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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 605, 21 January 1879, Page 2

We trust that among other matters to be disclosed this evening, Captain Morris will give his hearers as much information as may be in him to give, relative to what he believes are the intentions of Ministers in dealing with the ''Native Question." Because, to use the words of a contemporary, if there has been one point in the policy of the present Government on which , its • members have tried to claim a special meed of praise, it has been its Native policy ; and if there has been one portion of the said policy more worthy of censure than another that portion has been the one allotted to Mi*. Sheehan to administer. What a miserable failure has all his glowing prognostications ended in ; his "peaceful relations" were baptised by an agrarian murder ; his " renewal of friendly intercourse" with the King has ended in Tawhaio refusing to give him another audience, or to allow him within his gates \ and finally, his boasted method of gaining Native support has been exposed, and now appears in its true light of unblushing bribery. Take his new allies in Wanganui as an example, and what do we see? How was Major Kemp converted into a partisan and advocate of the present Native Minister, and by what means has Mete Kingi been suddenly extricated from his oblivion, and made to play first fiddle during Kemp's absence on a trumpet-blowing tour in the Waikato 1 The action of the Government in ordering the sitting of the Native Lands Court to be held at Putiki, in Mete Kingi's runanga house is on a par with Mr Macandrew's historical gaol proclamation, and just about as defensible. Mr Sheehan has no mana with the leading Natives, whom he has to pass by as quietly as he can in order to secure the services of such noted mercenaries as Kemp and Mete Kingi, men who would put up their whole race and sell them to the highest bidder were they allowed the chance. The policy of any Government should be the equitable I division and individualisation of the Native estate in order that the proper owners might have the pakelia's privilege of dealing with his own property. But such is not Mr Sheehan's policy ; on the contrary, he seeks to possess the government of the Native estate in a manner which no private person dare attempt. Any Native who makes a • claim on land can get an' advance from the Government to secure his consent to its sale to the State. The Native Lands Court should be as much above suspicion as to its freedonrTOQm Government control as is the Supreme Court of the Colony ; therefore the attempt to hold one of its sittings in the private house of a subsidised Government supporter is viewed with natural alarm by those who, have not yet learned to look upon Mr. Sheehan and his dealings with unmixed satisfaction. Perhaps this evening Captain Morris will give us the information many people so anxiausly desire re-Native Land, and Land Court matters.