MAORI RIGHTS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 670, 7 April 1879, Page 2

MAORI RIGHTS.

To the Editor of the Evening Herald. Sik,— -Mr. Tucker's letter in Saturday's issue is an instance of that remarkable versatility of genius which enables him to look at both sides of a question at once. < , I remember well fighting along with Messrs. Tucker, Westrup, and others in the attack upon Agatapa, and elsewhere (they were men you Could rely on in a fight— thoroughly! game); Upon that occasion, after' wiping the blood and smoke from our faces; and bands, and laying back out of the hob fire, just to breathe a little, Mr. Tucker took up his parable, and descanted in eloquent terms upon the utter absence from the Maori character of any Bense of the difference between right and wrong. (One of his ! most intimate native friends had, by the way, shot at him point blank, and very ' nearly exploded a valuable life, which is at present most happily Bpared to perform prodigies of useful and peaceful work pro CO.) And, if I recollect rightly, Mr. T. went on to expatiate upon the atrocity of the slaughter of our friends, particularly the Wilson family, not so much on account of the ferocity and cold-blooded cruelty of that ana other murders, as on account of the want of good faith shown therein. The treachery and lying of all Maories is only equalled by the utter want of veracity of their "quasi" Pakeha friends. Therefore the present confusion which obtains in native land matters. The whole subject is beautifully and feelingly «x---expressed in these lines, by Shakespeare, I should. say — " Johnny was a Native', but Johnny was a thief ; for he came to my house, and stole a leg of beef. When I went to Johnny's house he wasn't at home ; he'd gone to my house, and stole a marrow-bone." It is a fact that the whole native population of Turanga were, so mixed up in the late troubles, that- the celebrated Special Commission which sat; .herein '69 to settle these vexed land questions were quite unable to tell the difference between the tares and the wheat, and therefore left the matter pretty nearly where they found it. The real fact of the whole matter is that the Maori has no title whatever in equity or law to any lands in New Zealand, unless you accept as a title what is to be got from sheer brute force, and the most hidtous cruelties inflicted on his unhappy victims. I am, &c, O. L. W. Bousfmu).