Te Waka Maori. NAPIER, SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1879. THE LATE ELECTION.

Waka Maori, Volume I, Issue 33, 19 July 1879, Page 448

Te Waka Maori. NAPIER, SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1879. THE LATE ELECTION.

The election of a member for the Eastern Maori. Electoral District has resulted in the return of Henare Tomoana by a large majority. The total number of votes recorded was, as far as we have been able to ascertain, 1723, and the number polled by each candidate was as follows : Henare Tomoana ... 659 Henare Matua ... 583 Hans Tapsell ... 429 Henare te Pukuatua ... 59

The result of this election shows most clearly the estimation in which the present Ministry and the Repudiation party are held by the Native population of the Eastern District. Notwithstanding the fact that Henare Matua was brought forward by the Repudiation leaders as the Government candidate, and every possible influence used to secure his return —the whole complex machinery of Repudiationism having been put in motion for that purpose—he (and they) have nevertheless sustained a signal defeat' The Eastern District has always been regarded as the hot-bed of Repudiation; the scene of the long-continued efforts of the Repudiation leaders to induce the Natives to believe that they were being victimised by " land sharks and robbers," and that they, as Repudiation leaders, were solely actuated by a desire to rescue the Native people from such vampires—that they had no selfish purposes to serve, none whatever. Their love for the Maories was so great that they were prepared to make superhuman exertions to save them. One gentleman, with characteristic generosity, was prepared to advance the Maories large sums of money to enable them to carry on actions for the recovery of lands of which they had been swindled; others of the party were prepared to expend, with self-sacrific-ing economy, the funds thus provided—consistent, of course, with a proper regard to the efficient carrying out of the saving measures to be introduced. Surely in consideration of all this kindness and brotherly love so freely bestowed upon them, the Repudiation leaders and the Government had a right to expect that the Natives would respond to their call by triumphantly returning their chosen man, Henare Matua. us, however, take a serious view of the subject and represent matters in their true light. We have said that, notwithsl anding the fact of Henare Matua being the G-overnment candidate, he has been defeated. We should have said that because he was the Government candidate he was defeated. If he bad not been the protege of Grey, Sheehan, and the Repudiation party, he would have- stood a much better chance of success. The chief cause of Henare Tomoana's success was a pledge g'ven by him to the Natives of Pakowhai, Pawhakairo, Wairoa, and other places, that he would vote, on all occasions, against the present Ministry; that pledge, in fact, they demanded from him before they promised him their support." The Natives regard (and justly so) some of the members and advisers of the present Ministry as the authors and supporters of the Repudiation movement by which they have recently suffered so

heavily. They have been called upon by the Repudiation party and its lawyers to find money, .for some time past, to carry on actions in the Supreme Court for the ostensible purpose of getting back their lands.. The Natives were foolish enough to believe in this, and have continued to supply the Repudiation party and its lawyers. with funds as long as their money lasted and when it was all spent they then in some cases, actually mortgaged -theif- lands to satisfy the rapacious demands of that party. But this kind of thing could not continue for ever ; and " at last" the Natives awoke to - the fact that, to say the least of it, they had been fooled by the people who had constituted themselves their protectors and advisers; their money all gone: no lands returned—and when the Repudiation party and its lawyers found that they could get no more money out of them they left them to chew the bitter cud of reflection for allowing themselves to be the dupes of a designing party. Who can wonder, therefore, at the result of the late election ?