THE STANDARD. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1873.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 80, 20 August 1873, Page 2

THE STANDARD.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1873.

" We shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right; We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

The report of the meeting held in the Court-house last Friday night, published in another column in this morning’s issue, ■will be read with satisfaction by all lovers of order, justice, and fairplay. It was a meeting of the settlers generally, headed by the Magistracy and men of influence in the district, to express indignation at what had occurred ; and, in calling on the Government to take active and immediate steps for the preservation of order, to give an assurance of their readiness to support the dignity of the Crown, and the authority of the Commission appointed by its representatives. Taken as a whole the resolutions could not have been better framed; they do not understate the exact position affairs have been allowed to drift into by the Government; and they do not overstate anything that the settlers are prepared to a man to carry into instant execution. Bead by the light of results, and past experience, they will show to the Government and the Colony that the Poverty Bay of 1873 is very different to the Poverty Bay of 1865-9. That if the questions of permanent settlement, present security, and future prosperity of this district are not of sufficient importance in the estimation of that authority which we have a right to expect will' be exercised in our behalf, we must protect ourselves by asserting our right to the privileges of citizenship, even by the aid of physical force if necessary. They will show that the numbers who have located themselves in our settlement, have brought wealth and intelligence with them; and that, possessing these, we have a power which, in the future history of this part of the island, will be used for better purposes than humbly obeying the dicta of a rabble herd of semi-barbarous, quasi friendly natives. Wheji it becomes necessary for the settlers to raise their voice in the defence of a common right—to demand the protection of the law —it is as well that they should employ language which is not likely to be misunderstood, —firm but respectful. The resolutions do this: they give no uncertain

sound. They convey the warning note to the Government, that if the storm signals are unheeded, disasters will follow the present wicked, procrastinating, dealing with the natives, as sure as night follows day.

The Government must see from the failure of the Commission so far that political causes are at work of which the recent disturbances in Gisborne are only fragments. They are members of the carcass which is extending its putrefying vapours all over the island. They take the form of a disease which is undermining, as a pestilence, the peaceful occupation of the people, and blighting the prospects of the fairest portions of the land. It is worse than idle to say that these things will work their own cure; for one of the greatest rebellionfeeding sources is to be found among our own people; men of our blood and color; men who, from notions of misguided philanthropy on the one hand, and from sinister motives of revenge and personal aggrandizement on the other, preach doctrines of sedition to the natives, which can only eijd in bloodshed.

" Oh! Is there not some hidden thunder in the

stores of Heaven, “ Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the men, “ Who owe their greatness to their country’s ruin.” The report of Dr. Nesbitt to the Government—which we re-print to-day, and which has been already quoted in Parliament —points hopefully to the fact that the natives in this district were, at the date of his writing on the 12th of June last, “ generally speaking, amenable “to the law and willing to avail them--41 selves of European institutions,” but that 44 recent communications with “ Napier” have created a “ disposition to “repudiate former bargains in the dis“posal of their land.” Does not this serve to show how delusive the outer aspect of the native element really is; and how susceptible they themselves are to a breeches-pocket influence, especially when it is exerted over them with the stamp of Parliamentary or Magisterial authority upon it ? That Henare Matua has incited the natives of Poverty Bay to a rebellious attitude against the Government none can deny. That his visit to this district is of the advice given to him by far&» friends to the peace of the Colony, few will have the temerity to gainsay. That he has succeeded so effectually in gaining adherents from amongst the natives here is a proof that he has been instructed to hold out promises to them that certainly can never be realized, and which, even now, they are not assured of. Further, we give an unhesitating opinion that his influence will greatly diminish with his departure ; and that none but the greatest rebels, who have all to gain and nothing to lose, will retain, for any length of time, a memory of the power he wielded over them. Allowing this, if we cannot get at the wire-pullers ; if the base cowards who are the cause of all this wrong and undoing will hide themselves from view, have we not a right to demand the arrest of this dark-skinned conspirator ? Shall it be said in this latter day of the Colony’s life, that an ex magistrate whom we have fed and clothed, who is supposed to support the law, shall stalk through the country with a rabble mob at his heels, prepared to riotously upturn our institutions, and bid defiance to a people whose forbearance he scorns, and whose kindness he treats with contempt ? We say that justice demands the instant apprehension of this man; there are cartloads of evidence against him, and we pledge ourselves for the settlers of Poverty Bay to take their share of the responsibilities of such a step.

The political aspect of this question is beyond doubt, although the cause of which we feel the effect may have arisen far away. And there are other causes operating along the coast, East Capewards, which the Government emissaries will do well to look into. Our advices lately have been of such a nature as to induce a belief, founded upon reliable facts, that there’s something rotten in the state. We warn the Government to look well ahead, and not be deluded into a cry of Peace, Peace, when there is no Peace.