MAHOE LEAVES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 87, 6 February 1863, Page 3

MAHOE LEAVES.

Being a selection of Sketches of Hew Zealand audits inhabitants, and other matters concerning them, by Thomas Moseu, Esq. [FROM THE WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT.] ' VALEDICTORY. Faeewell! Jeremiah! You and I must at last part company, as the best of friends have had to do at some period of their lives, from time immemorial. Your excellent friends, the pseudo philanthrophi, (from whose kind offices Heaven protect you) are down upon mo, and I bring ray

•ketches-to a close. Three years ago you were in the same state I knew you ten years ago, a dirty contented old man; occupying yourself with your field operations, growing pork, and passing an easy contented sort of life free from-care and anxiety ; your people lived about you in quietness and peace attending chapel night and morning, and leading a humdrum sort of distance, if no benefit to society at large, at least no particular nuisance.

But a change has come o’er the spirit of your dream. They have made you a magistrate; you have been seized with a desire to try a little selfgovernment. The runanga system has been adopted. You have been led to imagine that you are capable of great things, and your original social, moral and.political condition has undergone a complete revolution. You have mounted the rostrum and have commenced a, perfect lustration, by your attempts at reform you have arranged to set the whole of your people by the ears ; you have embroiled yourself with the neighbouring tribes, and you have done as much to send half your people over to the rebels by your meddlesome interference, as any act the Government have done. Your potatoe fields aro neglected, your chapel is all but deserted, and a state of perfect anarchy and confusion exists amongst you as a community. In fact, your mind is off the balance, and how it is to be restored, so long as your inordinate conceit is encouraged, I really don’t know. You have had a law given you to administer and no means tc enforce it. If law and order were simply required your ancient system of despotism existing amongst and practised by your chiefs, bad as it may have been, compares most favorably with your present state of self-government, and I don’t know whether, all things considered, you were not more easily managed in those days, when one voice carried the day, than you are now. However, I wont parley any more with you, Jeremiah ! I say, good bye! I wish you all manner of good, but I fear it is only to be instilled into you by correction. Your best friends will be they that give you a good chastising. Unless you are taught to obey law, you will never respect it and any obedience that can ever be expected from you, must be based on the principle that “ might is right j” you have never known any other rule, nor have any other races of savages before you. Your utter lack of any ideas of gratitude makes kindness thrown away on you; and the manner in which you have been flattered and bolstered up of late, has risen your self-conceit to such a pitch as to blind you to your own self-interest, always provided you have sagacity and foresight to see it. And now with regard to these sketches en masse. I have endeavored in as amusing a manner as possible, to pourtray some scenes illustrative of the social, moral, and political condition of these natives. However far I may have failed in graphic delineation of the various scenes or in soundness of view that I have deduced from them I have the comforting reflection that “I have set down nought in malice,” and avoided exaggeration. Where I have considered a radical evil existed, I have not scrupled to attack it. Small as colonial communities usually are, I can hardly be surprised that in many cases I have met with the charge of personality. Had these papers merely passed through the local press, I should not have troubled myself to have taken any notice of the accusation ; but as they have been so favorably received in other portions of the Colony, and in other journals, I think it necessary to rebut the charge by remarking tersely that there is not (with the exception of the paper “ Parnapa ”) a single real character depicted. Jeremiah, Malachi, Ezekiel & Co., may be found in almost every pah from Porirua to Kororariki and Clericus and the Bural dean flourish in every native settlement of any standing on the Missionary records. The whole are merely taken as types of a class, and I can only regret that they are not the most unfavorable that I might have selected. The various scenes themselves have no essential originality, they are but one picture drawn from the recollection of the sight of many, purged of a vast quantity of offensive features that might have been most truthfully copied. Nothing is more simple than to make a charge of exaggeration, and it is possible that the perusal of these papers, by some who consider themselves tolerably acquainted with the native race, may occasion the remark that some are overdrawn. Now I would ask any one acquainted with the ordinary run of English literature, to recall the excitement that was produced in London some yoars ago when Mr. Mayhew’s “ London and the London poor ” appeared in the Morning Chronicle. Many a clergyman and medical man who thought themselves tolerably acquainted with the condition of the lower orders, was somewhat staggered to pick up the intelligence respecting a community they were constantly moving amongst, of whose real condition they themselves were perfectly ignorant. And why? Because that gentleman threw himself amongst the people he was enquiring about as one of themselves, they were thrown off their guard altogether, and information was gleaned from them, that the minister and doctor might have striven in vain to obtain. And so it is in considering the Maori complete, to gain the knowledge required. But were I to require information respecting the native character, habits, or condition, the missionary or government official would be the very last I would ask upon the subject. Ministerial visits, whether clerical or lay, are, so far as natives are concerned, purely official affairs. Their advent is telegraphed from stage to stage, and the role of the proceedings is carefully rehearsed. The whole concern is on the part of the natives one peice of acting from beginning to end. No wonder then that these gentlemen after a tour round the island, form some strange opinions respecting the state of the Maories, and no wonder that those who are thrown constantly into contact with the natives in every day life, should protest loudly against the condition of the aborigines of these islands as pourtrayed on English platforms, and on the floor of the colonial parliament. If the matter simply rested here it would be one thing; every man is perfectly at liberty to express his views upon any subject, provided he has either common sense or reason to; base them on. Reverend and honorable ■ gentlemen conscieneciously believe what they say, I would not breathe a doubt on the subject for a moment, but unfor-

tunately, their views transmitted to Europe, whether publicly or privately, do not lose by travelling—and, dressed up and re-produced in English assemblies, they furnish the foundation of an argument the most false and iniquitous. Accusing the settlers of this colony who have cheerfully borne taxes and paid them, independent of contributing private subscriptions towards' ell sorts of institutions for the benefit of the native race, who have patiently and calmly submitted to an amount of insult, annoyance, and provocation, which no body of Anglo-Saxons within the memory of man ever submitted to before ; I say accusing them of a policy of extortion and self-ag-grandisement. To show how far such a course of conduct has proved so deleterious to the interests of the colony, by the prejudicial effect it has had on the Imperial Government, is not my province here; but while we look with mingled feelings of disgust and dismay, at the wretched system of bungling and mismanagement that has marked the Imperial policy towards the colony for so many years, we cannot but attribute a vast amount of error that the authorities have fallen in, to the mischievous influence that has been excercised upon them by that well-meaning but excessively misguided class of individuals, known in the colonies as the “ Missionary party.” Though it is due to the Missionary body themselves to say that a considerable number, especially of the Roman Catholic and Nonconformist Missions, have never identified themselves in any way with the course of conduct a considerable section of their party have thought fit to adopt. As I was well aware that in the course of these sketches I should have to pass some severe strictures upon the party I have here alluded to, I determined in the first instance, to give them the benefit of the best case I could make out on their behalf, a piece of charity that neither I, nor any one else who may have occasion to differ from them publicly in future years are likely to receive an equivalent for at their hands, and further, I would here observe that there are many hard-working and intelligent clergymen who either are at present, or have in one way or another been connected with the Missionary staff who are as strongly opposed to the course of conduct adopted by their clerical brethren as I.

To attempt to solve the difficulty of the Native question has not been my object. I have endeavoured to raise a solemn protest against that mistaken philanthrophy, which has been the fruitful source of all the present evils. It has most signally failed hitherto, and it is to be regretted that the plans of Governors and Ministers are still thwarted to a great extent by it. The natives themselves are far less to blame than those who have stood forward as their champions. What anthropies there may exists between the respective races, with I dispute to the extent that is ordinarilly stated, have been to say the least fermented by the action that the pseudo philanthropists hare taken in native matters—utter lawlessness, rank, insubordination, a pighead obstinacy are the prevailing points in the native character at present —these sooner or later must cause a collision between the races. And the question is simply one of time. “Divide and conquer” have hitherto been our tactics among savage nations, where our power has not been sufficient to make war en masse; hero we have a decided front shown against us by the greater part of the aborigines; our allies during the lata war have been found to be utterly faithless and untrustworthy as a body, it is only to be hoped that if war cannot be averted, it may be so conducted as to form the last that the Colony shall ever witness, and that we may remember that the shortest struggle generally is the most merciful.

But it behoves us, though taking a charitable view of the native character, at least to take a just one. If we take them as men, let us treat them as men; if as children, by all means act towards them as such. Hitherto we have just mjngled the two, and the consequences I need not dilate upon. The law of nature that went forth marking the bounds of man’s power, “hitherto shaltthou come but no further,” seems to have put its limits on the Maori; they are a declining race, whether considered mentally or physically. A century hence must see them all but numbered with the past, and Heaven knows as a nation we have done* all we could to avert such a catastrophe ; and with this assurance, we can look forward to giving an account of our stewardship, before a tribunal where the actions of a nation shall be as closely scanned as those of individuals. I therefore take leave of the public, thanking them kindly for the favorable notice these sketches have received from the colonial press, and trusting that if ever I again take up my pen to follow the subject, it may be in less troublous times and in less troubled country.

Supposed Discovery of a Live Moa, neae Lake Wakatipu. —lt is generally supposed. that the Moa, the great bird of New Zealand is extinct although many naturalists have been disposed to tbink that it might yet survive in the unexplored country of the western part of the Middle Island If an account that reached us last evening be correct, it will seem that this wonderful bird still exists in the interior of this Province. It appears that two miners, James Walker, and Joseph Smith were about a fortnight ago camped about 20 miles to the north of the workings at the Arrow Biver. In the evening they observed on the spur of the hill above them a large bird apparently seven or eight feet high. It was distant from them some three or four hundred yards. The bird sat down for about ten minutes, and while in that position was carefully observed by James Walker who states that it was as tall as himself, and had a long head as large apparently as that of a horse. The bird then walked away. On the following morning the men examined the tracks, when they found the foot-marks of a bird with three large toes each a foot long and spread out a foot wide, a short toe five inches in length projecting behind. This account reaches ns from a perfectly reliable source; and the correspondent, to whom we are indebted for the information, himself saw and questioned the men. It may be added that the droppings of a large animal have been discovered at the head of the lake by Messrs. Bradley and party.— Otago Witness, Jan. 24.