Bryce v. Rnsden.

Evening Star, Issue 6895, 6 May 1886, Page 2

Bryce v. Rnsden.

To Mr Rusden is due the credit of certain literary touches which enliven and also heighten the libel. As Mr Bryce was on his father’s farm when he was a lad, and cattle were grazed on the farm, he is alluded to in the volumes as an ex-cowboy, and the pleasant remark is made that there arc cruel cowboys who “ hurl stones at the eyes of the patient beast that offends them.” But the materials for the Bryce portrait came from the reverend Bishop and the respected Governor. The defendant put in a letter from the Governor to himself, stating: “I enclose a note of Bryce’s antecedents, which will interest you, and on which you can rely.; my informant was Bishop Hadfield.” This “ note,” which has become historic, reads as follows :

On December 1, 1868, the pah of Turagaika was being besieged. A number of women and children—young children—came out of it and began to gather food. No men at all were with them. A party of mounted men, headed by Bryce and Maxwell, rode among them and cut them down. Dr Featherstone expressed his horror to the Bishop in the strongest terms. Major Kemp, who was fighting on our side, was greatly disgusted, and said he would not have joined us had he supposed we were capable of doing such things; hence his strong antipathy to Bryce. The pah was taken the following day, and Maxwell was killed, which the Bishop supposes to have been the cause why the matter was never gone into. Bryce’s name among the Maoris is “ the murderer."

This letter was written by the then Governor about his then Native Minister, whose policy Sir Arthur Gordon was bitterly opposing. His Excellency took it out of his Minister for Native Affairs that way. The credulity of Mr Rusden was great. He referred to the newspapers, and to the official reports of the encounter, and to the local histories of the war, and he could find no trace of this alleged exploit of Messrs Bryce and Maxwell; and he mentions the circumstance in his history to show how widespread is the conspiracy of silence, and how necessary it was that a Rusden should come to judgment, and should expose the nameless atrocities of his fellow-countrymen ! So it is in other instances, “ Not a word of this story,” says the gullible writer, “will be found in the despatches.” He alone is the discoverer. But Mr Rusden’s credulity, or rather his one-eyed partisanship, by no means exculpates Bishop Hadfield and Sir Arthur Gordon, And, as the proceedings show, these gentlemen share in the reproach addressed to the defendant by learned counsel, that after hearing the true story he neglected to do “what was the duty of every honorable gentleman when he found that he had made a mistake and injured thereby a fellow man, viz., to come forward and express his regret, and withdraw publicly the objectionable matter.” The trio adhered to their aspersions to the last. The world has a very good illustration here of the character of the men who take delight in defaming colonists in the alleged interests of piety. Rusden, Hadfield, and Gordon are now typical names. It so happens that the Australian colonists have been severely dealt with by Sir Arthur Gordon. The famous “ Western Pacific report,” with its reflections upon the impropriety of trusting Australians with power in the South Seas, played its part in the loss of New Guinea, It is as well that the bias of the author should be made known to the world. The law courts have dealt with Mr Rusden ; Bishop Hadfield is protected by his years and his cloth. There remains Sir Arthur. Gordon, who has been called upon for an explanation. His political influence is powerful—consequent upon his relationship to the Peelite Premier, who was Mr Gladstone s chief—but with it all, his career as a colonial Governor must be in considerable jeopardy.— ‘ Argus,”