THE TREACHERY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4306, 9 February 1882, Page 3

THE TREACHERY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

The followiir ; instructive -cominuqioatisn has been public ?d in tho Wanganui Herald. We commend it, to the Careful attention of our readers i — . Tho position which you, have taken, up on the Panhaka question is not a little om> barrassing. to Government adherents like myself. I write th ; s letter as the representative of a very largo number of men who are bound to tbe present Government by all sorts of < ties, and y it are . diametrically opposed to them on the Native question. Frankly, we do not burst to see Messrs Bailance, Stout, and Macandrew in power. Squally frankly, we meau to scejueliee done to Te Whiti at the expense (\f it must be so) of our own friends. If you are in earnest about the matter, and keep agitating about tho wrongs done . the peaceful Parihaka. natives, you will seoure our. support; given a little grudgingly, but given from honourable [ motives, with no selfish aim. What does it all mean ? . I have soon Parihaka, the only clean well-ordered pah that ever cnisted, invuded by an army o£ seventeen hundred men, ransack i, partly destroyed! and almost empti I of population. Why? Had I the renmrces of a newspaper officeI could unfold u tale of Government halting and vacillation. , But in this Ultima. Thule I can get neithf r gazette, nor Aolb, nor files of papers, nor even a copy of the Wost Coast Oommission report?. My firm belief is that Te Whiti stayed at Parihaka with his friends simply becsuso no definite offer was ever made him by duly autliorised persons. He believed to the last that eny yielding on bis part would mean tho wholesale annexation of his land. To boo how well-grounded his fears were, let me instance, the fato ol Wiremu Kjngi and To Motu. The Government wore under such solemn obligations to those chiefs that their blocks (known as the Opunake and Stoney River blocks) are> actually coloured pink in* tho famous "Land Tenure " map of 1877: This pink colour means (as per margin of map) that the lands in question were " held by Natives under cer tificato of title, memorial of ownership, or Crown grant." Yet, no sooner have the Taranaki Mounted Rifles -thoie Uhlans of Now Zealand — rifled the puhi and removed tho guns, than the Executive announced their intention of appropriating 5000 acres of eaoh block. The thing is so monstrous that it will absolutely ruin the present Government. , Ihey have never attempted any rational defence of their action, and whole hosts of their supporters will applaud any opposition that insists on recalling Sir Dillon 801l and settinghim to work to compile a West Coast Commission Report for 1882.