MAORI MOTIVE.

Patea Mail, 4 December 1880, Page 2

MAORI MOTIVE.

Tuhx will be tried in Wellington next week for the murder of Miss Dobie. This crime is no longer a mystery, but it teaches a lesson. It was a brutal butchery by a young savage of bad character. He saw an opportunity to rob an unprotected woman, and having done that, his savage instinct impelled him to kill the only witness. He seems to have had just the common motive of an undisciplined savage to destroy a pakeha who had done him no harm, but who represented a race with which his race had been at war in the past, and may be at war again. Cupidity was mixed with another motive, A blood feud between races is a slumbering fire. The Maori fanaticism which centres at Parihaka has this significance, that it shows the Maoris are ready to act together either by making open war or by passive resistance. They may also act individually, with the same motive. Te Whiti and Tohu profess passive resistance. That means war without blows. The pakeha is to be resisted, but not tomahawked. A young savage of twenty years, whose career has been a mixture of drinking, thieving, and gambling, cannot be expected to deny himself the luxury which is natural to a sage when the chance comes in his way. Te Whiti makes war in his own fashion : Tuhi made war in the simpler way of killing a pakeha. Both were resisting the encroachment of the pakeha race, and probably he thought his plan better than Te Whiti’s for attaining the same end. It may be said, therefore, that Te Whiti is the real author of this murder by preaching resistance. It would be as easy to show that Te Whiti’s method of fighting the Government has prevented open war on the part of scattered tribes acting upon individual impulse. The question is an open one at present. Tula’s case, however, shows that pakchas should be prudently wary, without being afraid.