MISSIONARIES AND THE NATIVE TROUBLES.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 150, 26 December 1868, Page 5

MISSIONARIES AND THE NATIVE TROUBLES.

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Mb. Editor, — In your last issue, under the head of “The Blenheim Pulpit on the Poverty Bay Massacre,” the Rev. Mr. Lee is reported to have said, “We would earnestly deprecate the wicked slanders of those that attribute much of it to Christian missionaries.

Now, Sir, will you allow me to ask the Rev gentleman if truth is slander ? That nearly all our troubles have arisen from missionary influence I think I shall be able to prove—and that not from hearsay, being myself an eye and ear-witness of what I shall state—and if I fail it will be that the cause has fallen into the hands of a bungling advocate, and to no want of truth in the case. The first step to these troubles, and a fatal one, was the translating by the missionaries, for the natives, of the bible, and other books they deemed suitable, into Maori gibberish instead of teaching; them English, which if they had done woHkT have opened to them the whole range of European literature, and by this time every Maori from 30 to 40 years of age would have learned to understand and appreciate the white man as he ought. The next step, still in the wrong direction, was the act of Governor Fitzroy—a delegate, I may call him, of the saints of the Strand—who publicly insulted the settlers of Wellington and Nelson at his levee held after the U'airau Massacre ; and, instead of punishing the murderers of his countrymen, shook hands and almost applauded the savages, who expected nothing less than condign punishment. Let me ask the Rev. gentleman how long after this Christian forbearance—this sowing of the dragon’s teeth—before the hydra-headed monster sprang into activity in the Poriruia, where some of our best and bravest bit the dust ? The sugar and blanket policy of Sir George Grey bore good fruit at the north, at Raupekapeka. Will the Rev gentleman tell us Sir George Grey is not a missionary ? Was it not the fear of the blatant roar of the canonised cockneys of Exeter Hall that stayed the retributary cudgel ? The appointment of Mr. Halswell to be judge in Wellington was the work of missionary influence ; and it is a matter of history how impartial were his decisions between the brown skins and the whites. The appointment of Mr Commissioner Spain’s court, to try the validity of claims to land, what did it disclose ?—that some missionaries laid claim to land measured, not by acres or square miles, but by degrees of latitude and longitude. I could fill your p;iper, Sir, with facts in which missionary influence has always carried it against the pakeha. By whose influence was that sensible and statesmanlike Governor, Colonel Gore Brown removed ; the senseless yell against that gentleman did not come from the settlers. Time has proved he was right. The slanders raised by the missionaries against the settlers, accusing them of every species of dishonesty and oppression, has been most ably refuted by Mr. Pox. The past experience of 30 years goes to' prove that those who pretended most to befriend the Maori have not understood, or willfully shut their eyes to the real character of the wily savage they had to deal with, who, ignorant of our feelings and intentions towards him, is no fool, and can, as said of Te Rauperaha, put his religion on and off as he does his blanket. It was a grand error to attempt to christianise the Maori before he was civilised. If you want to know how to civilise the Maori, old Jack Guard, or old Bob Fife would have said the lance’s pbint and your own right arm, with a good lump of a fist at the end of it ; that is an argument a Maori can understand without the aid of a missionary to translate.

In conclusion, I would ask the Rev. gentleman what has forty years of Christian teaching done for the natives ? Why, Sir, they are in a more fearfully demoralised state now, with all the Christian love and forbearance, than ever they were before; ergo, missionary teaching is a failure. It is time for the Government to try something stronger than the doctrine —if a man smite you on the one cheek, turn the other, yes, as Jack says, to see if he is in earnest, and then—what then ?—why, knock him over.—l am, &c., W. N.