured, the bloodshed we have mourned, the waste of our treasure, the debts under which we labour. The view taken by Mr Gillies was upheld by others, some of whom spoke in terms of ill-disguised contempt, not merely of the system but of the officers who administer it. It was not the ' food, medical comforts,' &c, alone or especially that they attacked, but the whole department. No one and no thing in connection with it came in for a good word from one side of the House, except the Native Minister himself. It was not against him especially or the Government that the attack was directed. The Native Office, the Native Commissioners, the system of dealing with the Natives which has been in vogue under successive Governments, were the real objects against which the amendment was directed, and against which those who supported it directed their arguments and invective. The whole thing is very instructive. It was not a few cavillers criticising a Government policy, or the ideas of an individual Minister. It was an uprising'of men who live where they can see the effects of it, against a system wlrich is as old as British Government in New Zealand. For our part, we are heartily glad to find that men of experience on the spot are ready to recommend that this Native Office and all its abominations should be done away with. "We had been disposed to fear that it had become an inevitable evil, not now to be done away with, except by the gradual extinction of the race itself.