The Argus of the 28th March, 1894, comments thus on the Premier's trip:—

"The Maoris are to have no abiding city in their native land. This may be unavoidable, but still the divorce of the New-Zealander from his territory will be regretted by sentimentalists in general, and by the many friends of the race in particular. The fiat has gone forth, because the Premier of the colony claims to be a philosophical Radical, and because the philosophical Radical is strictly utilitarian when it comes to business. Mr. Seddon has been through the so-called King-country, and he sees no reason whatever for adhering to the arrangements made when the soldier was in the field, and Sir George Grey was Governor, that 'the Maori should have his piece '—a very small slice, and that 'the pakeha should have his piece '—a very large slice. The Maori idea was that the white man should not buy land in the King-country, and that the tribes should remain there on their tribal domains for ever. But this is not to be. Mr. Seddon's proposal is that the Maoris should be informed that there is no difference between their part of the country, the romantic and volcanic district between the Waikato and Taranaki, and any other part; and that the Government will in future take possession of any tract in the King-country it wishes to sell to the white man, paying the Maori for the area in interminable debentures. This power of 'resuming' lands needed by the State is, of course, well known in all countries, and yet it is self-apparent that there is a difference between deposing the Maori from his final acres, and the taking the bits of land for public purposes. New Zealand will not seek to deal harshly with the Maori; and it so happens that the tribes have a champion in England in the person of Sir George Grey to state their case if injury is proposed. Moreover, as time goes on, the Native race will doubtless have to go; but assuredly there was a tacit understanding when the fighting was on that if the King tribes laid down their arms and acquiesced in the boundaries as arrranged for them they would be left on their holdings; and as a matter of sentiment it might be well for the Wellington legislators to wait until Rewi and the last of the chiefs who fought, and fought gallantly, for this right of the Maoris to hold Maori land have disappeared from a scene which they are now fast leaving."