POLITICAL

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 28, 26 March 1881, Page 294

POLITICAL

NOTES AND NOTIONS,

The Pariliaka lands won't sell and the Patea Mail recommends Government to lower the price to five and ten shillings per aero. Has it come to this ? We have still ringing in our oars the brilliant results promised to the Treasury from the sale of this land. It has boon opened up by railways, roads, and bridges. At least seven hundred thousand pounds have been expended upon it. It is true some seventy thousand pounds has been recovered by sales, but of tills sum one-fourth goes to the Taranalci Breakwater. The people on the West Coast have not done badly. They have turned Te Whiti and his two or three thousand followers to excellent account. They have secured a large expenditure and opened up their country, while other parts of the North Island are being starved. Meanwhile Hiroki remains untouched within musket shot of the camp, and the Law is still unvindicatecl in his person. The settlers in the district have repeatedly declared themselves quite able to subdue the natives at any moment if necessary, and their loud advocates, Major Atkinson and Colonel Trimble have endorsed the statement Is it not time that this costly farce was ended ?

Speaking' of the West Coast we hear that very large land purchases are being made from the natives at a very low price, and that the purchasers are the same gentlemen who were loudest in denouncing- the rubbishing character of all lands when the late Government was negotiating for them. One of the strongest supporters of the present ministry has acquired a very fine block of forty thousand acres at two shillings and threepence per acre. No doubt we shall hear a good deal more about this, and about other purchases in due course.

. We fear, however, that it -will be very difficult to fix the responsibility in dealing- with land, or any other Native" affairs while the present muddle between Fox and Rolleston is allowed to last. Retaku is the nominal chief, but Sir William is the real one, as Commissioner. The Government that made him dare not, so soon at all events, quarrel with him. No man in the Colony is more distrusted by the natives than Sir William Fox. They know him well and have had full experience of him in the past. Yet he sits on Rolleston's shoulders and, if the truth were known, must be as galling to him as the old man was to Sinbad. Ministers cannot shake him off. They must make the best of him, and we are told that the difficulties created by his appointment had more to do with Bryce's resignation than is generally known. It was retributive justice in Bryce's case and few will sympathise in his fall, but it is hard on Rolleston, who is no believer in Fox but has to bear the brunt.

By the bye looking over Hansard, we find that Fox, Fulton Kelly, three of the most pronounced Government supporters, were amongst the strongest in expressing their hope that Government would not remove the proclamation from Patetere until the House had an opportunity of considering the whole question next session. Fox was particularly strong on this point, and Hall was so touched by his speech that he promised the Government would not act without giving due weight to the opinions of gentlemen "Avhose opinions they valued and who had generally acted Avith them." This occurred only on the last day of the session, yet Patetere is already gone and all Fox's horses and all Fox's men will not be able to pull Patetere back again. How will they take the disappointment and the course •which the ministers have so promptly adopted ?

The position of the Industrial School in Howe-street is very serious and raises large questions that cannot be put off longer. Last session a bill was brought in by ministers to provide for these and similar charitable institutions. They were to be governed locally and and the local bodies were to have great privilege of taxing property to pay for them. To this proposal there was strong opposition. It was argued that if the area of taxation were made too small the question of "settlement" would necessarily rise. It Mould be the interest of localities without hospitals and charitable institutions to cast the burden on others and great trouble and confusion would ensue with a population so shifting as that of a new Colony. The system of leaving everything to a relieving officer with limited means at his command answered for a short time, but it was admitted on all sides that the time for such a one has gone by. He is responsible to no one and his leading idea must be to spend as little as possible. It was also felt that the question is intimately connected with the larger one of local Government and conlcl only be settled with it. Therefore when Atkinson'scrudescheme fov Local Government was withdrawn, the Charitable Aids Bill was dropped with it. But the subject is one of the weightiest and must be dealt with quickly for there are many other institutions besides that in Auckland urgently requiring aid.

We see Messrs. Seed and Batkin have not yet exhausted the Colony. They have just left Gisborne where there cannot be half-a-dozen Government officers one would suppose altogether. Their researches at other places must have been valuable— at the Bay of Islands for example. The ability of these gentlemen must be extraordinary. They have investigated telegraphs, railways, and other departments of which they might not have been expected to know much. What covkl they learn which might not have been learned by reports from the various offices in the usual way? Again too, we must ask how do the valuable offices they themselves hold get on so long without them ?

The County Councils, Road Boards, and Corporations of the Thames peninsula, have been holding; a Convention at Coromandel. They complain that the Government is keeping them .short of money and declare that they must have more next year. I trust they may get it, but their case is a poor one when put in comparison with that of the settlers in the North and in many other parts of the province. Still the Goldliefds deserve credit for moving in time. If other public bodies were equally energetic they might hold a convention strong enough to stir up their members and to stir up the Government. Both these things are very desirable in the face of the cessation of ihe subsidies on which they have all so largely depended.