The Waipawa Mail TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1883. NATIVE COMMITTEES.

Waipawa Mail, Volume 5, Issue 606, 4 December 1883, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1883. NATIVE COMMITTEES.

Mr John Bryce, otherwise Dictator Bryce, otherwise Honest John, resembles most dictators by being chiefly consistent in a firm belief in himself. Consistency as most persons conceive of it—as a strict and conscientious adherence to principle—- ' to be a virtue which the mind of the Native Minister has been unable to grasp. A good instance of this is afforded by a contemplation of his conduct in reference to the Native Committees Act of last session. In 1881 Mr Tomoana introduced a measure called “ The Native Committees Empowering Bill.” It proposed to provide for and to regulate the election of native committees, and to give to these bodies large powers. Among other powers, the Bill proposed to give to native committees the right of trying civil cases which did not involve more than £2O as a disputed sum or claim, and also of trying certain minor criminal or quasi-criminal cases, and of imposing fines. The decisions of the committees were to be enforced by warrants signed by Justices of the Peace, who were empowered to act in that behalf, and the warrants were to be executed by the bailiffs of the Resident Magistrates* Courts. The Bill had to be dropped in 1881, but was re-introduced by Mr Tomoana in I 1882. The G-overnment then strongly ] opposed the measure. Mr Rolleston I and Mr Bryce spoke strongly against ] it, particularly Mr Bryce, who was | very pronounced in his utterances. ] Mr Rolleston, and we believe he spoke 1 rightly and conscientiously, albeit he 1 has not yet been styled “ Honest,’* asd has the great native medicine man hisl colleague, said the Bill would bel “ very mischievous” in its effects. I We think he was correct. The Bill, I if it had become law, would have | weaned the natives from a reliance I upon European customs and Courts, I and would tend to a social and political ] separation of the two races which no I well-wisher to either would like to I see. Mr Bryce at that time appeared to agree with Mr Rolleston, and was

even stronger in his condemnation of Mr Tomoana’s Bill. Mr Bryce said, according to Hansard : —“ This Bill runs counter, I may say, to everything I have professed with regard to native affairs ever since I took an interest in them. I am quite aware of the truth of what has been urged, that there are many laws which have a different application to Maoris and to Europeans ; but I for one have always professed that I would keep steadily before my mind’s eye the idea of assimilating the treatment of the Maoris to the treatment of Europeans, and I have always aimed at giving effect to that.” Now nothing could have been plainer than that statement. It definitely opposed the idea of legalising native committees, and urged the importance of assimilating the two races. Now if Honest John had adhered to that we think he would have been right. But he did not so adhere. His opposition, it is allowable to think, especially in view of what has transpired since, appears to have been directed against the Bill of Mr Tomoana because the latter was setting up as native doctor in opposition to the only true and original medicine man, the only dictatorial

genius capable of dealing with Maori matters. Be that as it may, Mr Bryce’s opposition killed the Bill of Mr Tomoana, which was choked to death on a motion that the House go into committee on the Bill. Now comes the climax! Mr Bryce, who so strongly opposed the idea of legalising native committees in 1882, steps forward in his heroic manner in 1883, and proposes and carries through the House a Bill quite as mischievous as Mr Tomoana’s, in the same direction, and partly a copy of it. Mr Bryce’s measure is called the Native Committee’s Act. It provides for proclaiming districts in which the Act shall be operative, and for the election of native committees. A Resident Magistrate or Government Agent is to be the Returning Officer, and the constituency is to consist of all persons resident in the district who are entitled to vote for a native member of the House of Representatives. The twelve persons receiving the greater number of nominations are to constitute the committee for the district. No committee is to be deemed insufficiently constituted if fewer than twelve members are elected; but when, from any cause, the members are reduced to fewer than six, the committee is thereby dissolved, and a new election is to be held. The Act contains a few provisions for the conduct of business, but, by section 9, “ The committee from time to time may frame, alter, or amend rules for the conduct of its business; but no such rules, alterations, or amendments shall come into operation before being gazetted in the Kahiti.” The 11th section constitutes the committee a Court of Arbitration where the cause of dispute is between natives, and has arisen in the district, and the matter does not exceed £2O in value. “ But before proceeding to such arbitration, the native parties thereto shall agree, by memorandum in the Maori language, signed by them, or, if they or either of them cannot write, attested by the chairman of the committee in the presence of two adult natives, that the case shall be determined by the committee, and that they will submit to the award of the committee as if it were a judgment of the Resident Magistrates* Court.** The award is to be binding on the Earties in the same manner as if it ad been a judgment given in a Resident Magistrate’s Court. If resisted, it is to be forwarded to the Resident Magistrate of the district. It is then to be filed in the Court, “ and thereupon such award shall operate as if it had been a confession of judgment made by the party against whom the award is made, for the whole amount specified therein.” It will thus be seen that the chief difference between Mr Bryce’s Act and the Bill designed by Mr Tomoana is this: Mr Tomoana’s measure did not specify that native litigants should sign an agreement binding them to submit to the judgment of the native committee before appealing to it, and Mr Bryce’s does. But both measures —the one which Mr Bryce opposed, and the one which Mr Bryce afterwards carried through the House—were mischievous in that they tended to wean the natives from applying to European Courts. That tendency, which Honest John could hardly find language condemnatory enough for in 1882, was put into law by him in 1883 ? The people of New Zealand will yet come to see that the great medicine man is a political quack.