KAKA’S EXECUTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 107, 27 June 1911, Page 5

KAKA’S EXECUTION.

MR JKLLICOE’S PROTEST. (Per Press Association.) ; Wellington, June 26. f Mr E. J. Jellicoe, barrister at law, to-day received the following letter from Ills Excellency the Governor, to which ho lias. forwarded the reply appended : _ June 23, 1911.. Sir, —I beg to inform you that I have to-day received a telegram , from His Majesty’s Secretary cf State for the Colonies, requesting mo to inform you that His Majesty received your petition for tho commutation of the deatli sentence Sassed on Tahi Kakaj and that His lajesty commands that you should be referred to my Government, to which has been delegated the prerogative of mercy.—l have the honour to he, sir, your obedient servant, ■ ISLINGTON, Governor. June 2G, 1911. Sir, —I have tho honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, bearing to-day’s Wellington post-mark, hut dated by you from Government House, Wellington, oh the 23rd inst., wherein you inform me that you had that day received from the Secretary of State for the Colonies His Majesty’s command that I should be referred to your Government if I desired to invoke the prerogative of mercy for the Maori lad Tahi Kaka. I assume from this communication (1) that His Majesty could not have been aware when he communicated his gracious command to you that your ovornment, on the very day it became known that I had cabled petitioning fo/ tho commutation of the death sentence, actually fixed the execution to take ,place at 8 o’clock on the following morning; or that immediately the execution was so fixed I informed you of the petition, and asked you to delay the execution for a few hours to enable the King’s pleasure to ho known; or that you ignored my request and dispatched "the hoy," and never go much as acknowledged receipt of my communication.(2)TJiat His Majesty’s .commands evidently' contemplate that your Government, as delegates of the prerogative of mercy and solo arbiters of life and death', would afford me an opportunity of applying for tho exorcise of that prerogative, and would consider any proper grounds I might desire to urge. How can youf Government now allow this to he done, seeing that with such very unseemly haste tho life of the boy has been taken, and what is the use of your letter of to-day communicating to me His Majesty’s commands? I have tho honour to request that you will communicate this, my reply, to tho Secretary of State for the Colonies, for submission to His Majesty, in order that His Majesty may ho made aware of tho treatment my petition lias received, and the manner in which his delegates of the prerogative of mercy exercised that prerogative in tho ease of a defenceless child of seventeen years of ago, who was only one degree removed from tho savage, and whom, the jury, on tho evidence before it, had, in fact, recommended to mercy.—l have the honour to be your obedient servant, E. J. JELLICOE.

PROTEST AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Tiniaru, Juno 26. At a Unitarian service last night, a resolution was carried unanimous!',’ protesting against the execution of Kaka. The minister (Rev. Chappie) said capita] punishment was no deterrent, and in this case allowance should have been made for the inherited tendencies of the accused, a member of a race lately savages. The mover of the resolution dwelt on the latter point, and .said the execution was' more horrible than the murder.