MAORI MYSTERIES.

Patea Mail, 24 July 1880, Page 2

MAORI MYSTERIES.

The scare about Maori ammunition is attempted to be explained away by a telegram from Dr Duller, who says that the three natives from the West Coast had been visiting a chief at Napier, and he gave them a quantitity of powder and shot to shoot pigeons near Marton, where a native meeting is to be held. A police inspector had overtaken the three Maoris beyond Woodvillc, and they were arrested. Telegrams were sent in various directions. Dr Duller wired to the inspector the above explanation, and prisoners were released. We would ask,why was not a legal investigation made into all the circumstances? Is it enough to receive a telegram from a lawyer, to thereon release suspected persons at a time when the bare facts of the case are suspicious on the face of them ? It is well known to many old residents on the West Coast that a regular trade in ammunition goes on with the East Coast. It is within our knowledge that a large consignment came to this side from the East Coast just before Titokowaru’s wav; and that at a later date a considerable quantity of ammunition was carried from Dunedin to this island, on a Government steamer, consigned to a pakeha-Maori whose name is too familiar as a recent employee of the Government. This Napier incident has been hushed up in a way that is very objectionable.