THE "NEW ZEALANDER" AND THE ESCAPED PRISONERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 282, 7 October 1864, Page 4

THE "NEW ZEALANDER" AND THE ESCAPED PRISONERS.

His Excellency's newspaper yesterday morning published the following garbled and distorted statement. The italics are our own:— Let the facts be distinctly kept in mind. Two hundred Maori prisoners are in the harbour of Auckland, consigned to the custody of the Colonial Government, and guarded, accordingly, by a force of AVaikato militia-men. They are beginning to die off vapidly, and the rigor of confinement is relaxed. Alter a time Ministers communicate to the Governor a suggestion that has been made to them by a benevolent clergyman, who is ministering among the prisoners, for tlieir removal from Auckland. The clergyman suggests that permission be obtained from Sir George Grey for their being located on his island of Kawau. Ministers transmit the suggestion, and accompany it with a request for the Governor's permission. A. more formal and definite application is required, and Ministers submit a Memorandum. The Governor's permission iitgranted, and Ministers remove the prisoners to the Kawau, on their own responsibility. The custodv of the two hundred Maori warriors is now consigned, by* the Defence Minister, to the prowess and vigilance of One Warder. "With all these arrangements and procedures, Sir GeoBGE Geey had nothing to do, except in granting his permission to the Colony's .Responsible Ministers.

The above is simply as gross and deliberate a perversion of facts as was ever hashed up .in. the office of the journal, in which it appeared. "We say perversion of facts, because we believe from the authoritative style in which the minutest details have been entered into, that the journal was supplied with the Government papers, or, at least that the proprietor was favoured with a sight of them. We simply beg leave to ask the -New Zealantler a few questions. To whom did the benevolent clergyman first make his suggestion, to Ministers or to the Governor ? We think to the latter. Was he the only person who offered such suggestion from his Excellency? As to the permission to remove

the Maoris to the Kawau "being nought for by the Ministry from tho Governor, we should rather have believed tho 7jcalander, had it stated that Sir George Grey had, through this benevolent clergyman, and others, pestered the Ministry for permission to send the Natives to his island,and that the permission was granted, not by the Governor to tho Ministry, but by tho colony's then representatives to his Excellency. As to tho statement that tho Defence Minister handed over the prisoners to the "powers and vigilance of one Wnrden," the New Zualandvr speaks trtiiy \vhen it says so, but forgets to mention that one ■warden was Sir George Grey himself. We call upon the " bencvo- " lent clorgynwn." whoever ho may be, and we suppose lie has too much character at stake to endeavour to cloak untruthfulness, to say whether the JS'etv Zralavdcr has spoken truthfully or not. Wh} r doet not that journal, having access to state secrets, publish the actual dry statement of facts, and leave the colonists to form their own conclusions ? "Why furnish them with garbled statements? Why not " tell the truth, and shame tho devil P "