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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3916, 2 October 1873, Page 2

The Native Minister hud the satisfaction of being enabled (o make an announcement in the House yesterday, which will, no doubt, be received by all the settlers in the colony, from one end of New Zealand to the other, with sentiments of vivid gratification. It was that the Maori King, after his many years of sullen isolation, had, at lust, come in to a European settlement. He had stayed the previous night at Alexandra, at the house of a European settler there, and was about shortly to repair to Kawhia, where a great feast is intended to be held,i[to which Euro peans will be invited, Sr;vJm r }

The time appears to be approaching when the long course of judicious forbearance exercised in regard to that section of the native ruce which has continued up to the present date to maintain an attitude of passive resistance towards us is about to meet at last with a full fruition of those happy results so long aimed at. Those who have watched the progress of native affairs for the past few years, will best understand and appreciate the significance of this stepon the part of the Maori King. We have seen, one after another, chiefs of important tribes, such as the Urewera, and the Ngatiraukawa on the eastern side of the Waikato, after main taining for a long period either active hostilities to wards the Europeans or sullen isolation from them, at last come in to European settlements, or consent to a meeting with a representative of the Colonial Government. When this has happened, we always found that the end was not for off Some coyness had perhaps still to be overcome, but with the first blush of the business all real difficulties passed away. In a few months afterwards we invariably found that the chief and his tribe had entered upon relations with the Europeans as amicable as those existing in districts long settled. The Maori is a creature of rapid and sudden impulses in that respect. Once he drops hostility, he becomes not a cold neutral, but a warm ally, and we may expect that that will be tlte result which will shortly ensue in this instance.

It is needless to dilate upon tho various aspecis in which (he occurrence presents itself as a

fitting subject for congratulation. It makes the already remote probability of a fresh native war still more remote than it was before ; it affords a prospect of our seeing an immense and fertile district, with — in all probability — vast mineral rbsources, opened up to European settlement; and the intelligence of it on reaching the Old World will at last thoroughly dissipate the prejudice against New Zealand which, to some extent, still prevails there, as a country where the expenditure of capital and labor is attended with those risks which inevitably exist in localities where the aboriginal population is turbulent and warlike.