The Evening Star THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2765, 28 December 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1871.

We do not tliink there will he two opixrious respecting the course the Goveruraeut have taken with regard to

Kereopa. Tljere may be, ami are, many who condemn capital punishment on principle, and they may not approve of his execution. Hut even the very grounds they deem the strongest in favor of their humane theory do not apply in this instance. They point to the fact that many criminals escape because juries are unwilling to convict where, there is a shadow of doubt; that the chance of escape from punishment seems to remove an impediment to crime, and that in no instance has the execution of a criminal been proved to have pro vented committing murder. In the case of Keueopa, other principles arc involved; the (government has had to undeceive the Maoris and to assert its power. Mistaken leniency has been disastrous in its effect upon the Native mind. Before the advent to power of the present Government, out transactions with the Natives appear to have been founded upon no fixed principles. At times, when it suited, they were treated as fellow-subjects of an inferior stamp. If their manners were rude, their barbarisms, their ferocity, and to some extent their crimes, were excused on account of their ignorance. They were looked upon as superior void animals, whose vicious tricks are regarded with curiosity and amusement while involving no direct personal harm, but which must be mercilessly shot down as soon as their frolics become dangerous. They were alternately made pets and enemies of. They were not made to feel themselves under the authority of law, but were cheated into the idea that they were above it: that it was intended for the control and punishment of the whites, while they, the Maoris, were altogether exempt from obeying its requirements. It was consequently a rapidly growing belief before the close of Sir George Gre\ s administration, that the British Government would find it necessary to relieve the Colony altogether from the responsibility of governing the Natives; and that a. separate form of government was necessary tor the two islands. The sudden withdrawal of the Imperial troops seemed, thercfoie, to many, a cruel exposure of the Colony to danger, expense and difficulty : but it has proved the strength of the Government, and rendered necessary a consistent Native policy. The object kept in mind by the present Government, is to bring the Maoris under the control of the laws of the Colony. They treat the Kereopas and Te Kootis as criminals, not as heroes : they subject them to trial in common with the thieves and degraded amongst the whites. Placed in the dock of a Court of justice, their deeds are stripped ol the halo ol military glory that played around them while they headed a number of desperados professing to seek some grand national achievement. They have not been taken prisoners with arms in their hands, lighting bravely against an army ; but they have boon tracked by the emissaries of justice, that has not included them in a common cause, but marked them out as deluders of others, and ringleaders in disreputable transactions. They have not inflated the savage vanity of the Native mind by sending an army where a police force only was necessary. Just as they would have done with a bushranger, they have done with Kereopa : they have treated his arrest and punishment as a civil question—an affair of police : they have allowed him to parade Ids liberty, to boast of his deeds, and to shew his contempt for the power of the colonists, and when lie seems to have thought himself secure, to seize him, Gy him, and condemn him deliberately. Just as sending the prisoners to gaol at Dunedin tended to impress the Native mind with the conviction that the law was supreme, will the execution of Kereopa prove to them that it does not sleop. There appears, at one time, to have been an idea amongst the Natives that the Colonial Government were afraid to put the law in force when they were the offenders, and this led to most of our difficulties. It is only since the acceptance of office by the present Government that this delusion has been dissipated. They have not made much parade of power, but they show that they wield it. The armed constabulary hold strong strategical j positions, ready tor immediate action, ■ but provoking no hostility by a useJ less exhibition of strength. Every encouragement is given 1.0 peaceful native industry. The Maoris enjoy the advantages of law and order in common with the whites : the execution of Kereopa will show them that they are expected to share in submission to law equally with them also. The work of placing Colonists aud Natives on an equal footing is necessarily a difficult .task, but we believe the calm, firm persistence of the present Government proves that they have hit on the proper plan.