PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1880. EXPLODED PROPHECY.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 522, 20 May 1880, Page 2

PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1880. EXPLODED PROPHECY.

The murder is out! The Parihaka prophet explains himself. He has discovered that revelations about roadmaking arc not divine. When he told his followers that the roads would never meet, ho (lid not : moan that there would be an invisible army of Maori angels hovering over the Plains to confound the road-makers, nor did he mean that violence would bo offered by himself and trusty warriors : springing from ambush • in the thick darkness: No; he meant nothing mysterious', ' aerial, ethereal, spiritual;’or fiendish. These interpretations of his prophetic deliverances were all a mistake.. Then what did he mean ? ,Te.,Whiti has boon explaining at the Parihaka meeting. Our correspondent telegraphs last night that To Whili says ho meant the roads would never meet because—because what ?—there is a swamp on the Plains which they cannot cross! That’s the grand, mysterious, vprophctic secret, The cat’s out of the bag, and a wee thing it is. Poor To Whili! PUBLIC DISCUSSION. i'-A’ 1 correspondent signing himself “ Bah, biis written a rather smart letter anent a memorial, which we reJerred to as aiming at a change in the constitution of the Harbour Board. The sribjecl is so important to this 1 district, that any, attempt to change the Board’s constitution should be made with bUsiness-likc* knowledge of the constitution and working of other Harbour ■ Boards in the colony. The, memprial

givesihd sign -tlmt. its promoters under- ' this.-t The f.racuioriftl does not show'-who :thqsc prompters arc. The public arc not informed, cither, ns to what ultimate object, supposing there to ;be any, winch these promoters hopeio work through this proposed change. A memorial brought forth ns this is, and exhibited only in a semi-priyate, maimer, is naturally likely to provoke suspicion that there may be some, other “reform” which cannot he conveniently disclosed in the first instance, but which is to be led np to by cautions singes. • With- this kind of public activity we have no sympathy; but. while saying this much, we cannot allow the Main to be a medium for attacking persons supposed to be the interested promoters of that memorial. Persons of all opinions are. invited to discuss matters of public interest through the Mail; but a sense of propriety compels the exclusion of correspondence that docs not conform to ordinary rules of public debate. No attack upon the private lives of individuals, no insinuation of personal dishonor, shall find expression in this journal. Public affairs should be discussed with fairness, with tolerance of differences in opinion, with a sense of decorum, and with an honorable absence of malice. The letter we refer to offends only in some of these particulars ; hut it is so characteristic of a certain bad style of colonial letter-writing, that some plain declaration scorns to bo necessary to remove an erroneous expectation that such letters can bo published in this journal. With the management of a remote past we have nothing to do. The Mail shall bo at least respectable under its present direction.