THE TUHUA TRAGEDY.

Evening Post, Volume XX, Issue 266, 13 November 1880, Page 2

THE TUHUA TRAGEDY.

We scarcely feel disposed to treat the muxder of the unfortunate man Moffatt by the natives at Tuhua in quite such a free-

and-easy manner as our morning contemporary see 3 fit to adopt. It sums up the affair and it 3 prospective consequences in the following pleasantly off-hand sentencea : — "Mr. Moffatt was an intruder on Maori territory, bent upon some object of hia own, either search for gold, or to spy ont the weakness of the land, and the savages with whom he had to deal finding words of warning of no avail, shot him. Perhaps they will be brought to speedy justice, perhaps not, the probabilities are in favor of the latter eventuality, but whatever may ensue there ia no reason to dread any repetition of the outrage, unless the untutored savage is again provoked." It is very good of those untutored savages not to murder Europeans in cold blood "unless provoked," but we really cannot concede it as an axiom not to be disputed, that supposing a European — even if he be a PakehaMaori of doubtful character — may have disregarded a native order not to visit a particular district, he should therefore be shot with impunity. It will be a very agreeable precedent, truly, to be established, just as we are beginning to settle the Waimate Plains and survey Parihaka, that any Englishman may be "potted" like a partridge if he dare to venture somewhere he has been forbidden by some native to go. If such an idea were to be tolerated for a moment, what would be the situation of any persona settling on such thrice-forbidden ground aa the Waimate Plains or the Parihaka Block ? It is all very well to say that the shooting of Moffatt has "no political significance " and "need not create any disquieting effect." That may be true enough so far as it goes, but it will very soon cease to be true if this monstrous outrage ia permitted to go unpunished. It is imperative, therefore, that an immediate and vigorous effort should be made to bring- to speedy justice the perpetrator of this atrocioua murder.