The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 126, 24 January 1874, Page 2

The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.)

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1874.

“ We shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right : Wo shall defer to no man justice or right.”

The Resident Magistrate was quite correct in the remarks made by him on Thursday last during the hearing of a case in his Court, by which it was made to appear that the natives are, as a rule, entirely ignorant of our laws, although they are held to be amenable to them. The case referred to somewhat forcibly illustrates what is considered to be the unfairness of keeping back from, or but imperfectly conveying to, the natives, a due cognizance of the laws which affect and govern their social welfare as well as our own. Hoane Ruru’s position claimed for him a moral if not a legal immunity from the consequences of his act. The fiction which fastens upon all Her Majesty’s liege subjects a presupposed, or assumed knowledge of lhe law, does not legally exculpate an offender, even though he be a *' Native to the manner born,’’ and we were glad to see that the presiding Magistrate took a very proper view of the case as presented before him. Shortly, it amounted to this: Mr. Kelly bought a horse which had come to the hammer under the Impounding process, and which turned out to be the property of Hoane Ruru, who, seeing the animal in a paddock, and not knowing that it had been impounded, much less sold, took it, per continental leave, again into his own possession ; he, possibly, believing in his ignorance that he had the greater right to seek damages. The Bench interrogated the witness, and it transpired that all the Impounding Notices are circulated in English only—never in Maori; and, although the natives generally understand the meaning of that Institution of quadrupedal limbo, there are no means by which thev can be made acquainted with the action taken under it, and which, as we have seen, seriously affects them. The consideration of this matter leads us to remark that so long ago as October 1872, the Hon. the Native Minister, while in Gisborne, gave authority and instructions for this most useful and necessary work being set about forthwith. Dr. Nesbitt was

duly accredited to confer with the Road Board on the subject with a view to selecting so many clauses of the local laws, as intimately affected the natives, and to having them printed in pamphlet form. All this was done ; but the translation had not been provided for, and the matter remains to this day as it did eighteen months ago ; and we cannot help remarking that had a little more energy been displayed in this matter by those who Avere specially charged with the duty, the Magistracy of the Bay would not now have to deplore—or, at any rate the natives would not have cause to complain—that difficulties are interposed between them and an impartial administration of the law, by official supineness.