Te Wananga. Published every Saturday. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1878.

Wananga, Volume 5, Issue 46, 16 November 1878, Page 571

Te Wananga. Published every Saturday. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1878.

We do not know how sufficiently to admire the scare effected by a section of the Europeans because the Government did not propose to reverse Sir Donald McLean's policy, and to take away the right of the Maoris to vote at elections in the districts in which their property is situate while increasing the existing right of the Europeans. The Electoral Bill carried through the House of Representatives, which conferred for the first time the right to vote upon every European born in the colony or resident therein for two years, and which also, in spite of the determined opposition of Mr. Ormond, Mr. Sutton, Captain Russell, Captain Morris, and a few others, protected and made clearer the existing rights of the Maoris, is not to become law because of the action of the Legislative Council. We hope, therefore, the scare we so sincerely admire will now cease, for such sights pall a little with undue continuance. The Legislative Council is composed of men nominated by the Government of the day for their wisdom, freedom from party strife, or amount of property; sometimes, indeed, nominated for still less worthy motives. The first duty of such a body is to control legislation hastily entered into by the House of Representatives by reason of the temporarily inflamed passion of the people. In New Zealand such hasty action was expected often to take the form of restriction of Native rights. Such a quarrel as that between Hiroki and the European cook at Waimate might be used, as it was lately

by Dr. Pollen, to inflame such passion in the mind of the European, and to prove that the Maori is unfit to enjoy equal rights with the Europeans, as if Europeans had no gaols full to the overflow with men of their own colour guilty of crimes as bad/as that for which Hiroki is hunted and shot at. Undue passions are expected to show themselves in the House of Representatives, and the framers of our Constitution invented a nominated Upper House as a curb. Strange as it may seem, the elected House has not in its actions proved the expectation true. During the last session, in spite of the scare at Napier and the Bav of Islands, a majority of twelve representatives supported the Narive Minister in resisting all attempts to prejudice the European against the Maori. Stranger still, the Legislative Council, which was created principally as the guardian of aboriginal rights, and which should therefore have been jealous for the honour of the Sovereign which was at stake when aboriginal rights were threatened, was the body which attempted to deprive the Maori of his equal privileges, as a British subject, secured first by the Treaty of Waitangi, and more recently by consent of Commons, Peers, and Queen of England, embodied in the Constitution Act. The majority in the Council worked hand-in-hand with the minority in the House. We fear the desire to thwart the Government of Sir George Grey influenced the Council and blinded its eyes to the breach of trust it was guilty of. The fearless denouncer of wrongful transactions winked at by former Governments —if not actually facilitated by Orders in Council—must be crushed at all costs. The Council, carried its hatred of Sir George Grey, while not daring to reject the JBill because it was liberal to the European, determined on a more cunning course. It was agreed that the power of the majority should be used to deprive the Maori of his right to vote, while all other things in the Bill, however much they might be hated, should be agreed to. By this means it was hoped that Sir George Grey and Mr. Sheehan might in their desire - to carry into law a liberal Electoral Bill for Europeans commit an act of injustice against the Maoris, and so lose the influence they at present have among the chiefs. The promoters of this trap had not calculated that Sir George Grey and his Native Minister cared more to preserve the existing rights of the Maoris than to buy the support of certain sections among the Europeans. In not remembering this, in thinking the Government as evil towards the Maoris as they themselves were, they incurred failure, and have earned contempt. Much as Sir George Grey valued the hardly-won universal vote for the European he would not have it if the price were to be the disfranchisement of the Maori. The Bill was therefore dropped, and the old law is still the law. The European has not received an extended.franchise, while the Maori possesses that which he has long had, and Tyhich he has never abused.

t- ?SW$f s 2Np-- ***ey has Jn his action again ex 1 - the Natives. now when possessed "OP**"'"li™" onto' '"■•Vil.i Cj '* i "V"^ * v • ftftb. " « ■ '» *^ ■S^fe^Rlwß^JJ^^fiSwfe; 1 aridP Advance the Maori, be false cttiefs'Have^shown in his Gomates hitis the'uibre 1 anxious td prove to their'"pebblehis determination to be jiKfc,am4 v in all his dealings with them. In_t£ji3 we are glad to notice that he is aiigported 'by sll*the'members elected by the Natives, by tne"m'ajbrity of the members elected byjthe Europeans, arid by a few honorable memhers3n. the Legislative Council. It is only the selfeh and those wlus have injured"-the Maori by taKng'Native lands that have anything to fear from the Maori vote. "•'.'■