The Daily Telegraph. TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1889.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5525, 14 May 1889, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1889.

Now that Haira te Pero has been hanged and is buried, and of the justice of whose sentence we are perfectly satit-fied, it would be as we'd to enquire into tho truth of tinthree several statements which he has made concerning tho crime for which he has . uifered the penalty. In tho frrst place we would ask why tho two last statements, or confessions, that he made were kept secret ? Not until it w_.s too l»te to act upon them did so mnch of them leak out which, if previously known, would have led to public agitation in tho prisoner's favor. These statements wo lu-ard nothing of till late on Sunday We are told that they wt-ro forwarded to the Government. That was, of course, the proper thing to do with them, hut we hold that they were not intended by the prisoner to be private communications between hiinwelf and the Crown. At all events, had they been made public, they would have had more effect towards the attainment, or rather, perhaps, tho satisfaction of justice, than they appear to have had by keeping them secret. ( Now, With regard to tho statements themselves. At his trial at Gisborne tho prisoner admitted his guilt, and stated that no ono was implicated in the murder but himself. That statement was quite sufficient to relieve the jury and the Judgo of any feeling that they might have entertained as to tho righteousness of the verdict and of the sentence. After Haira te Pero was brought down to Napior ho made another statement to the minister of religion attending him, and this was to the effect that it was his brother who was the really guilty party. Subbequently ho made a written statement in the presence of two licensed interpreters, and which occupied soveral sheets of foolscap. This statement, we understand, not only gave the details of the robbery and murder, but made tho mo_t astonishing disclosures concerning the modo of defence that was to be set up at tho trial, and which, indeed, was cairied out. The substance of tho document was to the effect that, not knowing tho object of the journey, H.ira accompanied his brother to Pook's store ; that they both went into the store, aud the brother knocked Pook on tho head with the back of an axe ; Pook fell on Haira, which accounted for ihe blood on hie (•boulters; that Mrs. Pook, hearing the disturbance, came iv from another room, and was treated in tho same way. The murder was then completed with the sharp edge of the axe, aud tho till was robbed. Pook's child was suspected of witnessing the proceedings, aud tho brother, in spite of Haira'a remonßtranteß, knocked the little

boy on the head with an axe. Then, according to Haira's statement, the two brothers separated, the elder one going to his home, and, together with his father and mother, held a council. It was resolved amongst themselves that Haira, being innocent, should allow himself to be arrested, and that the brother, with the proceeds of the robbery, should engage the services of a lawyer who would be sure to get Haira off provided that Haira did not say a word in Court. Haira then goeß on to say that all this was done, but when he found that he was brought in guilty he made a statement to his lawyer which in substance was much the same as we have given above. On Friday night last Captain Preece, R.M., and Mr. Kelly, the interpreter to the Court, by the invitation of Haira, visited the condemned man in his cell, and received another statement from him, which is kept quite secret, but which was at once forwarded to the Minister for Justice. We understand, however, it did not materially differ from what Haira had previously stated. Further than this, nothing more is at present, made public. But surely justice demanded that such j statements should have beenstrictly enquired into f There could have been no hurry to havo carried out tho extreme penalty of tho law, and we aro forced to the supposition that if the statements reached the Minister of Justice in time that they were either not read, or, if read and considered, were not thought to be of any importance. The whole niisohief has been caused through the stupid idea that everything, howeyor remotely connected with officialdom, must be kept a profound aeoret We have no hesitation in saying that if wo had published a week ago what we have been enabled to do to-day, there would have been such a memorial to the Government that would neither have been pigeon-holed nor neglected. The obvious course would have been to have arrested Haira's brother and his father and mother, to have kept them strictly apart, and separately to havo confronted them -with tho prisoner._ And, although as we havo said, Haira has, in our opinion, been justly executed, it might so have happened that the brother would havo been put on his ' trial. As it is now, Haira's statements go for nothing; they were not the depositions of a dying man, and therefore cannot be brought forward us evidence The brother, although " wanted " by the police on some charge or another, is still at large ; he bears a bad character, and has served two sentences of imprisonment, and this bears out the idea, gathered from what Haira has left on record, that probably it is not one, but two, who should have been held responsible for the tragedy at Pook's store.