Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 95, 6 March 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1863.

When- the spirit of prophecy alighted upon our contemporary the Herald, and induced him to take up his parable and say that he foresaw in his mind’s far-seeing eye all sorts of goojl things in store for this Province as the natural result of the advent of Mr. McLean, (the* Herald) would seem to have forgotten that, notwithstanding his undeniable claims to the special .distinction of being called the “ the prophet of Hawke’s Bay,” there yet exists in the vulgar mind very vague and ill-defined ideas of what a prophet really is. Of this we have the indisputable authority of history, wherein it is written that “ Baalam [who was a prophet of some note] said unto Balak ‘ saddle me mine ass,’ and he saddled him /” from which it would appear that the less gifted Balak labored under a confusion of ideas as to the distinction between the venerable prophet and a donkey. We merely drop this hint as a friendly caution to our esteemed contemporary lest at any time, carried away by the fervor of inspiration, he may chance to lay himself open to any such disagreeable and invidious comparison ; for we find that, regardless of the prophetic movings of our friend to the contrary, Mr. McLean’s reign has commenced very inauspiciopsly. It was our humiliating duty to record last Week the 'forcible, rescue of a disorderly native from the'hands of the police by brother Maories, and this, too, in open day, in the very centre of the town of Napier, and farther, that Mr. McLean, by what authority we know not, gave directions to the police to let the riotous rascals depart in'peace. That such an outrage as this upon the security of the peace of the Town, and upon that of persons and property therein, and

upon the dignity of the law itself, should take place at all would be a matter of surprise and of serious alarm to any other community of men than us of Hawke’s Bay. To us, however, this affair presents no strikingly new feature ; we have for so long complacently, and with hardly a murmur, passively submitted to the violation of our country’s laws, to the defiance of our authorities, and to see that system of jurisprudence which has ever been our boast and our pride treated with contempt and openly and in the most* insulting manner set at naught by the Maories of this Province, that the mere fact of those ungovernable people getting up a row in the Town is an occurrence which fails to excite in us the slightest wonder. The wonder is, not that these people treat ; our laws and our institutions with contempt, and defy the execution of justice, but that having gone so far there they at present stop, and have not as yet proceeded a step further and actually turned the quiet folks of Napier and its environs bodily out of their homes. As far as any attempt to prevent this consummation of their iniquity is likely to be made, they are perfectly at liberty to do so without fear of the consequences. We regret very much that Mr. McLean should have taken upon himself to interfere in this matter, for we cannot understand by what right or by what authority he possesses power to stay the arm of the law, and to interfere with the police in the execution of their duty. We are apprehensive that Mr. McLean, relying too implicitly upon the servility of his share of the public press, and upon his popularity with the Provincial Council, has overstepped the bounds of prudence in thus laying himself open to the serious charge of ordering, without authority, the release of a justly captured disturber of the public peace. It augurs but indifferently for the success of the experiment which is about to be tried with the fifty Mounted Troopers in the country that Maories are permitted to rescue a fellow native out of the hands of the police in the town, and that, too, under the special sanction of the Superintendent of the Province. We are not aware that Mr. McLean has other control over the police than as a Justice of the Peace. In “ Burns’ Justice of the Peace" it will be found that a Justice of the Peace has power to cause to be arrested by warrant under his hand any person committing offences coming within the range of any of the criminal statutes ; but we are unable to discover in the learned work referred to that that dignitary possesses authority to rescue out of the hands of the constable any person lawfully in custody, or to cause that constable to allow his prisoner to depart without due and proper trial and examination. There is no law extant which gives permission to any person, not even to the Queen herself, to stay the arrest of a person violating the laws of the land. Therefore, MrMcLean’s interference in this matter is illegal, unjustifiable, and, under the existing circumstances of our relations with the Maories, highly imprudent to use the mildest term. And we must remind him that J.P.s abusing their authority are, by the 23 rd Elizabeth, 1580, subject to supersession and • punishment by the Judges of the land, or in the special terms of the Act by the “ Queen’s Bench.”

It really is a matter past comprehension for what purpose we keep up such a formidable army of J.P’s., resident or stipendiary Magistrates, with a Civil Commissioner and Statf to supplement them, when it is quite beyond the power of the united force thus embodied to arrest a refractory native, or when that person is arrested, to keep him in safe custody. It would be better by far at once to declare and recognize the independence of the whole Maori people, and allow them after their own fashion to form their own laws and institutions, and for us to establish with them on this footing an international relationship, than that we should longer continue to assert in theory what in practice we arc entirely unable to carry into effect

Mr. M’Lean has, as we expected, inaugurated his government of this Province with an act which, for argument’s sake, we will allow he had authority to do, but which act at once stamps that Government as the echo of Sir G. Grey’s weak and miserable policy, so that we have nothing better to hope for at the hands of Mr. M’Lean in our relations with the Natives of Hawke’s Bay, than such as we have hitherto enjoyed, and which treatment has added to the abuse of the Land Kegulations and Native Land Purchase Ordinance, and so thoroughly shaken this Province that it will be many years before she recovers a sound and healthy condition of prosperity.