The Patea Mail. Established 1875. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1883. MAORI AND EUROPEAN RIGHTS AND WRONGS.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 997, 14 February 1883, Page 2

The Patea Mail. Established 1875. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1883. MAORI AND EUROPEAN RIGHTS AND WRONGS.

The petty theft by Europeans a,t Hukatcre a few days ago, of some 'peaches, belonging to the Maoris, might seem, 1 at first sight, to be deserving of no more notice than ! the ordinary run of small theft leases beard in our police courts. But there were circumstances which gave it a different character. The larrikin party who were the offenders appear, when detected,-to have first of all shuffled out of the charge made against them, and then to have refused to pay the utif ov compensation demanded. This was thoroughly discreditable in itself, and a. course of conduct likely to create bad feeling and do much mischief all over the district. So far as we. 1 can gather from our report, the Maoris did not seem to be specially indignant about the theft, but were naturally very, much disgusted at the refusal to pay the utu of £1 demanded. The first, probably one of their own conntryrpen would have done without being much ashamed of it; but the last was a much worse offence, beside being a violation of native law. Mr Gladstone tells us in his “ Juvenilis Mundi” that half-savage nations are like English public school boys, and their actions cannot bo properly criticised in the same way as if they were grown-up men. This is very true. And as the average public school boy is not mean, so also is it with the average Maori. He might probably go in for the fun of taking a few Englishmen’s peaches, but if he was caught in the act, he would probably be prepared to pay full compensation. The refusal to do so on the part of bis own countrymen he would regard as a piece of highhanded insolence. And so apparently it actually was on the part of the Englishmen concerned on the occasion we have referred to.

Now, it is very clear that any such conduct as Hus should be promptly repressed and punished. While the Government is pursuing a firm but just policy with the natives, taking possession of its own property at Kawhia and asserting its right to make railways to connect one part of its property to another as in the King country, the natives can understand and respect what is done, for they know that at bottom it is only what is right. But once let it be known that the European

is acting unjustly and an inso i ent disregard of native sentiment, and at any time disturbances may b rea k ont which it will be uncommonly difficult to suppress. Unfortunately our countrymen in their “ insnlo r pride,” as the French call it, are very a pt to suppose that the sentiments 0 f all other people except themselves are of very little account. Thus it is that in Hindoostan where the Government is respected for its justice and its courage; the Englishman is nevertheless disliked and can never depend on the personal attachment of the people, because their customs, manners, institutions, and even religion are constantly Treated with supreme contempt. The greased cartridges may not have boon the. sole cause of the Sepoy war in 1857, but there.can be little doubt that the notion that Brahminism was being treated' with contempt, at least intensified largely that" great Native rebellion. ‘Unfortunately our conduct on other occasions lays us open to any such suspicion at any time. We know'that both in this Colony and Australia unfortunate Chinamen are insulted, wronged, and treated with indignity, as if for some inscutable reason they have lost their rights of war ; those rights which Englishmen would certainly demand for themselves if they wore'residents in . Chimp, and were sub- ; ject to similar injustice. . The sooner it it is understood that all men, whether' Chinamen, Maoris, or Europeans, are on a footing of equality in the eye of the law of the land, and ought to be treated accordingly in all bur every-day transactions, the better it will be for us. In one way or another injustice and wrong react on their perpetrators. In the times of the'early : navigators almost all live-’South Sea Islanders were disposed to act a friendly part towards Europeans. But now in consequence of the .wrongs done them, we are constantly reading of captains and seamen being murdered as soon as they land, and of their.murders being rCvengedMby?wholesale on the part of onr ships and seamen.