The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1903. TE WHITI AND "KING" MAHUTA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 191, 15 June 1903, Page 2

The Daily News. MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1903. TE WHITI AND "KING" MAHUTA.

There is very little doubt but that the objection of a Urpe section of the na' ives to " King " Mahuta's elevation to the Legislative Council is largely due to the influence of Te Whiti. Tbe itness says the gathering o£ Maoris at Paribaka on Wednesday next l , ths 17 th ioßt, will be a record one, as Maoris are triking tbether from all parts of the North I-land. T-e chief business is to discuss this quesiion, and it is said that the aid of Te Whiti will be iovoked to induce Mahufa to vacate his seat. Thare is no doubt but that the late action on the part of the Maori King has left Te Whiti sb the sole leader of th 9 Maori party which still holds al of from Pakeha influence. These natives are deep'y grieved at Mahuta's desertio®, as they feel it, of a great patriotic cause. Te Whiti has been of late years so severely and wisely left alone by the authorise that laterarrivals in the colony can hardly realise that but a few years Bgo he was the greatest power amongst the natives. Mahuta's action has turned all eyes to him, Mr J. P. Ward of Manaia, who is exceptionally well qualified (o express an opinion, has been giving the Witness his views on Te Whiti and they make an exceedingly interesting history of this remarkable man. He says : " Te Whiti, the erst- j while powerful Parihaka prophet is now in a measure, and most certainly will be as time go:s on, a most unique figure in Maoriland history, as a mm who has held most tenaciously, even through pain and imptisoßniin<-, the peculiarly oiigioal ideas that as a young nun possessed him as the mo-t efficacious means whsreby the ultimate regeneration of his people as a whole o>-, to te more precise, that section of them which believed in him-was to be brought about. To my mind, speaking as one who during the imprisonment of Te Whiti and his then redoubtable henchman, Tohu, had opportunities afforded no o'her man in the colony of judging as to the bona fides or otherwise of Te Whiti's pretensions, we European settlers have never given the now venerable mystic of Parihaka credit not only for the remarkable oneness of purpose of Te Whiti in respect to his own divine but, what wes of more importance in the days that are gone by, for his innate horror of shedding blcod, for I wish it to be distinctly understood that Te Whiti has always been a lover of peace, It was through him, and him only, that the Deity was to smite us pakehas hip ard thigh! Even in 'he early troubles of his people on (his coast with tne Imperial lpgions under I Generals Cameron and Chute, and later | when the Ngatiruanui, Taranakis and their allies ciuld proudly point to Te Ngu'u o te Maou, Te Rua Rua and Okotuku, in which battles tho pride and glory of the colonials were utterly broken and annihilated, when throughout the whole pxtent of country from 1 tjie Stony River in the north to the

Kai Iwi in the south, Titokowaru's invinoiblea rode ti iumphant and a white man dare not show his head—one man wrapped up, in the panoply of his own mys ical visions, stood aloof and preached to his peopla the doctrine 'hat what was gained by the sword must fall by ?.hesword,and that the only regeneration and rehabiliment of his p ople tnust be brought about by God's owii m9*ns, through h : m, Te Whifci, God't tficsregint here below! Aiid in thf ! arly agab, when the T< vVhiti scave shook Maoriland fronr thi North Cape to tha Bluff, when Maori i iand gathered her armed legions to gether for a short and what would have been a desparate conflict at Paribaka, this mystical old m*n of p?ace, ia place of pouriiig a leaden hail on our foldiers, as was expected, sent ut a bevy of his youtig tnaidecs tc. greet the white eoldiers with a dance of welcome. The victories of -" Thi Beak of the Bird " and the others art but a memory —a glorious memory, 'tis tru i; they always ought to be with Te Whiti's countrymen. At best, how ever, the fiuits of them were but dead sea applrs, for is not the pikeha to-d i) in postession? Yet Te Whi.i and Ti Wbiti's power still exist-, and hie ''ttiana" is as implicitly believei ii to day by scores of his fellow tribesmen as it was 25 years ago. The secret ol this hold on the minds of his countrymet) is noi far to seek, The. Parihaka mystic has been consistent throughout i a long life. Te TJa Ua, the founder of' the Ha'u Hau fanaticism, a religion that opened the breach between thi Maori and the pikeha wider than a!' the bullets fired by either side throughout the ten years' war, became before his death a pakeha at hiirrt. Te "Koot Rikurang", so NapcleDcic in hi meteoric career, died a drunken sot. Mahuta, the Miori King, is to-day » member of Maoriland's Cabinet. A'l the former " Saviours of their Peopla * have been teujpted across tho Rubicos that divides patriotism from the pakeha gold. Te VYhiti alone remain?, for the pre-eat generation, a living monument of consistency mistaken, undoubtedly, but o&s'stency nevertheless. And t the historian that assuredly will arise and do jusciea to the gallant Maori parple, and their many struggles ti pre ervo for themsdves the lind-of their fitbers, Te Whi'i will s and out alcne, and bead and shoulders above all for his blameless life and the h«roi< efforts „-he at all times nqade in hi' ur.ique d ctrine of " passive resistance " to tha p'akeha invadtr.