THE LATE WILLIAM THOMPSON.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 4, 28 January 1867, Page 23

THE LATE WILLIAM THOMPSON.

In another column we give from a southern contemporary, an article on the lately deceased W. Thompson, a famed, aboriginal chief, who has been onemain cause'of thelate wars, present heayy and 'oppressive taxation of the Colony. We jgiye it as showing the opinion entertained

by several of our southern contemporaries, and not in any way expressing our own. We should be extremely sorry to withhold a measure of justice from him as from any other, living or dead, but when we see a drapery of romance thrown over a character as in this case, and any such rebel lauded in terms like those Used by our contemporary, it behoves us also to express our opinion.

Thompson seems to have inherited from his father all the cunning for which that crafty chief was famed,, and added to it an education received fromthe hands of the Missionaries, far in advance of anything acquired by the bulk of his people. To this .was owing the influence he, for a great portion of his’ life, exercised, and which in the hands of the missionaries, was uniformly exerted to further the designs of that party in their" endeavours to obstruct the progress of colonization. Towards the close of his career, and after he shook off that influence, the same object, obstruction of colonization, now from other motives, was ever before his mind.

That he was at any time sincere in his constantly' pretended desire for peace, there is not the slightest reason to believe; on the contrary, his unvarying practice was to demand impossible concessions as the conditions of peace, and by their well-foreseen rejection to throw the onus of continued war upon the Governor and Colony.To the very last this was his policy, replying to every overture for submission “If the Governor is desirous of peace he will give us back Waikato.” As a crafty diplomatist he occupied the foremost rank, overreachingGovernorsand Government agents, and at theyery time he was in the most activerebellion against the Government cleverly contrived to have his praises sounded in journals of a certain class, as the peace loving chief who had given in his submission through Mr. G. Graham. To the very last he continued as ever, a representative man of that portion of his race who while they are suffered to own no other law than their own good pleasure, will remain passive, but on the slightest pressure of unpalatable law, are quite prepared to resist it if -necessary by force of arms.

Thompson is also .lauded for haying shewn his people the benefit they would derive from extensively leasing their lands to the colonists, our views regarding this, as a more than questionable “ benefit.” It is a benefit that means neither more nor less than their rapid extermination. In truth the relaxation of the wise laws originally made for their protection, by a tfeak Government, in obedience 1 to the clamours of a land-greedy 'clique,."tells "fearfully already in the increase of idleness and dissipation amongst tliem, fully confirming the predictions of their best friends as to the result of the system, 'through free trade with the native for land on the one hand, and the permitted violation of the liquor law, on the other, the doom of this noble race is sealed at last.