RUA SENTENCED
IMPRISONMENT WITH HARD
LABOUR
THE CONFLICTING ISSUES
CHARGES AGAINST HIS
FOLLOWERS
By Telegraph—l'ress Association,
Auckland, August 3. Kua was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour, and twelve months' reformative treatment, on tho charge of resisting tho police. Mr. Justice Chapman said it rested with the Government whether it would do anything further in regard to the charges of counselling his followers to murdor, upon which the jury disagreed. The sentence is concurrent with that of nine mouths' imprisonment for sly grog-Belling, which Rua was evading at I tho time of his arrest. The charges against Rua's followers stand over till tho nest sitting of tho Supreme Court. BIS HONOUR'S ADDRESS TO THE PRISONER THE LONG Aliil 01? THE LAW. In sentencing Una, Mr. Justice Chapman, addressing tho prisoner, said: "You hnvo been acquitted by the jury om n. charge of sedition. The jury has disagreed as to all the charges relating to what happened at Maungapohatu on April 2, and thu question of whether you are to bo tried again on those charges will rest with the Government. You now stand before mo to receive sentence for the crime of unlawfully resisting tho police. I cannot help saying that tho decision of the jury represents tho termination of .tho long history of-'your defiance of the law. You defied tho Magistrate and his Court, and you defied the police when they came to carry out the warrant that this Court issued. Moreover, I cannot help saying that hero you have tried to defend yourself by means of falso evidence, and that you havo brought hero men and women of your tribe to givo falso evidence about what happonod at Wai-iti. Tho iury has not believed the ovidonco, but tne£ havo believed the evidence of tho sergeant and the constable who wont to arrest you at Wai-iti. You 6peak of your impoverishment, but I cannot help saying that all that can ]>b traced back to your desire to make profit out of selling drink, ft is idle to say that the selling was done without your knowledge and outside your control. You wero tho chief, and you have controlled your people. You Fay your people will be in wait outsido if you arc imprisoned, but you have been a faleo guide to thorn. As for the fear that your children and women of your tribe may bo in want, I shall make it my special duty to -communicate with tho Native Minister to have them watched over for tho period. . "Now," added the Judge, "what I have to deal with' at tho present moment, is tho fact that you refused to submit to tho Magistrate's warrant. When every other subject of the King in every other part of the world was obliged to submit to warrants of his Courts, you failed to follow the advice of your member, Mr Ngata, a man who is in the confidence of both races. If you had followed his advice, which you perfectly well understood, you would not have been here. What wo have heard has been a long story of defiance of tho law, and now you have learned that the law has a long arm, and that it can reach you, however far back into the recesses of tho forest you may travel, and that in every wnToL 4 1 , h,s T - f ? rei i t Empiro to which wo belong, the King s law can reach anyon<3 who offends against him. That is tho lesson that your peoplo should learn fiom _this i trial, and from the verdict of
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19160804.2.41
Bibliographic details
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Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2841, 4 August 1916, Page 6
Word count
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600RUA SENTENCED Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2841, 4 August 1916, Page 6
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