RAROTONGAN OFFENCES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 179, 30 July 1932, Page 8

RAROTONGAN OFFENCES.

PROTEST AGAINST PUNISHMENT. (To the Editor.) This week you report a tragic incident of two Rarotongan natives having been brought up by the Monowai to serve terms of seven and 15 years' imprisonment respectively in a New Zealand gaol for an offence which, "so far as the oldest residents can remember, had never occurred on the island" before. If this be true, then it is positively evident that these free and easy-going sons of tropical Polynesia could not possibly have realised the leal meaning of their offence, yet they are caused to arrive here in the height of one of the severest winters known in the history of this Dominion, to serve imprisonment in the bltak surroundings of a gaol unknown to them, in a foreign country. This is more than bad enough, but when you jocosely refer to this tragedy as something which some passenger said was welcome to the Polynesian Islanders, because former victims of this vici--1o us system had left "the precincts of His Majesty's prisons so pleased with the conditions and treatment received that they resolved to tell- their acquaintance* what a fine place gaol was and gave advice how to gain admission," and head the article with the caption, "They like gaol," are you not rubbing it in ? "If such were true, are you not creating an incentive for every Rarotongan to becom& a criminal? You refer to a send-off given these poor unfortunates by their compatriots .on their leaving Earotonga, but an even greater send-off was given the late Tamasese by his Samoan people on his departure from his tropical native home to be incarcerated in a New Zealand gaol, and a royal welcome was extended to him on his return to Samoa. Has New Zealand any reason to gloat over that or say that Prince Tamasese liked His Majesty's gaols? Does this sort of business promote any respect for the King of England in his so-called Polynesian subjects? 0. F. NELSON.