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Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume I, Issue 4, 1 May 1855, Page 1

A very large portion of our present number is devoted to a report of the trial and sentence passed upon Walter Huntly for the unhappy manslaughter of Te Kopi, on Christmas Evening. Every particular connected with that lamentable occurrence will be found in our present pages. We have printed not only a complete record of the trial itself, but we have likewise, given an account of all the conferences that have taken place between his Excellency the Governor and the various Chiefs and tribes in connection therewith. We need hardly express the sincere gratification which we feel at the peaceful conclusion which has been made of this untoward affair. The sentiments uttered by the several speakers do equal honour to their heads and hearts, for they are the sentiments of just and high minded men, and, as such, are certain to raise them high in the estimation of the good and upright of al nations. They have triumphed over the natural passions and infirmities of frail humanity, and, in obedience to the laws of God and man, have proved themselves to be upright citizens and sincere Christians. The struggle between the old Native practice, and the new law of the Queen —a law based upon the tenets and practice of Christianity—was no light one, and when we consider the many and great difficulties that interposed, we are only the more induced to admire the discrimination of the native intellect which has so happily guided them in the paths of religious truth and peace. We cannot rest content with merely saying that difficulties to the peaceful "solution of this (jucotiou existed. Let us indicate those difficulties; and the reasoning employed to overcome them.

One of the objections urged was that there is not one law for both races; and that if the deceased had been a a Englishman the prisoner would have been put to death. In reply to this it may be stated, that, since the foundation of Auckland, there have been six trials for homicide, in which both the slayers and the persons slain have been Englishmen, no native being, in any way concerned. Yet, but two of these menslayers were put to death ; and: in both those cases the criminals slew their victims maliciously and deliberately. The natives have only two ways of dealing with cases of this kind : either to put the transgressor to death, or to let him go free just like other men. According to English law, even when the culprits life is spared, he is condemned to live as a slave for many years. The second objection is founded upon the Mosaic law of "Blood for Blood." That is, and continues to be the law for wilful and deliberate murder. But an investigation of that law will demonstrate that Moses made modifications of the law, and constituted differences of punishment between different classes of menslayers that some (Deuteronomy 4—4.) should be suffered to live in certain places set apart for them. The third ground of objection was that the matter ought to have been settled by the Chiefs alone.

The answer to this is an obvious one. The English law, with equal justice and humanity, decrees that offences of such a character shall be tried by a Jury of men consisting of different classes, not related to the person slain, or to the person slaying. In that Jury there shall be men of various stations of life j for, if all were of the higher class, and the prisoner of the lower, they might perhaps be too ready to give him up to die. They might be indifferent or careless as to what became of him. The difference between the law of England and the Native law is this. The native law says, let the man be put to death at once : death for death. The English law says—Pause—Consider "what justice demands. Be not hasty in putting a man to death j but, first, let every thing be heard, investigated, and considered. The effects of both laws are equally remarkable ; under the Maori law, the New Zealand islands nearly depopulated. Under the English law, the British Islands have become fully peopled. The native people of New Zealand are shrewd sagacious, and reflective. Their minds are open to receive the truth, and their hearts to cherish and improve it. _ The r-esult of the trial of Huntly, and the just estimate they have formed of the upright and impartial character of the English law is another proof of the justice of their own disposition, and the clearness of their under-

standing. Go where tlie present Maori Messenger may —wherever the conferences which it narrates shall be read, the reader will be as much surprised as pleased with the rapid progress which our native fellow men have made in all that confers a superiority upon civilised over savage man. Already, in Sydney and elsewhere, where it was predicted that the natives and the Europeans would be brought into a deadly struggle of "blood for blood," the knowledge of native intelligence, and of native acknowledgment of the justice of English law has struck the prophets dumb with astonishment. The eulogies pronounced upon native intelligence has only been equalled by the encomiums of native justice. A thousand battles could not so have exalted the native character of New Zealand, which for industry, energy, and capacity is assuming that place to which the progressive intelligence and ability of its people so richly entitle it.