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Auckland Star, Volume X, Issue 3010, 10 December 1879, Page 2

Otje correspondent has thought it worth while to put us to the expense of paying telegraph charges for au opinion of the "Wellington Chronicle" upon the Maori Prisoners' Trial Bill. We must unreservedly dissent from his estimate of the value of that opinion, More unmitigated twaddle than the "Chronicle's" grandiloquent "protest " and appeal to the Magua Charta of the natives never appeared in print. In the existing state of affairs at Parihaka and surrounding districts it would be sheer madness to set at large the able-bodied fanatics who are now safely and comfortably ensconced in gaol. The faith of the natives in Te Whiti is unbounded, aud they would not. hesitate at any act of fanaticism at his instigation. Te Whiti, under this real or assumed madness, has a marvellous amount of method, and anticipating the release ot the prisoners, has carefully prepared the way by a series of judicious prophecies. Their liberation now would, therofoie, be accepted by his ignorant followers as an \inmistakable proof of his supernatural power, aud the consequences might prove most disastrous to tho peace of the country. The circumstances are exceptional. The talk about one law alike for tho European and the Maori is pure bathos. The Maori occupies nn exceptional position, is not capable even of apprehending .European modes of thought add action, and like a child muat sometimes be protected from himself. The present is specially one of those cases, and we thoroughly endorse the. policy of retaining in custody the men already captured until perfect security lias been obtained for tho preservation of peace. If a state of thiugs like tnat prevalent in Tarnnaki were to arise in any European district the Habeas Corpus Act would in all probability be suspended and martini law proclaimed, exposing the subject to as great a personal risk of summary arrest as that which the Maoris have brought upon themselves by their own disregard of. the law.