THE KAWAKAWA MAORIS AND THE DOG TAX.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9040, 19 November 1892, Page 6

THE KAWAKAWA MAORIS AND THE DOG TAX.

1 regret I must still return to the theme that agitates usthe Maori acts of aggression, disrespect, and disobedience to the law of the land. I mentioned in a former report that a rumour was rife that further action in collecting the dog tax was contemplated. Again, a rumour was current that the Native Minister had written to the police authorities to forward to him the names and full addresses of all natives convicted, for the purpose of taking action against them for a breach of the law in endeavouring to impede its course by their advertisement ii* the local paper forbidding the natives to pay the dog tax. This, I believe, was done. The law has also taken its course, and the police constable, Mr. Haslett, has acted in the same euergetic manner, as I have already reported Constable McGilp did at Russell. Constable Haslett, at Kawakawa, having watched his opportunity, and knowing that two of the offenders of the native convicted at the Resident Magistrate's Court were well known, with horses and cattle near their houses, and no doubt about the proprietorship (one being no less a mau than the chief at Waioinio, and the other the chairman and principal mover in the matter of the native committee), with his distraint warrant ready, quietly pounced upon two of their horses. As this was in face of a notice sent to him a day or two before by the committee at Kaikohe, "that he was warned not to take any proceedings, as the law would be further investigated, and was, besides, contrary to the treaty of Waitangi," the chief and the worthy chairman of the Waioinio Committee were rather astonished, and at first there was some show of resistance, but the constable very clearly made them understand that any such attempt, or the slightest move to impede his action, would cause the arrest and imprisonment of every such offender, the horses were brought into Kawakawa, duly advertised, and sold. Both were bought by Maoris, and realised, in one case, more than the warrant, including all expenses, which came to over £4; the balance was handed back to the owner, no less than the chief Shortland. In the other case the horse was sold for less than the full amount required. So the chairman of the committee has still the pleasing reflection of another distress warrant for the balance due. The total costs were again over £4— rather a dear dog collar and tax—while the ready payment in the first instance, as the* European settlers do, would have only been 2s 6d. It is to be hoped that this prompt action on the part of the constable will bring forward at once the other offenders, and teach them that there is ouly the one law for the native and the European.—[Own Correspondent.]