The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3536, 7 November 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1882.

On the second reading of the Amnesty Bill in the Legislative Council the Hon. Dr. Grace said he welcomed the measure, and he took the opportunity of stating his opinion that, of the two races in this colony, the Maori people behaved in the nobler and more chivalric manner. He was convinced our civilisation had done the natives infinite harm, and we owed them a reparation that he feared neither we nor our descendants would be able to make. " It is impossible," he continued, " to over-estimate the consideration which they showed for us in the day of their strength, and it is most difficult to make the necessary provision to compensate them for the injury which our civilisation has entailed." Dr. Grace is certainly the best exponent the colony has in its Legislature of that maudlin sentiment which can recognise nothing good in civilisation in comparison with a state of society in which " might is right." To the honorable gentleman's mind there may be something much more pleasing in dining off your neighbor's body than in eating a beef eteak, or in fattening slaves instead of sheep for killing, but modern public opinion more nearly coincides with what fell from the Hon. Colonel Brett in his reply to Dr. Grace. Colonel Brett said—" I rise with my blood boiling with indignation at my country being so grossly insulted and humiliated. I give an unqualified contradiction to the assertions that the honorable gentleman has made in comparing what I call savages and cannibals to our own noble race. I feel deeply wounded that such language should be indorsed by several members of this House who condemn their own countrymen in order to praise a race who bave shown tneraselyes to be savages, who have treated our wounded as only savages do, and who have murdered our wives and our children in this country in the most cruel and unmanly way." The Hon. J. N. Wilson found fault with the Bill because there might be included in the amnesty murderers and others whose crimes were not of a political character. He said:—" Many of these Maoris who are now at large are absolute murderers, and ought to be brought to justice if they come within reach of the law. I hope the Council will omit this clause, and confine the Proclamation strictly to the matters referred to in the preamble. It is possible, as the Bill now stands, for the Government, under one Proclamation, to absolutely pardon the whole of those insurgent Natives who have been guilty of most cruel murders. Of course we shall be told that no Government could do that; but I am not so sure of that. I know that some of these murders were of a most brutal kind. Take for instance those committed by Te Kooti. No one could, of course, find fault with him for escaping from the Chatham Islands—any man would do that if ne could ; but his cruel massacre of women and children after bis arrival at Poverty Bay ought never to be pardoned. But, beyond that, his greatest cruelties were committed upon people of his own race. He would go to a pa of thirty or forty Native?, and if they refused to join him they were

butchered in cold blood. And should these crimes be pardoned ? My own opinion is that every individual case should be treated on its merits. To issue one general pardon is a step in the wrong direction. Insurrection is one thing and murder is another, and lapse of time ought not to make the least difference. If there was time I certainly should take steps to propose an amendment in the direction I have indicated." The Hon Mr Whitaker, in reply, said the Proclamation would not be issued hurriedly. He would not say that no exceptions would be made, but his impression was that no exception would be made. The Bill was read a second and third time and passed.