SOME INTERESTING LETTERS.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 13143, 27 June 1911, Page 3

SOME INTERESTING LETTERS.

Wellington, Juno 26. Mr. Jellicoe received the following letter from his Excellency the Governor, to which he forwarded the reply appended:—

"23rd June, 1911. "Sir, —I beg t6 inform you that I have to-day received a telegram from his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies requesting me to inform you that his Majesty received your petition for the commutation of the death sentence passed on Tahi Kaka, and that his Majesty commands that you should be referred to my Government, to which has been dolegated the prerogative of mercy.—l have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, Islington, Governor."

"June 6th, 1911. "Sir, —I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of lotter bearing to-day's Wellington post mark, but dated by you from Government House, Wellington, on 23rd inst., wherein you inform me th at you had that day received from the Secretary of State for tho Colonies his Majesty's commands that I should bo referred to your Government if I desired to invoke the prerogative of mercy for the Maori lad TaliiKaka. I assume from this communication—(l) That his Majesty could not have been aware when he communicated his gracious command to you that your Government on the very clay it became known that I had cabled petitioning for tho commutation of the death sentence actually fixed the execution to take place at eight 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 be known, or that you ignored my request, and despatched tho boy and never so much as acknowledged the receipt of mv communication ; and (2) that his Majesty's commands evidently contemplate that your Government, as delegates of the prerogative of mercy and sole arbiters of life and death, would afford me the opportunity of applying for the exercise of that prerogative, and would consider any proper grounds I might desire to urge. How can your Government now allow this to be done, seeing that with such very unseemly haste the life of the boy has been taken, and what use in the circumstances is 3 rour letter of to-day com--municatinE to me his Majesty's commands ? T have the honour to request that you will communicate this, my reply, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for submission to his Majesty, in order that his Majesty may bo made aware of the treatment my petition has received, and the manner in which his delegates of the prerogative of mercy exercise that prerogative in the case of a defenceless child of seventeen years of age, who was only one degree removed from a savage, and whom the jury on the evidence had, in fact, recommended to mercy.—l have the honour to be, your obedient servant, E. G. Jellicoe."