Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 100, 23 March 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1863.

We Lad occasion to note in our report of the Napier Race Meeting the quiet and orderly manner in which the Natives behaved, and we have since ascertained that that satisfactory, but uncommon state of things was to to be attributed to the preventive steps taken by the Civil Commissioner, acting on a suggestion made by Mr. McLean. Whether or not the success of the endeavours of these gentlemen in this matter is altogether to be attributed to the interdiction of the sale of grog to the Maories on the race-course is an open question, for there can be no doubt but that the Natives have many ways of obtaining a supply of that exhilarating fluid besides that of buying it over the counter in the ordinary course of business.

We are disposed to consider that the success of the police regulations adopted and enforced by the principal men amongst their subjects, on the occasion of the Napier Race Meeting, as indicating the existence amongst the Natives of a better system of organization and of the influence of the chiefs than at first glance might be readily imaginedIt- is to be hoped that, profiting by this experiment as tried on the solitary but not the less important occasion of a race gathering, the Civil Commissioner will endeavour to

ripen it into something tangible and of value for future occasion. We ourselves see no reason why, if it is possible to organise a system of police amongst the Natives to meet a temporary emergency, it is not possible to establish that system upon a permanent basis, and thus at once have at hand the means of coping with any symptoms of turbulency that may make their appearance, and check, by the assistance of the Natives themselves, any inclination on the part of their body politic to endanger the peace and prosperity of that community of Europeans who have cast their lot amongst them.

If the Native chiefs of this Province can and will act in conjunction with our own authorities upon one occasion, and that, too, for the maintenance of order amongst their own people, we are bound to say that there appears no reason whatever for their not doing so on all occasions, and thus at once aim a decisive blow at the root of the great evil which at present renders our cordial in■tercourse with that people almost impossible. It is indisputably evident that if we establish a police force entirely composed of Europeans, and that force has in view not so much the maintenance of the peace amongst ourselves as amongst the Natives, we at once give rise to feelings of jealousy, and of inclination to resist upon any pretence the interference of this body, and open the door to a collision, the consequences of which would be very deplorable. While on the one hand we make such arrangements as will secure to ourselves a sufficiently strong force to ensure some sort of respect to our magistrates, it seems but a just and politic step to admit a certain proportion of the Maori element into this force to remove all immediate or apparent cause of jealousy from the minds of those people as to the ultimate object that may lay hidden behind the feasible assurance that we are but acting for the security of our own and of their peace-loving fellows.

A Native Police Force, properly organised and controlled, as brought to bear upon themselves, appears to us to offer a very failground for concluding that our relations with these people, who are at present entirely free from restraint, would at once assume a more settled and satisfactory aspect, for they are not so lost to the advantages of peace and to the administration of justice as to oppose a scheme for the securing that happy state of things, when that scheme is one in the working out of which they have a lively and immediate interest and participation.

We have already granted the questionable distinction to some of the principal men amongst the Natives of being looked upon as a kind of magistrate, and we have done so in such a manner as to render it a matter of at least pecuniary advantage to them. The question now is, whether we cannot carry that system, such as it is, a little further, and induce those men holding this privilege to make some practical use of it, and that, too, in an effectual and decisive manner. If we have not the co-operation of the chiefs, we shall of a certainty never peaceably assert our authority. It will, however, we need hardly add, be an almost hopeless possibility to enforce the law's or to maintain the peace of the country so long as an unlimited supply of intoxicating drinks are furnished to the Maorics. The effect of too much liquor on our own people is sufficiently manifested by their riotous and disorderly conduct; what, then, must the effect of excess be when the subject of it happens to be a man who when excited even by the comparatively moderate stimulant of his own national songs and dances is little better than a maniac, and who is rendered perfectly insane by the fiery and poisonous influence of drink ?

We caution our fellow settlers against supplying the Natives with drink iu the way they do. It is exceedingly hard upon many who have no interest whatever iu the sale of spirituous and fermented liquors that their

lives and property should be endangered or in the slightest degree jeopardised by the gratification oi tne semsn, ami out after all temporary, interests of the few. We strongly advise our authorities that, at least within the precincts of townships, the regulations as regards the sale of liquors to the Natives should he most rigorously enforced. We feel perfectly sure that if the reasons for this are carefully explained to the chiefs, they themselves will most readily concur in the arrangement to give every assistance in their power to the carrying out of this excellent regulation ; for it is plain that if these people are so far removed by their dignity as not to come within the wholesome embrace of the “ lockup” upon occasions of their forgetting themselves and kicking up a row, nothing can be more fair than that they should concur in and adopt such measures as will render the probability of such a disagreeable contingency ever occurring.