THE GOVERNOR’S ADDRESS AT THE NATIVE MEETING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 206, 30 August 1860, Page 3

THE GOVERNOR’S ADDRESS AT THE NATIVE MEETIN G

A leading fault in the Address is want of explicitness/ ■ iiot wtthateß _ii laid on the importance, of establishing a thorough understanding between the races. The remarks; upon the Maori King, which form the substantial matter of the , address, and the folly of the Maories allowing themselves to be seduced into the commission of any, act* which would render them liable to forfeit the rights and priveleges of British subjects, .are; to, the purpose, and may yet check gome in their career of /mischief and ruin;. Vut why was? this declaration with held until a section .jot -the maories had committed themselves to overt acts of• rebellion, and stained their hands in innocent blood ? That the government are not free from responsibility iox long regarding the Ring;move*, ment mid ,league against ~the r further sale of land as a harmless device of the moment,; is virtually admitted rin the address, the whole moveineßjL,being 1 : '4wgnate&as • *an , ‘‘ act of disobedience/ and; tn Her Majesty’s authority lyhich be tolerated.” .S<sarce* ly a speaker, however, uttered, a; syllable on tWe subject,/ tand< m,the made to .affairs,in t Yajanakn the ;Governor is; sounn their league hte been extending Jts ramifi.cations

t* K ughoj|f tfij£]£ri?ajer jwfion of fin’s ~isl7m /!•] led to - thOitnassSore of the friendly chief] Tyawiri ' W.uHua «ad- his followers in the year) 1854, and to the blood-shedding betweeii tribes and families which ensued for nearly five years, to be renewed on the next offer of land to the government:. Time after tiiaie? we urged the punishment of the murderers* and the claims of*th® natives to be -protected, in-the exercise rights, bat Jtt vain To Governor Brown the credit is doe of having Been the first Governor of New Zealand to afford at all risks to arainority menaced by a numerous and influential league the protection they are entitled to as British subjects. The maories are congratulated on their civilisation, and exchange of bad for good habitsi But what says Mr. Fenton’s book published by the government last year ? It is benevolent to try and think well of a people on whom Missionaries for half a century, and ourselves for nearly half that *period, have laboured with such results as we see around ua. If war has been, as His Excellency observes, more rare with the maorfei, it Was never so unscrupulonsly waged ; and regarding the- statement that prisoners taken in arms are not slain, we need dot go beyond Taranaki/ though instances are hot wanting, to prove that the natives of to-day have all the savagery of their ancestors. When the Taranaki rebels were counselled to war like Christians, the query was,-—How doChristians fight ? With men, sparing the women and children, was the reply. Whereupon Hoanr. the preacher of Tataraimaka, rose and said they should fight likeinaories, and kill men, women, and children—and the sick. It is incomprehensible how tha Governor could have made such a- statement with the murderers of unoffending men and little boj's fresh in his, mind, the opinion of the great Waikato meeting that they were mere “ incidents of war, a r nd fresher still the fate of our wounded men at ihtketakanere / and . considering that the task of asserting Her Majesty’s authority over the rebels will chiefly devolve upon strangers to the country, it is due to them that the foe they have to contend with should be truly described. Whatever may- have been the practice in times when prisoners taken in battle were reserved for slavery and other uses, the maori has do such interest now-a-days in the lives of those in; his power, and sacrifices them without a scruple, as we have seen even in their own internecine feuds.— Taranaki Herald.