THE PHILO-MAORI CREED.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 103, 21 December 1868, Page 305

THE PHILO-MAORI CREED.

A gentleman' named Wilkes, at a recent public meeting in Auckland repeated the following as the articles of the “ PhiloMaori Creed.” We quote from the Daily Southern Cross

1. The natives can do no wrong. They may butcher the settlers, and commit nameless atrocities on defenceless women and children, such acts under peculiar circumstances, being perfectly justifiable. 2. The Treaty of Waitangi is binding on the Government, and all natives are entitled to live under its protection, and enjoy its privileges, but does not in the least bind the natives, who can violate their part of the contract with impu nity without losing their claim to its bene ficial clauses.

3. That all confiscated lands taken during the war, after the expenditure of rich blood and treasure, shall be restored immediately to the wronged and much-in-jured natives, as per request of our Honorable and respectable Prime Minister the hon. Mr Stafford.

4. That all the cities, towns, and settlements, together with all rights, titles, and estates, and all properties, both public and private, shall be given to the natives, praying their acceptance of the same; and that all Europeans, of all classes, d 'nominations, and degrees whatsoever, do immediately skedaddle, thereby leaving the natives in full possession—no white men being allowed to remain on the i-lancl except missionaries and traders to supply the said natives with arms and ammunition—as per opinion of his Lordship the Bishop of Lichfield.

5. The native population possess the fee simple of every rod of land, andthe nature of their title is peculiar. They can always sell it over and over again to the highest purchaser, without extinguishing it, as by a peculiar right it reverts to them again. This peculiar privilege was. granted by Sir George Grey at Waitara. -

6. . Although the sovereignty of the country was understood to have been ceded to her Majesty the Queen, and the natives supposed to have become British subjects,yet the chiefs are allowed to retain what they call their “mana,” or jurisdiction over their own tribes, which extends to all the property of their own tribes, as well as to chiefs inferior in power to themselves This authority, the assumption of which iB at direct variance with the sovereignty of the Q.ueen, creating in fact animperium in imperio , is perfectly justifiable with regard to the natives of New Zealand,.who are not at all bound by the Treaty of Waitangi or any other treaty bat can be independent chiefs or British subjects, jnst as the occasion suits them. - -

7. Human nature amongst the New Zealanders has assumed an entirely different degree of development to anything ever known in the world before: consequently all the experience of ancient and modern sages, -both sacred and profane, must be set. at. naught,-, and, living as they do at the antipodes, all previous histories and rules., must necessarily , be reversed. For example,, a book which all Christiana revere instructs that magistrates and those in. authority should be a “ terror to .evildoers bat in New Zealand they are. deputed to. condone treason,: and.give., untq evil-doers plenty of flour and sugar. . Btit loyal and .true men .are to be punished with insolence and contempt, this style, of doing the thing having been the rule , and not thei exception during, the Ministry, of the late, and the.present Governments. ' J/rJ mrnmmJmmim i i n .i.