THE LATE BISHOP PATTESON.

Southland Times, Issue 1540, 20 February 1872, Page 3

THE LATE BISHOP PATTESON.

The " Fiji Times " says :— H. M. S. Rosario has paid Santa Cruz a visit, and killed about 70 people in retaliation for Bishop Patteson's death. At this island she had two of her own men killed. From Santa Cruz she ivas going on to Aurora, and thence to Santo. Commenting on the above, the " Southern Cross " remarks : — ■ It is reported that blood for blood has been exacted in revenge for the death of Bishop Patteson. Possibly it is so that the laws of civilisation demand this penalty at the hands of savages, but we venture to say that there will be few who revere the memory of the martyred Bishop who will not deplore this occurrence as a calamity. Such a requital is so alien to the spirit that animated the Bishop of Melanesia during his life, and so likely to misrepresent bis mission to the minds of the islanders, that its effect can scarcely be otherwise than evil. If the statement of our Fijian contemporary is based on reliable information, and

seventy natives of Santa Cruz have fallen by the fire of H. M. S. Eosario, we may suppose that additional provocation has been given ; that the war ship in visiting the islands had encountered resistance, and that it was mainly on account of an attack by the islanders that this severe retribution was inflicted. But even in such circumstances the collision is to be deplored, as it will be associated in the minda of the natives with the memory of a man whose mission was only to speak peace If it is so that unprincipled shipmasters had been in the habit of person, ating the Melanesian Bishop and his missionaries, and by the ruse had succeeded in carrying islanders away into captivity, the conduct of the islanders in the attack on the Bishop is only too much like what civilised people would have done in similar circumstances if laboring under the same mistake. And it certainly would have been more becoming if the i war vessel had been employed in running I down the slavers, and bringing to justice \ the original and real authors of the crime, than in exhibiting a vindictive display of power over misguided and ignorant savages, who probably to this day believe that they were perfectly justified by their own rude principles of equity in perpetrating this cruel deed. If this vengeance was inflicted in retribution for the murder, it will have no practical effect, so long as the so-called labor traffic is permitted to continue. If men are kidnapped from the islands, whether through fraud or violence, it is quite according to human nature, civilised not less than untutored savage nature, that the islanders will feel a bitter resentment agaiust the whole race of the captors, and the lives of white men visiting the islands, or driven thither by stress of weather, will be in peril ; nor will that peril be lessened by throwing shells into the villages of the savages. This is so like the principles of their own wild code, that the only lesson taught them will be that " might is right," — a lesson in which they will prove apt learners, and which they will feel quite justified in reducing to practice whenever one or two shipwrecked seamen may come wifcbin reach of their poisoned arrows. So long as civilised nations will allow outrage to be habitually perpetrated by members of their race under sanction of law, and so long as men are carried away from the islands into unwilling servitude, so long will the natural affection of their friends and relatives blaze forth in wild revenge on those who may come within their power. We believe that general regret will be experienced at the news of this exploit of the Rosario, and we can but hope that the information brought to Eiji may ultimately prove to have been an exaggeration. — [Our telegraphic intelligence shows that the statement is untrue. -—Ed. S.T.]