Te Waka Maori. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1879.

Waka Maori, Volume I, Issue 17, 18 January 1879, Page 243

Te Waka Maori. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1879.

Owing to the editor having been absent at Napier, and our employees engaged during the past week in removing the plant of the Waka to new premises which have been prepared for us, we have experienced great difficulty in getting out our present and our previous issue. We hope that, under the circumstances, our readers will excuse any short comnigs which may be observable. Our silence with regard to the Native Minister's late vagaries in. the Waikato must be attributed to the above causes, and not to ignorance as to the state of affairs in that district. We shall shortly have something to say on that subject; meanwhile we give our readers a translation of the following article from the Bangitllcel Adctcate, which will both amuse and instruct them: — " The Hon. John Sheehan seems played out. He has returned from New Plymouth considerably crest-fallen. lie went there to do three things, and he seems to have done none of the three, first, he was to get liewi to take him from Taranaki to the Waikato through the 'magnificent tracts of land,' over which the contemplated railroad to Waikato is to run. Secondly, he was to make final' arrangements for the great meeting at Wai'.ara in March. And thirdly —and not the least important —he was to get ilivoki, the murderer of John McLean, surrendered to justice. As regards the first, Rewi's ardour about the railroad seems to have cooled down considerably. He didn't see his way to make the journey at present, was otherwise engaged, and thought they had.better wait till the fine weather set in. Considering that it was the time of the year when fine weather generally sets in, and it has set hi according to its usual custom, this was pretty trans pare-it. tiowever, Mr. Sheehan had to accept the excuse and wait for a more convenient season. The * Ides of March ' will perhaps bring the fine weather. Then the arrangements for the great nieeiiug, when all the preliminary twaddle which passed between Sir George Grey and iawhiao iaec season (that is the proper phrase for such theatrical performances),

were to bear fruit, and peace and prosperity to be for ever established. Here also there seems to be some hanging fire. The weather will perhaps not be fine then; at all events, it does not Beem to be favorable now. The cards of invitation are not jet printed: nobody seems to know who is to issue them ; the gentlemen who would be likelyto take the chair and vice-chair, Tawhiao and Te Whiti, seem in no hurry to make the arrangements. There seems some chance that though the guests may be there in the persons of Sir George and the Native Minister, the hosts may not. "What is to be done ? There are suspicions that Tawhiao is in the sulks at Rewi having been made so much of, and himself 'belittled.' "What will he say when he hears that Sheehan slept with Rewi at "Waitara, and Rewi slept with Sheehan at New Plymouth; that Rewi had tea with the Mayor, and afterwards went to the play; that he hob-nobbed with the civic authorities, and made speeches and was speechified. If he was jealous before, the King will be rabid now, and in no humour for jollifications and pacification. There is evidently a hitch about this great March meeting that is to settle everything and bring on the millennium, and Mr. Sheehan has found it out. Then what about Hiroki, and his protector Te "Whiti ? Colonel "Whitmore, when asked in the Legislative Council why the Government did not bring him to justice, replied that ' they could have him any day they pleased, delivered at the nearest police station.' "Why is he not delivered at the nearest police station ? Mr. Sheehan goes in for ' personal G-overnment' in Native affaira. This is, we presume, a specimen of it. He must have passed within four miles of Te "Whiti's pah, Parihaka, where the murderer is supposed to be. "Why did he not exercise ' personal Government,' and go for him ? As far 'as we can gather he didn't even ask for him. Those who know the councils of the Parihaka Natives do say that he would not have been given up for all ' the personal Governments ' that could be brought to bear. But what a failure the"whole thing is! ' Peace is at last made,' says Sir George Grey. "Where is the evidence of it? A coldblooded murderer flees from justice, and takes refuge with one of the leading chiefs, who are sup- „ posed to have made thi», peace. The Native Minister passes by and does not dare to ask for him. This is a kind of peace which seems rather hollow ; slightly one-sided. If a white man had murdered a Maori and taken refuge in one of our towns, how long would he have, been unasked for by the Maories, and how long before he was lodged in jail by us.? We could very well understand how any other Government than that of Sir George Grey might hare thought it wise to temporize in such a case an this. They might have argued that the case was peculiar, that Te "Whiti must be humoured, that it was no use hurrying, that our friendly relation* with those people were not recent, and we must put up with a murder or two ; it was no worse that what happened every now and then in Tipperary, and - ao forth. But such excuses do not lie in the mouth of Sir George Grey's Ministry. They have boasted too long and too loud about their superior fitness to manage the Natives ; they have paraded too of leu

the wonderful negotiations between themselves and TawHiao ; they have declared to posterity that peace has been at last made by them; and they have promised too great things trom their ' personal Government.' Besides which, in this particular matter, Sir George Grey has committed himself to an extent from which he cannot retreat without considerable humiliation. In 1876, a similar murder was committed on a European at Auckland, by a Native called "Winiata. It was a non-political murder, as the Government tells us Hiroki's was. "Winiata escaped, and was believed to have taken refuge with the King, just as Hiroki has done with Te Whiti. Shortly afterwards, Sir D. McLean visited the King, for the purpose of friendjy negotiation on the general bearings of the Maori question. He did not see Winiata, nor had he any certain knowledge where he was. He did not seem to have been at the King's pah. He did not demand his surrender, nor make his case the subject of discussion. In the following session, on July 6, 1876, Sir George Grey brought the subject before the House of Representatives, and in doing so, made one of the most severe and vicious attacks on Sir Donald that ever was made by any one on a political opponent. But he did more. While Sir Donald's negotiations with the King were going on. Sir George wrote a letter to the King Maories, denouncing Sir Donald's conduct in visiting the King while murderers were under his protection, and telling them that no civilized nation would send an ambassador to any other which was guilty of screening murderers of its fellow-country-men ; and he denounced Sir Donald in unmeasured terms for having degraded his country and dragged it through the dirt by visiting the King while he protected winiata. Last year, however, we all know that Sir George and Mr. Sheehan found it convenient to forget this ; they not only visited the protector of the murderers, but they shut their eyes to the fact that at least four or five of the worst of them were present at the festive gatherings which they attended, and took an active part in the proceedings. There was Te Kooti dancing about with no other clothes on than a breech-clout, singing out, 'I am the man on whose head a price has been set;' Tapihaua, thrusting his personal patronage on Sir George, and offering to lionize him about; Porikoruti, dressed up as a generalissimo, and heading the guard of honor which received the Ministerial party, while others were looking on, or taking a part more or less prominent in the procession. What dirty pudding poor Sir George was obliged to eat! All his bitter denunciations of SirDonald, recoiling on his own head with tenfold severity, and under circumstances of the most oppressing humiliation. How he must have wished that his wicked temper had not impelled him to make that cruel speech against Sir Donald, which he did in 1876! It is true that Mr. Sheehan had the audacity to say last session that Sir George did not know that any murderers were present. But SirGeorge has never dared to say so himself; and it is impossible but that he must have known it, and seen the murderers many times during the several visits. This is merely one of those reckless assertions for which Mr. Sheehan is too noted when pushed into a corner, and nobody does or can believe it. Even if "it were possible to believe that Sir George did not see the murderers, and know who they were, he knew that they were one and all not far off, in exactly the same position as Winiata was in 1876 — that is, under the King's protection. And now the Nemesis is redoubled by the Hiroki case. This coldblooded murderer is protected by Te Whiti, one of

the great chiefs of the "West Coast. The murder, we are told by the Government, had no political significance, it was a simple act of vengeance for some private offence. And yet Sir G-eorge Grey's G-overnment dare not even demand him of his protector, and the red-handed murderer escapes the gallows, which is his due. It is possible, however, that under the system of ' personal Government,' which Mr. Sheehan claims as his prerogative, there may be some secret negotia-? tions going on with Te Whiti. Buraour says that Hiroki's protectors are trying to make capital out of him ; that they make out a sort of Dr. and Cr, account between themselves and the Government, in which Hiroki's murder is put on the one side, and the confiscated land on the other: and thus they strike an even balance, the result of this Maori book-keeping being that the confiscated land is to be returned to them, and Hiroki to be let off. "We hope this is not true, but it is exceedingly unsatisfactory that under this ' personal Government' the public should be kept "in the dark, and the inhabitants of the West Coast, who are so deeply interested in the matter, should have no more authentic source of information than such common rumour.