The Press. SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1888.

Press, Volume IX, Issue 1089, 5 May 1866, Page 2

The Press. SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1888.

TsLt, LyttettoH Timet of yesterday has the following sentence: —" We observe that .the Press clings to the idea that it v an excellent thing for the Natives to appeal to the newspapers in all cases. It is, wherever Englishmen would be right in so appealing; but where the proper appeal lies to a tribunal, the Executive Government, or Parliament, Englishmen generally do not trouble the pnblic with their complaints, and newspapers generally will not admit them. The Press wants the Maori to have more than English privileges; its notion of justice to the Maori is to pet and coddle him. Sorely there is a medium between that and a policy of war and extermination." We presume that the writers in this journal, who have not unfrequently claimed to be the especial guardians of the interests of the Middle Island as affected by the relations of the colony with the Natives, mean someth ; ng more than a mere newspaper war of words. We will assume that they have some object in writing, some policy toysapjort, and do not intend to lmsrepresjent those who differ from their views. Assuming this, we ask them to state what they mean by saying that •* newspapers generally do not admit 'complaints' into their columns where the proper appeal lies to the Executive Government or to Parliament." Such language sounds to an, Kngljth ear like the extremity of nonsense. We had thought that nine-tenths of all the writing in newspapers in the English language consisted of dissertations on * " grievance* which the Executive Gov-

eminent or Parliament were thus called on to remedy. The language of the Lyttelton Times would be balm of Gilead to the soul of Count Bismark, and would be appropriate enough in a country like France, in which a leader disagreeable to the Government is followed by a " warning," three " warnings" being followed by an arbitrary suspension of the journal altogether. In such a country financial considerations do, it is true, make editors chary of admitting '•complaints" into their columns; but within our recollection, the Lyttelton Times is the first journal in the English language which has adopted the rule as applicable to English newspapers. We quite admit that when a case has come before a legal "tribunal," the good sense of the English press generally induces it to abstain from comment during the trial, although there is no law requiring it to do so ; but it would not be difficult to cite numberless instances in which wrongdoers have been brought to trial solely by the exertions of the press, which has so loudly expressed public opinion as to render legal investigation, which would otherwise have been evaded, inevitable. If the Lyttelton Times will assure us that those Natives who are discontented with the Manawatu purchase shall have their case submitted to a Court of Law, we promise not to mention the subject again until the judgment of the Court is pronounced. But is it honest in the writer persistently to ignore the fact, that these Natives appeal to public opinion because they are excluded from the Courts of Law. Again, we ask the writer of the article in question to quote any words which have appeared in this journal since its establishment which can be interpreted to mean that we " want the Maoris to have more than English privileges," or that our " notion of justice to the Maori is to pet and coddle him." "We will assume that the writer does not mean to scatter about unequivocal falsehoods, and that he has forgotten the numerous articles in which we have protested against the " petting and codling" which has alternated with a denial of common justice in the management of the Native affairs. But we may ask the writer when and where we have asked for the Maoris more than English privileges. The public must by this time have fully appreciated what we have all along meant. The doctrine that the exclu sion of the Maori race from our Courts of Law in all matters relating to their property must mentally sap their allegiance to our rule, has received a practical and painful demonstration iv the war under which we have suffered for the last five years. That is the principal doctrine, which from the first we endeavored to force on the attention of the public, and we have persistently argued that no " petting or codling" would get rid of the evils which were springing up under a system of the most shortsighted and insane injustice. But the writer also says :— "What is true of Wellington and Manawatu is true also of the North Island generally in any land transaction with the Natives. The Native Lands Act is bringing on a period of many such transactions." Now here is raised a question which is not without difficulty we admit, but which the writer does not fairly state. It was argued with much anxiety in the G-eneral Assembly. It was said—and this is, we presume, what the Lyttelton Times means —that, incase of a dispute between two independent persons, A and B, if an appeal be made by A to the Court, and the decision is against B, B will resist the execution of the decree ; and so, on the one hand the decree of the Court will be powerless, or on the other it must be supported by force and there will be a war. We quite admit the possibility, and to a certain extent the danger, of such a result. But the answer is quite satisfactory. In all purchases of land by the Crown, the Government appears both as the purchaser of the land and as the sole jndge of the validity of the purchase ; and it is surely far less likely that the Native will resist the judgment of an independent and disinterested tribunal than the decision of the party who is most interested in the dispute. Secondly, the Natives have repeatedly asked for the decision of independent Courts of law in land disputes. Thirdly, that in the case of the Old Land Claims Mr. Bell successfully adjudicated on more than half-a-million acres 6old to old settlers, much of which was disputed by the Natives, but without a single instance of resistance to the judgment of the Court. When, then, the writer says, that the Native Lands Act is bringing on a period of many " such" transactions, it is a misstatement of fact. The Manawatu is excluded from the operation of the Native Lands Act. This purchase [is one of those by the Crown, the Crown I being purchaser and. sole judge of the purchase. It is just because it is not under the Native Lands Act.that the dispute has arisen, and the whole

burden of the complaint of the Natives is, that they have been deprived of a Court to which they can appeal. The i logic of the Lyttelton Times is this— A dispute has arisen in the Manawatu: —the Manawatu is excluded from the operation of the Act:—other purchases will take place under the Act: —there-1 fore there will be more disputes. The language held by the late Native Minister in the debate on this Bill, seems to us to convey the only sound and philosophical view of the question. He argued that it was quite true that a Native might sometimes resist the judgment ofj the Native Lands Court, but that for' one judgment resisted, a hundred would be obeyed ; that a love of and respect for the law was a matter of slow growth ; and that the hundred judgments obeyed would do far more to instil the law into the Natives, than the one resisted judgment would do to erase it. He argued that it did not follow that every decision should be enforced by an appeal to arms ; and that it might be much wiser to leave the enforcement of a judgment to the operation of time and circumstances, than to plunge the country into civil war. j As a broad distinction however, the one state of things is just, the other is unjust. Where the Natives had no Courts of law there was constant j danger. Where they have such Courts j the danger is immeasurably less, and is daily decreasing. William Thompson has had the wisdom to see that the safety of his property depends upon putting it under the shadow of the law. Others will follow his example, and the more land is included in Certificates or Crown Grants, the larger will be the party amongst the Natives who will support the authority of the Court as the fountain of their own title to their estates. Thus the influence of this Act upon the Natives will be ever widening. It is the greatest step ever made towards their final civilisation. Wisely and temperately administered—as it is being administered in the hands of Mr. Fenton and his colleagues—we do not fear that it will produce discord. Discord springs not out of law, but out of no law. And the Manawatu is, let us thank God, the last of the no-law dealings with Native lands.