Mr Reeves as a Landholder.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5429, 3 December 1895, Page 4

Mr Reeves as a Landholder.

' {From the Lyttelton Times.)

After taking nearly a fortnight to rnminate over the exposare of its vulgar attack upon the Hon W. P. Beeves in connection with his purely private affairs, our morning contemporary has thought fit to repeat its charges against the Minister. It professes to have "taken some trouble" to verify its former statements, and to have discovered that Mr Reeves has purchased "a large Maori estate,? which may be " added to b>and-by ;" but the verification seems to have been made, if we may be allowed the expression,, in much the same spirit as the state-ments—-with an absorbing desire to discredit the Minister. As a matter of fact, Mr Reeves has not purchased a Maori estate, large or otherwise. We know of no reason why he should not do so, provided he observes the spirit of the laws and regulations that have been framed for the protection of the Native race, but as \ it happens he has preferred to invest his money in another way. He has joined one of. his relatives, as we explained the other day, in the acquisition of the lease of a small grazing run in the Awakino district. What the purchasers paid for the lease, and what they propose to do with it, are question's which we have no right to ask • but we know that the land does not belong to the Natives, and that it cannot by any stretch of imagination be described aa a " Maori estate," unless the term iB to be applied to every tract of country that is remote from civilisation and presents unusual difficulties to the white settler. One might haye thought that our contemporary, which never wearies of extolling the enterprise of the early colonists, would have been delighted to find a leader of the people taking a- practical part in the subjection of the wilderness. But it seems that what is a virtue in a pioneer of the "right colour" is a vice in a leader of the opposite complexion. Our contemporary instead of applauding Mr Reeves's readiness to assist in the development of the resources of the country, invents a flimsy excuse to allude tothe Minister as "apolitical hypocrite and charlatan," who has " fawned and intrigued and insinuated himself into office " for the purpose of " trafficking in Maori lands." A journal that can write in this style should be brought to some sense of decency by being required to justify its assertions before a legal tribunal. . '