PROBATION GIVEN

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 41, 18 February 1938, Page 2

PROBATION GIVEN

“Maori Fashion” Husbands COMMENTS OF THE JUDGI From Our Own Correspondent NAPIER, Feb. 16. t **l am not going to make an order ►that Maoris have to marry Chinese. If they want to they can," said Mr Justice Blair in the Supreme Court at Napier in committing two young Chinese, William Barry Wong and Stanley Wong Shing, of Whakatu, to probation for three years on charges of unlawful carnal knowledge of Maori girls with whom they had been cohabiting at the gardens where they worked. Bs*h accused had pleaded guilty, but Mr W. S. Averill, who appeared on their behalf, pleaded for leniency, saying that, in the first place, there seemed to have been no attempt to deny or hide guilt It would seem that neither the men nor the girls themselves had been aware that they were committing an indictable offence. Further, the parents of both girls had approved of the match, and it appeared that, until the mother of one of the girls had learned that they could not marry until they were sixteen, no-one had been aware that there was anything the matter with the relationship. Even that they had not realised as anything other than a bar to European marriage, and it would appear that all concerned had regarded them as already married, according to the Maori custom. On those grounds he asked for probation. His Honour said to grant such an application would appear like winking the eye at a very grave immoral position. Somebody was very blameworthy in letting the young girls go jand live at- the garden. He was not so much blaming the boys or the girls as those, who permitted the position to arise. However, as he was considering the sentence of a Maori boy, Hamana Witoko, who had pleaded guilty to a charge arising out of similar circumstances, he would have to treat them all alike.

Mr W. E. Bate had put in a very strong appeal for Witoko on the grounds that he had acted honourably, and had done nothing that was wrong from the native point of view. He particularly appealed to the judge not to let the blot of a conviction mar the young couple’s future together. His Honour replied drily that if a blot existed it was there before, the case came before him. “You know,” ne added, “some people think it worse to go to gaol than to steal.” He admitted all three accused to three years’ probation, each to pay the costs - of the prosecution in such instalments as the probation officer should think fit, a condition of the probation to be that the illegal relationships with the girls should cease until regularised by marriage. By that it was not meant that the Maori girls must marry the Chinee*. They could if they wanted to. ,