WHITE-WASHING TE KOOTI.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 427, 28 May 1902, Page 3

WHITE-WASHING TE KOOTI.

(To the Editor of the Times.)

Sir,—l regret to see in your sub-leader yesterday morning that you took my words, which appeared in the New Zealand Herald, to mean what I did not intend. I had no wish to white-wash To Kooti or to palliate for his brutal deeds, but rather to point out the injustice which, I am inclined to think, led him subsequently to perpetrate those deeds. I quite agreo with you when you paffit Te Kooti as a villain of tho deepest dye, but you must remember it was not be- i cause he was proved to be of that dye I that he was transported to the Chatham?, but because of his transportation that he became so. Sir, lovo of justice is one of the leading characteristics of the British race. Would you accuse the whole civilised world of palliating the murders of Alexander MeLean if it rose in arms on his behalf because ho was sent to execution before ho was fairly tried, though he had not been in any way and he was a white man'? But Te Kooti was provoked to take vengeance both on whites and nativos, and ho was only a somi-savage? I had a personal grievance against To Kooti, and somo of my own people were in pursuit of him. Ho massacred some of my own relations, and so severely wa3 it folt in my own family that a member of it, according to Maori custom, was named after an incident of that massacro. But personal feelings do not blind me to i tho fact that Te Kooti was roused to tako vengeance. Justice is justice, whatever else is.

By your omission of the context of my letter your readers would not see why I wrote to the New Zealand Herald ; it was because a writer in that paper threw in our faco the Poverty Bay massacres as an illustration that warfaro as condncted by our peoplo was ‘‘hell.” If my attempt to point out the mistake of those who caused To Kooti to be transported seems to you an attempt to palliate tho awful butchery perpetrated by him, what would you call the action of the Government in pardoning him ? And why did they pardon him ? Wo readily condemn To Kooti, and naturally, too, but was he altogethorjo blame ? Tho thought that it might all have beon averted if Te Kooti had not beon unlawfully transported intensifies one's sorrow to glanco at such a black pago in tho history of tho Maori people—there is always the anguish of “ it might not have been.”

Sir, I am sorry to dwell on such a painful subject, but you have compelled me to do so. Your judgment on me, in my opinion, has the charaeteristie of tho arbitrary and sad sontenco that sent To Kooti into exile, and whither he escaped to perpetrate deeds that make tho very mention of his name hateful.—l am, etc., Reweti T. W. Kohere. [Wo are very pleased to give Mr Kohore's explanation and to learn that he had no intention of seeking to palliate To Kooti. The context of the lotter did not affect the point taken exception to. The transporting of To Kooti is generally acknowledged to have been a harsh proceeding, but that in no way lessons tho blackness of his deeds by way of wreaking vengoanoe.—Ed. Times.[