AUCKLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 108, 20 April 1863, Page 3

AUCKLAND.

We have received per Sea Breeze our files to the 11th inst. A fire had done considerable damage on the morning of the 10th inst., destroying two houses and a carpenter’s workshop in Symonds-street. The New Zealand Insurance Company had a policy on the buildings for £350, and the Liverpool and London had £IOO on the house and effects of Mr. Craig, the owner of the workshop destroyed. There was a plentiful supply of water, hut no engines at work, the fire brigade being latterly disbanded. A native outrage at Wangaroa, situated north of the Bay of Islands, and among the friendly tribes (Ngapuhi), has once more shown how little real authority the Government of New Zealand have over the Aborigines. We take the following account from the Aucklander of the 11th inst. In our last number but two we gave an account of an outrage committed at Wangaroa, by a party of Maories who broke into the house of a settler at eight o’clock in the evening and carried off, by force, his half-caste daughter, about 17 years of

age, notwithstanding nil the efforts he and the mother of the girl were able to make to retain her —the old man himself having been violently assaulted while defending his daughter. We mentioned that the father had waited upon the Honourable Reader Wood, who promised that an answer should be given to the memorandum laid before him. The following is the reply sent to injured man:— [Copy.] Native Office, Auckland, March 13, 1863. Sib, —With reference to your memorandum on the subject of the alleged forcible abduction of your daughter by the natives, I am directed by the Government to inform you that the circumtances of the case were reported by Mr. Clarke, Civil Commissioner, for the information of His Excellency the Governor in February ultimo. The Civil Commissioner reports that the girl had her choice to rrturn f r otherwise, and that she preferred going to the native place. As His Excellency then saw no reason to interfere, the Go vernment at Auckland cannot now, in the absence of the Governor, and the Native Minister, take steps in the matter. I am &c., (Signed) John Rogan. It is, of course, impossible to say in what words the Civil Commissioner made his report. That the girl went away in the company of native women who were with her is certain ; but we have heard from a-neighbouring settler, a man second in respectability to no other in New Zealand, that from the character of the party in whose power she was, he was convinced she went away not by choice, but by being terrified by prospect threatened. The same gentlemen told us that he knew the girl, who is remarkably good looking and well educated, that he had never heard a whisper imputing improper conduct to her. This is a grevious case. That a Government, whose duty it is to prevent and punish violence, should thus wink at the violent abduction of a young female from her father’s bouse—a girl educated and brought up amongst civilized people—and see no reason to interfere with the parties to this outrage because they have succeeded in inspiring her with terror at the idea of having her head laid open with a tomahawk, according to old Maori customs in such eases, is one of the most melancholy proofs we have met with that the Government*of New Zealand deals with the Native race with a policy so temporising as to encourage them in their barbarous and iniquitous practices. Wo insist, that even if the girl “preferred going to the Native place”—which, with all deference to the Civil Commissioner, we are authorised to deny—the Government were bound injustice to an old and respectable settler to cull the natives to account for an invasion of his house and outrage on his person. We fear that the seeds of Maori policy now sown will, ere long, result in a sadly mischievous harvest.