THE ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY’S MANIFESTO.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 2, 3 July 1865, Page 1

THE ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY’S MANIFESTO.

fProm the New Zealand Herald, 13th June.] The tract of the Aborigines Protection Society which we published the other day contains a considerable amount of mawkish childish insipidity, and is also calculated to do a great deal of mischief. It is evidently written by some one who imagines himself brimful of the Christanity graces. It is at* tempted to be written nowu to the level of the understanding of those for whom it is intended, and assumes that they are weak and unoffending lambs surrounded y wolves who are ever watching an opportunity to rob them and despoil of their property There is also an assumption of vastly higher degree of Christian culture and christain practice among the Maoris than amongst the colonists, who cau plainly called the “ bad whites.” There is then everything to foster the pride and vanity of these native model christains—these murderers of priests : and people—and to encourage the notion of

ifcelr superiority to the pakeha. The mildness of the advice given to them as respects gome of their greatest and most heinous crimes, or the manner in which some of them, murder for instance, are passed by without comment, seems strange indeed when coming from such extraordinary super-excellent men, as those whose names are appended to the document to which we are referring. They do not take up their story, and denounce in withering terms, after the manner of the Prophets and Apostles of old, and even of the-Divine Founder of Christianity himself, the horrible murders that have been committed by the Maoris in the land, or their debauchery and the filthiness of their lives, from children to almost hoary age ? No, cot bo. , But they must have known that these things exist among the natives. Why not probe the festering sores that are corrupting and ruining both the souls and bodies of those to whom they render their advice, instead of ignoring their existence, and speaking, to them as if they were not only guiltless individuals, but even exemplars of every Christian virtue, and were persecuted and ill-treated by the “ bud whites” who have colonized these Islands. Now is this the way to address people who have yet to learn what real Christianity and real civilisation is. People who have not yet crossed the threshold of either, as is testified by their lives and practices. To talk to persons who live the life of the Maori in the common pa, where; the commonest virtues and the commonest decency are never practised, as if they w'ere very far advanced in the Christian life, and were far superior to the thousands of Englishmen and English women by .whom they are surrounded, is a deadly error of the worst and most mischievous kind. It can only make them believe the lie which is so alluringly held to them. They will bug the delusion to their heats, for it comes at an opportune time and chimes in wit h and confirms their half or wdiolly formed notions of their excellence. And what can he the effect of such teaching, but to encourage the people te make their own wretched lives the standard of excellence, and to believe that their crimes partake rather of the nature of virtues than of vices. Hence then the Maori may well cry out, “ Save me from my friends who gloss over and conceal my real state, and so prevent me from making those efforts for improving myself which I ought to make.” They are not the real, friends of either Maori or any other race who gloss over their faults and speak words of vanity and flattery t© them.

And it is not only in this great and important matter that this tract is calculated to do great harm and no good. For instance the Maoris are coaxed not to rebel and wage war any more, because the white men, the “ bad whites” would never know when they had punished them enough. "What is this but to tell the natives that the colonists are a set of miscreants, more brutal and more savage than themselves; to tell them that the cruelties of the Spaniards in South America will be enacted here; and that we are in fact fiends in human shape who gloat over the punishment and sufferings of a persecuted band of saints, who are told meekly to bear all this. The tsact might, so far as this particular phase of it is concerned, have been written to a band of Christians exposed to the cruelties of heathen neighbors. The tone is su«h as would have been suitable bad it been addressed to the Christians of the first and second centuries, who suffered insult and wrong from the surrounding heathen; and that tone is based on what neither has, nor never had the slightest possible existence here, for the Maori never has teen thus vindictively punished. The very opposite is'the fact. It is the colonist who, for years has had to suffer wrong in every possible way at the hand of the Maori, and not only has the latter gone unpunished, but the former has oft-times been punished without a shadow of a cause, when the Maori ought to have been instead. The law has been, and now is, wrested in favor of the Maori and against the European. It cannot overtake the former in his crimes, it makes no effort in .fact to overtake him. The advice is also vicious in another view. The natives are not told to give up war, and not to engage again in it, because they were wrong in doing so, or because to wage war against others without any'cause or pretence is wrong. These high minded moralists take the very lowest ground they can take to dissuade the Maoris from commencing a fresh war, viz., the punishment overtaking them io the form of retaliktioa at the hands of the “ bad whites.” And could the Maoris believe that they could carry on the war successfully and drive the the countrymen of these gentlemen

into the sea, it is quite evident they will be justified in doing so according to the, advice and logic of the writers of the tract. At least the natives will argue thus, and take this view of the matter. And it is worth noting that any further war depends entirely on the natives. Sir George Grey has Solemnly told them by proclamation that he wU] not attack them if they refrain from attacking the English. It needs merely to notice the suggestio falsi, that the Maoris commenced the war, because they longed for some settled Government. That is clearly proved to the most unprejudiced to be wholly without foundation ; and for aborigines gentry to reiterate it, and to tell the Maoris that they believe it, will cause the latter to laugh outright at the simplicity and gullibility of those who assume to give them advice and to make such professions of belief. It is, indeed, a pity that the wealthy individuals who bestow their attention on the protection, of aborigines who need not their protection do not spend their time and money in protecting the “ white slaves” at home, and in ameliorating the condition of the thousands of poor creatures living within a stone’s throw of their Belgravian palatial residences.