THE MAORI KING’S VISIT TO ENGLAND.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3330, 4 December 1883, Page 2

THE MAORI KING’S VISIT TO ENGLAND.

The Maori grievance which has been represented to the Aborigines Protection Society, that the New Zealand Government has prohibited Tawhiao from making his contemplated visit to the Queen, is put in a rather amusing aspect by the New Zealand Press. It seems that what the New Zealand Government object to is, not Tawhaio’s going to England—Ministers would only be too happy if he were to go there, and would request him, like Artemus Ward's friends when he quitted Aspinwall, not to hurry back again—but having to bear the expense of his journey on the Treasury. This is objected to because the Treasury could not afford the burden, and also because it is feared that if Tawhaio found himself in the position of having the Treasury of the Colony to draw upon for hotel expenses, no consideration of what was due to his kingly office would prevent him from making a beast of himself. It is distressing to hear that at the festivities of the great Native meeting a year and a half ago it was found necessary to stop his Majesty’s credit at ever hotel in Alexandra, and even then, the monarch found means to get as “drunkas a lord.” It seems that the form of dissipation and gluttony most in favor with the Maori chiefs who lately visited London was indulgence in the British lobster. They used their opportunity liberally, and each noble savage used to calmly finish his three lobsters at 2s 6d each, every morning for breakfast. It is apparent that these facts throw new light on the assumed tyranny by which Tawhiao is prevented from airing his griefs at Windsor or Buckingham Palace, while they help us to understand how in the pre-settlement days cannibalism became a necessity to a race possessing such enormous appetites for animal food, together with such scanty sources of supply for satisfying them.