The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1887. THE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN TONGA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1486, 18 February 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1887. THE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN TONGA.

Writing the other day of affairs m Tonga, we remarked that " when they who wear the cassock also bear the sword they always govern with a high hand," but although our readers will generally admit the truth of that aphorism, few we fancy are aware how fully it has been exemplified by the doings of the Government of Tonga, Instead of the phrase " Government of Tonga," we might have written "the Rev Shirley Baker," for the terms are interchangeable as the Rev Shirley, m regard to the affairs of that island kingdom, may truthfully adopt the Napoleonic expression —Z'JEm/iire, e'est mot. The feebls old monarch, King George, is absolutely and completely under his .domination, and the fact that for the recent shooting affair six men were concemmed to death and promptly executed shows that it is a more dangerous thing to interfere with the Rev Shirley than with the Czu of Russia or with any of the crown heads of Empires. Such a wholesale slaughter could only be justifiable, were it shown to be necessary, to put down a treasonable conspiracy against lawful authority, exercised m a constitutional way, but m this case is not only wholly disproportionate to the offence but, taken m connection with the misgovernment which provoked that offence, deserves to be severely condemned. For if ihe statements made as to the extraordinary conduct of the Government are to be believed,the Rev Mr Baker has certainly been guilty of conduct which amply justifies the Tongan people m rebelling, and if need be sacrificing him to gain their deliverance from such intolerable oppression as they have been suffering at his hands. And how is it possible to disbelieve those statements, seeing that they have been made m the most public way and upon most reputable authority, viz., by the Rev E. E. Crossley, B. A. (Wesleyan Minister m Tonga), before the Conference ot that Church assembled m Sydney. According to Mr Crossley, the members of the Wesleyan Church m Tonga who refused to join Baker's Free Church have been persecuted m the most- outrageous manner, Wesleyans have been brought before a Police Magistrate of Baker's appointment, and who travelled round with the latter, and punished for preaching. A catechisi who spoke of Baker's peripatetic Magistrate as " not a rightful inhabitant," was sentenced to two years or damages and costs, and another who said that " Mr Baker went to Auckland and was a Wesleyan there," received a sentence oi two years hard labor for libel, m addition to having to pay £20 damages and costs. But a worse case still is cited, that of the Rev Mr Noel, an ordained minister of the W»sleyan Church, who having declined to go over to Baker's Free Church was fined and sentenced to twelve years hard labor on charges of libelling the King and Baker — arcades atnbo-—zti& is now, it is said, actually serving his sentence at Tongatabu. Members of the Wesleyan Church have been deported from their homes and then fined for not " hoeing and sweeping " church lands, have been handcuffed and thrust into prison. The Chnstchurch Press, from which gather the foregoing particulars, gwes an instance where persecution has been carried even to the giave itself. It says : — Towards the end of 1885 one of the two young girls who had been deported to Kao died. Her family had suffered severely from the persecution, one brother having been sentenced to three years and six months' hard labor, with fine, and another to two years and j£n. She was not even allowed to die m peace, but was told that if she did not join the Free Church her body would be thrown into the sea — the land was not to be polluted by the corpse of a Takaago (Wesleyan). The threat was not carried out, but Mr Crosley says it was with the utmost difficulty that per-

j mission to bury the body on Tongan soil could be obtained. Apart from ill this, the Wesleyans m Tongalabuhad their churches broken open, arson was resorted to, and on three occasions dypamite was used. Their children are forbidden to enter school without a permit, threats of hanging were freely used against them, their lands were taken away, and all the college men 1 were called out to military service for j seven years." If all these statements are facts — and there sesms to be no reason to doubt it-— then it is not to be wondered at that the islanders are m a state of rebellion against Baker's government — the wonder is that they have not < upset him and it long ago. Clearly : there is much ground for the apprehension of English residents of Tonga as to tbe condition of affairs, and it is not surprising that they are looking for the interference of some outside authority.