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Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11201, 23 February 1891, Page 2

The friends of Mr Eobert Bruce do not intend to allow him to retire into private life—even for the term of the present Parliament— without giving public expression to their high appreciation of the noble example he has Bet, and the public services he has rendered, as a legislator of New Zealand. At Marton the idea has been very warmly taken up, and at a preliminary meeting of persons in sympathy with the project, at which Mb Worship the Mayor of the Borough (Dr Skerman) presided, it was decided to entertain Mr Bruce at a public banquet. To this end a further meeting, for the purpose of making the necessary arrangements, will be held on Saturday afternoon next. Many wh*b differ from Mr Bruce on political questions are hearty in their support of the project, which will doubtless be a great success. According to the Advocate, •' it is intended to invite a number of the most prominent politicians, i and some high-class speaking may be expected." Generous recognition of honourable and disinterested public service is as creditable to those who display it as it is to the recipients of the honour conferred. It says a great deal for Mr Bruce that his services during apomparatively brief Parliamentary career should have won for him such recognition as is now proposed. And it says just as much for the people of Marton that the thought of such recognition should have sprung up spontaneously in their hearts, and that they should at once have taken the necessary steps to give it effect. We venture to believe that the banquet to Mr Bxuco

■vjpu bevan [ujiparalleled? success— that , fa|fiu|j|inll£J)<f p|i'a tovjbhe^te^niember ■ .fj>isltejgitij£|| sjfh a^sas^'riever|b.efore^ i been tendered, invEhe'i'Our^of to 1 any politician who has never held a portfolio or been the leader of a partyllvv;,.^..

Wahanui, the great Waikato chief, does not think much of Mr W. L. Rees, M.H.R., or of the tatter's proposals for the settlement of Maori lands. Wahanui writes to the editor of the New Zealand Herald (Auckland), and says :— " O friend, satyr tation. It is my wish that you should publish in -your paper my word regarding what I have seen of what Mr Rees has said in, your paper 1 of the past: wejaki namely, as follows : He said that he had come from the East Coast to Waikato, and had seen me' and my people, and that' myself and my people had agreed to all > the proposals he made to us, in accordance with that he Had written in the paper. ' " Wahanui vehemently denies," says the Herald, " that he ever gave Mr Rees to understand that he would co-operate with him in any scheme for dealing with the lands of the King Country, and he 1 points to what has taken place in regard ■ to the lands of Poverty Bay and other | parts of the East, Coast, as sufficient reason why he could not agree to any proposal made'by Mr Rees/'