THE FORCE OF EXAMPLE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 21, 13 April 1872, Page 11

THE FORCE OF EXAMPLE.

" Nelson Examiner," April 6. Great interest has been lately felt in a native question ; and the angry talk and threats of the settlers in the Patea and Wairoa districts, with the sharp rebuke these have met from every one outside — separated as the matter is from any ground of public fear, show exactly the little of truth and the much of misconception there was in the old libels of some bishops, missionaries, and English newspapers writing under their influence. Fear makes blind and breeds unfairness, and the outsettlers in the districts we have spoken of have had good reason for anxiety about native matters. But the country at large wants justice and peace, and does not back the cry of men whose good sense and good feeling have been obscured by the passions aud losses of war. It can sympathize with them, and has largely helped them with men during the actual

struggle, and with money after it was over. But the country has never loved war, and has always hastened to hold out the hand of friendship to its beaten foe, although it may have sometimes forgotten its debt to trusty friends. The late doings and writings on the Wairoa meeting shows this very plainly. The behaviour of the knot of men who took part in this and like meetings was flagrantly bad, and showed an ignorance of law and fairplay astonishing in Englishmen who can read and write. The case was as follows : A small handful of the Ngatiruanui tribe have been living almost since the beginning of the war in 1868 at 'Oeo, a place some miles north of Waingnogoro, the property of Hone Pihama, their highest chief. They went there at the wish of the Government to avoid the mistrust and possible wrongs to which even peaceful natives were sure to be exposed at the time and in the place of war. In going, they were promised that no right or claim of theirs in the land they left should be lessened if only they kept out of the war. This they have done, and far more ; for Hone Pihama, their chief, who up to the time of General Cameron's campaign had been among our bravest and ablest enemies, was then convinced that the strife was hopeless, and has been ever since the steadiest, most enduring, and bravest of friends. A hundred of those little insults to which, as may be easily imagined, a man in his position has been subject in and after such a war as that of Titokowaru, have not shaken his fidelity ; he has gone through work and danger to an extent which few of our own soldiers have had to bear. Hone unites in himself the best qualities of many of the best of his race, and it is owing to the true balance of his character that he has not been more widely known. His taste for civilization and love of his race qualify him for the part which William Thompson aimed at ; his courage and ability in war are not less than those of Eewi, Fox the Arawa, Kemp, or Eopata ; but his understanding is too cool to allow him to cling to wild hopes and plans, and his goodness of heart and patriotic love of his people have withheld him from the part of a mere mercenary soldier of the Government. He has been engaged on a higher work, and has served the colony and his own people alike as the wise and self-devoted missionary of peace ; running the risks and incurring the distrust to which the Pattesons, and other truly great men of that vocation, are exposed. This man with a small party, furnished with a pass from the Civil Commissioner, which ought in practice to have been as needless as it was in law, visited the land of the Jwpu to eke out poor crops by collecting karaka berries in their ancestral settlements, which had been formally reserved to them under Order in Council. Some foolish settlers turned them off their own land, and a still larger number have agreed in the same line of action, and have passed resolutions and issued notices which are in effect declarations of war on these or any other natives who shall dare to use their own property within a specified district. It is right to say that all the settlers did not agree, and among the non-contents were some of those who have known Maoris longest, and suffered most from them, and we have much pleasure in naming the wellknown Mr. W. Bayly, an original Taranaki colonist, as one of these. The people of New Plymouth, as our readers already know, have protested strongly, and the Government has not wavered in this business ; Mr. Worgan, their local agent, has addressed the war-party in clear language, and of course the natives will have protection. It is hardly needful to say, that if they had money and a little knowledge of our law, Hone Pihama and the rest would long since have had the protection of the Magistrates and the Supreme Court. The case, our readers will see, is very gross, but it is the more fit, therefore, to bring out every mitigating circumstance, and there is one of great weight. The Government have with open eyes pandered to the fears and suspicions of the Patea settlers. We have often spoken of this, but it wanted lively facts to dispel public apathy on any native matter. Mr. Fox's "policy" since taking office has always been to shut out natives from the district in question. Major Noake, acting under official orders, has more than once before refused these same natives access to their

own lands. On the one hand, Mr. Pox pays formal honour to law, by framing a cumbrous Act of Parliament to make the punishment of Maori rebels easier; and brings half a tribe at a time to trial under it. Taurua and his people have served out their sentence, and Kereopa and others are executed ; and if the law is a reality, Taurua and his fellows have as good a right to live at Patea as any European. On the other hand, whilst the Premier tacitly declines to proceed against Titokowaru, and others of the rebels or suspected rebels, he shows his love for authority by ordering his officer to drive foes, neutrals, and friendly Maoris from the one favoured district. .For this he has no more excuse of law, justice, or expediency, than he would have for sending Major Noake to turn a quiet tradesman out of his shop in Bridge-street, or a farmer from his land at Motueka. In the ordinary citizen, that indeed is flat anarchy which in a Minister is but a little pardonable arbitrariness. Can any one wonder, however, that, with such an example of cool contempt of law, faith, and fair-play in the captain, the rank and and file should fancy that threats and force are fit tools for them and their "policy." We have spoken of this tyranny as a crime of the Government, and so it is ; but we know, and are glad to know, that Mr. M'Lean has a policy quite different from that of his nominal chief. It is not, however, to be believed that he is ignorant of the outrageous doings of Mr. Fox, and he cannot wash his hands of them. He and the whole Government are morally, as well as officially responsible for this tyrannous abuse of power. It was the Native Minister's duty, if need were, to resign his office rather than suffer acts to be done as part of the native and defence policy which, if persevered in, must weaken the friendship or embitter the hatred of every native who knows of them, and tend to neutralize his own conciliatory work. He would surely have had the support of his other colleagues in a resolute opposition, and would have carried his point both in the Ministry and with the vast majority in the country. We trust public attention being now called to the matter, that whether under Mr. Fox or Mr. Fookes, we have seen the last of the Fox-Noake policy at Patea, and that the spirit of despotism, which is strong in the Premier, may find its next objects in men more able to defend themselves, and to claim the support of British law and fair-play, than our friend Hone Pihama, and his faithful party at Oeo.