WELLINGTON.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1283, 26 February 1883, Page 2

WELLINGTON.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) THE PARDONING OF TE KOOTI. Monday’s “Post,” 19th Feb., contains a leader on this all-absorbing topic of unparalleled disgust. It is very evident whence the leader received its inspiration. The writer roundly takes to task all the journals that have ventured to treat the subject in the fair, able, trenchant and only possible way open to them, and becomes their censor, pouring a tirade of effete argument against them tor the strong and expressive terms used in protesting against the most unrighteous and unheard of leniency displayed in pardoning such an atrociously blood-thirsty fiend as the execrable Te Kooti is—yet, almost in the same breath, he most inconsistently admits that the epithets applied to the diabolical wretch, by saying “ We are by no means prepared to say are not richly deserved.” I should rather think not I and as “ bad diseases require strong remedies ’’ to purge and purify them, WE ARE prepared to say, who are in a position to know, and DO know the full merits and demerits of the case in all its frightful enormities, and blood curdling detail, and can now sit down, and can calmly and dispassionately say, after a coolipg interval of fifteen long years, that no language however strong can fully express the repugnance, and disgust, that such actions of responsible advisers call forth. All proper thinking, and right feeling people—unless they are biassed, as the writer In the Post evidently is—will learn with horror, and extreme disgust that Mr Bryce actually grasped and shook the red hand of the “ doubly dyed scoundrel,” quoting Sir Wm. Fox's memorable] expression of a well-known journalist,

Has the Native Minister's hand suffered in the defiling contact, or become in anyway affected '! What is the Post really banker, ing after ? Does it or the Government for one moment really think that the bringing to justice of the vile miscreant Te Kooti (whose actions “were bad enough, there is no doubt of that as mildly admitted by the Posf,”) will bear any fearful results in the future ? Away with such silly and fearsome nonsense, after the able management, and pluck displayed, and action recently taken at the front, on the memorable field of Parihaka.

There is some deep lying motive under the surface, and “ stray straws show in which direction the wind blows,;’ but surely Ministers have not entered into an un. holy compact ? Ministers nevertheless are human, and subject to the frailties of human nature likeother ordinary mortals; and in acquiring “land for the people,” are scrupulously taking care of the inevitable No. 1, and perhaps are utilising Te Kooti as a “means to an end,” securing into their righteous selves many rich advantages in the coveted Waikato country. Oh the fearful wilyness of companies and jobberies, their depths are unknown, and like the “Land Acts” to the uninitiated, “unfathomable;” therefore to this and this only must all the horrors of massacres and war be attributed, together with the “greed for land by the various sections and factions of land rings,” but that does not exonerate and atone for the bloodthirstiness of General Te Kooti and Co. who wreak their vengeunce on the helpless and hapless legitimate small settlers, who have hitherto borne the burthen of the day, and the brunt of the heavy taxation. Lay the axe at the root of the deadly Upas tree, the old lund ring schemes, and their machinations and unscrupulous dealings; that s where there great evil lies, gainsay it who can ? It may be veneered and glossed over ever so thickly, but when probed in the direction given, the true cause will be discovered. By this covetous grasping all the trouble accrues, and is the bone of contention between oil contending parties, and through it the great majority of the Colonists have to suffer. It palls one to thihk of it, but it is through these unrighteous dealings that the spirit of rebellion is fostered, and our rulers betters. Forego their questionable underhand transactions, then, and not till then, shall we become a happy, contented, prosperous community, free from any internal strife, and dwell in comparative safety. Then the steadily nurtured and persistent Native difficulty would vanish into ephemeral nothingness, but whilst that exists—and there are those who will still do their utmost to prevent it expiring, whilst so much ungodly gains are to be derived—we shall never be an united Colony, dwelling in harmony, and prospering as a powerful whole.