The Maori Embassy.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1692, 10 June 1885, Page 2

The Maori Embassy.

When King Tawbiau and his small suite visited England sometime back, we pointed out that their embassy and proposed memorial to the Queen about alleged Maori grievances, would have no practical result whatever. We notice by a recent cable message, “that in the House of Commons, on the 7th Inst, the memorial presented by the recent Maori Embassy was brought up for consideration. During the discussion which took place, the Hon A. Evelyn Ashley, M.P. Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Colonies, stated in the course of his speech that the memorial would receive due consideration, but that the Imperial Government were not entitled to interfere in the internal affairs of any colony to which the right of sell government had been granted.” This is exactly how the case stands. When many years ago the Colonial Government accepted “responsibility in native affairs’’ from the Imperial Government, the power of the latter to interfere was put an end to. This Maori memorial will therefore simply be referred by the Imperial Government to the Colonial Ministry, aud some correspondence on the subject will follow, after which the whole business will be shelved. The natives have really no cause of complaint against either the Colonial Government—whelher past or present—or the settlers themselves. The natives have been treated not only justly, but with a large measure of generosity, and any grievances which the Maori Embassy desired to ventilate were purely fanciful.