South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2395, 19 November 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1880.

Tin-: Hon. Mr Bryce is at present the recipient of very pressing invitations. Certain lily-livered scribblers in the South Island are always panting for a Maori war and now they perceive their opportunity. The killing of the disreputable old man Molfatt by the chiefs of Tnumai'unui lias given them a reasonable excuse for crying out for Maori blood. These white Nana Sahibs have taken up the hypocritical cry of vengeance, and their editorial wardances arc something amusing. Already they are shooting down the natives by scores. Of course it is only ink they are firing, and in their sanctums in the South Island they are a good way from the scene of action. Still they have the satisfaction of indulging in an imaginative slaughter. They pretend to be animated by a most friendly disposition towards.the Government and especially towards the Native Minister. But their friendship for Mr Bryce is probably like their horror of the murder of Molfatt—rather supcrlicial. Their cry for vengeance is too hysterical to he the result of sound judgment, and their advice, being quite gratuitous, is not very valuable. Itis a chronic weaknoss with this council of quill-driving warriors to obtrude their advice when nobody asks for it. One of them, who hails from Dunedin, raves wildly about the “gory ferns ” and “the blood of poor Molfatt reeking to heaven,” The writer of these sentiments must have a vivid imagination. Unless the life and antecedents of the estimable old man for whom ho is shedding so much crocodile sympathy goes entirely for nothing, his blood must “ reek ” in a somewhat different direction.

There arc two sides to this alleged Maori crime, and the (lovernment before listening to the heartrending appeals of Sanguinary journalists, must weigh the consequences of any action they may take. The old man who is said to have been butchered in a cowardly manner by the natives, and on whose account so much wretched sympathy is being disbursed is a martyr of the Uotany Hay or Norfolk Island type. lie abandoned or deserted the service of bis country as a soldier to teach the Maoris the art of making gunpowder. He belonged to a gang of I’akeha-Maoris, who are known as bad eggs, and who literally stick at nothing'. The untutored savages, for whom be made several tons of gunpowder, could hardly be expected to form a high opinion of him, after his own tribe—the whites—bad put him several years in gaol to keep him respectable. Molfatt bad lived Jong enough among the natives to know their laws and customs. He could talk Maori fluently, and he was well aware of the consequences of trespassing on land that was tapued. If he was shot down in the manner stated by bis Maori companion (and we have only one man’s version as yet) bis own recklessness was to blame. He was warned against trespassing on forbidden territory, but he treated warning with contempt. An old deserter from the army who cared nothing for the laws of his own countrymen, could hardly be expected to regard the laws of the Maoris. The Maoris, like aborigines generally, have a code of justice which is simple but effective, although it occasionally draws down the wrath of the white man. They have no penal establishments, and they don’t know the use of the broad arrow. Molfatt was warned, but he persisted in his offence. To the native mind the offence was a serious one ; it meant the invasion of their country. If they tolerated this, hundreds of Moffatts might follow, and their lands and homes would be taken from them. They accordingly held a council, and having weighed the matter over, they decided that Molfatt must suffer. As for Molfatt he oid}' realised the consequences of his own temerity. He was imprisoned because be defied the law of the white man, and be has lost his life through defying the rights and laws of tbo natives. When be travelled over tapued country he knew that he was walking on thin ice, and he has died the death of an old incorrigible.

"We have put tliis Tauniarunui tragedy in a light that some sensitive people may dislike, but our object is to prevent anyone being carried away bj r the impression that the alleged crime was entirely unprovoked. What certain

pressmen call murder, in this instance, is jnstiliable homicide in the eyes of the Maoris. In Maori estimation Molfatt was no more murdered than was Ah Lee at Dunedin the other day. It is no doubt to he regretted ‘that the Government cannot gratify certain writers by getting up a native war or throwing a few dead natives at them occasionally, just to vary their dead and alive columns with something thrilling. But unlike these ink-splntterers, Mr Bryce is responsible for his actions, and lie cannot afford to join in this Southern war dance, or to use “ the gibbet and shoot saim ccremonie as a Dunedin journalist suggests. The native Minster has too much prndence and good sense, we hope, to be hounded on like a wardog by a set of yelping curs, who, under pretence of horror of crime and a desire to uphold British law, arc doing their best to bring about a collision between the Maori race and the Government in order that some colorable excuse may he found for robbing the natives of another slice of their territory.