RIGHT OF TRIAL.

Patea Mail, 29 July 1880, Page 2

RIGHT OF TRIAL.

Is it right or expedient that the Maori ploughmen shall be held in custody for a farther indefinite period, without trial ? The Government propose to do this, and the House of Representatives has passed the Bill by a large majority. The Upper House is likely to do the same. Our opinion is that the Government proposal is justified by the facts of the case. We arc not able to offer a single abstract reason in justification of this course as a matter of legal right ; but there are things more powerful in politics than strict law. War, actual or probable, is sufficient to justify the suspension of legal procedure. Martial law is a recognised expedient in supreme emergency ; and the present is tantamount to the imposition of martial law in a native district. It is being done, however, in a manner which all thinking politicians who have regard for principles must deplore as an example of degeneracy in the political sagacity of the British race. Our rulers seem to be losing the art of government. Their political “ touch” is less sensitive, in dealing with the cunning childishness of a native race. The management of native affairs along the West Coast, of which we all see the fruits, has been characterised by the sort of haphazard policy which looks so funny when satirised on the dramatic stage, in the mock court of an Eastern despot, who orders a batch of prisoners to execution amid the applause of his courtezans, and then calls for another pot of jam. Mr Bryce succeeded to the Native office at a time when the muddle was at its worst. But his friends, of whom he has many hereabout, must be not a little astonished at Mr Bryce’s inability to introduce a better system. Each Administration seems to have aggravated the evils which it found

existing ; and it is only since Mr Bryce look office that any serious effort has been visible towards purging the Native Department. If Mr Bryce would play the part of dictator for an hour, and abolish the Native Department at one stroke, the colony would have to thank him for doing a necessary work. The natives are managed too much. They are worried and censured and coddled and humbugged, by too many officials. The practice of giving or squandering secretservice money in bribes which can never see the light, and which obviously will not bear public criticism, is a gross and disgusting evidence of the political rottenness of the whole system. Sweep it away, and begin with a clean slate ! Stop the stupid immorality of bribing the hollow friendship of a few native chiefs and their pakeha-Maori bloodsucking advisers, by feeding them with secret payments and with promises of more if they will only be good. It is too late to impeach the inventors of this secret-service profligacy, but the thing itself is a disgrace to the Parliaments which have connived at it.

It was a political blunder in the first instance, to keep the Maori ploughmen in custody without trial. The Normanby ploughing was a crisis which required n strong and prompt display of the Government power and determination to protect white settlers on land which the Government had sold to them. That should have been done firmly, wisely, and without flinching. To take

the ploughmen away as prisoners, and hot to bring them to trial and punishment, was a political outrage which would have raised a storm in the British Parliament if the facts had become known there. They did not become known there. Was the Government of the colony afraid to stand by its own act? Was it afraid the men would not be' convicted by ordinary process of law? If so, it was the Government that ought to have been put on its trial for advising and enforcing false imprisonment, contrary to the common law which governs the British race in every part of the world. If the ploughmen were fairly apprehended, they should have been tried and punished. Is it any gain to the colony, or to the native race, that the duty of trial was shirked ? What benefit has resulted ? Had those men been dealt with under the law, the natives would have learnt to respect the majesty of the law as a power before which all men must bow. As it is, our governing politicians have contrived to teach Maoris that British law is a thing to be locked up in a box, until it suits the interests of white settlers to bring it out. That is called “managing” the native question. The stupidity of the thing is marvellous ; for the results are so mischievous, that no man can fail to see them.

That first mistake being made, the colony has now to sanction a farther suspension of the right of trial, because it has become dangerous to let those prisoners return to their villages as heroes whom the Government dare not put to trial, and could not punish. We have now to sanction an improper thing, an abuse of power by the strong hand, because the Government have contrived to put the public in a dilemma from which there is no escape. Wo have only two courses open, and both bad, but one much worse than the other because involving danger of war. The

lesser evil has to be preferred, unwillingly and not without disgust. And for compelling us to sanction this gross public wrong, and for leaving us no choice but to do it, we are expected to thank our rulers, and pay them for giving us the benefit of their wisdom !