RUA'S ARREST.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 April 1916, Page 8

RUA'S ARREST.

HIS MANA BROKEN. WOUNDED MEN DOING WELL. By Telegraph,—Press Association. Auckland, Yesterday. In half an hour Rua's mana has been definitely broken. That he realised and repeatedly said to his captors "Shoot me, I am finished before .ray time." His dejection was marked, Wit he heard the news of his youngest son's death with comparative calmness. The Maoris had expected the police party and knew its every move from the time it left Rotorua. The events of the day showed conclusively that armed resistance was intended. The position at the crossroads at the end of the pa, was a veritable ambush, but bad generalship cost Rua. dearly and saved the police from heavy casualties. Immediately the wounded, Including two Natives, were brought in they were attended to by Dr. Brewster, surgeon to the expedition. The meeting-house was converted into a hospital and here Rua and other prisoners were confined. The patients spent a comfortable night. A search instituted by the police brought to light ahout thirty Winchester repeaters ai.d shot guns, also a considerable quantity of ammunition including Mauser and Snider cartridges beside .303 rifle cartridges. Members of the expedition displayed a great deal of energy and courage. There still lies ahead of them the arduous task of carrying the wounded back to Ruatalmna, 2f> miles through bush and over a mountain. The condition of the four wounded constables is satisfactory, and all are making good progress. In all probability it will be three or four days before Rua's stronghold is evacuated. Meantime it is under guard day and night. Inspector Cullen does not anticipate further trouble, though nil precautions are taken, ;is some of Rua's followers took to the bush armed.

Of the wounded policemen, Constable John Neil is a. young man about 24 years old and unmarried. He joined the force six. months, ago and had been stationed at Auckland. Constable Ebbert is unmarried and agecf 27 years. Re joined the force in IAI4 and wa* stationed in Auckland for five months and transferred to Hamilton. His relatives live at Pahiatua. Constable u right, of Huntly, is a married man with n young family. He has been in the force since IfWfi and took a prominent part in recovering the bodies' after the Huntly mine disaster. He was also on police duty at Wailii at the time of the Waihi strike. Constable McCowan had been with the police since 1908 and is stationed at Stratford.

' STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER. [ Bf Telegraph.—Press Association. [ "• Wellington, Yesterday. Hon. A. L. Herdman. Minister in I charge of the police, explaining the ciri cumstaiiMCs leading to Rua's arrest, said L that the man had defied the authorities until it became necessary to take more stringent measures than before. To indicate how the authorities made every effort to vindicate the law as peacefully as possible, Mr. Herdman mentioned that Mr. Ngata, M.P., at the rc- ' quest of the Government, visited Rua ' and did his utmost to convince him that | defying authority would lead to disaster." Run refused to listen to sound advice And said he would like to see the MiriUtor. Mr. Herdman himself accordingly went to Ruatahuna with Commissioner Cullen and invited Rua to [ meet him and .surrender. Rua refused, so it was decided to take drastic action with a strong force. Beside*, Run's be- ' haviour was calculated to have « bad I effect on R section of the Ure'wera Natives.

Commissioner Cullen has telegraphed that Rua antt six other Natives had been arrested, and that the -wounded police were progressing favorably. Mr. Herdman added that the. courage aid disoretion of the police deserved warm admiration. Mr. Herdman left for Urewera to-day. • i PROM PREACHING TO SLY-GROG SELLING RUA'S STRANGE CAREER. A DUSKY CANUTE. Stated the Auckland Star of Saturday:— Inspector Sheehan and his posse of police are after one of the most arrant humbugs that ever let his hair grow. Rua is a tall, well-made Maori, much ,bigger than the usual run of Ureweras, who are wiry little fellows, short in the back and long in the arm. They are the Maori Highlanders, and in ' temperament remind one very much of the people you meet in the West of Scotland, arid still "have the Gaelic." They are shy, not too sure of themselves whoii there are many strangers about, ami ready to believe much that their mori? sophisticated brethren in other parts of 1 the island would brush aside with an | "Ehoa, e tito ana koe!" ("Friend, you're lying-"). Rua bears the name of a distinguished ancestor of the people of Tulioe Land, "The Children of the Mist," as they are called in their own poetical language, but he is in reality a "tutiia," a nobody, as far as the Maori aristocracy is concerned. In spite of that he managed to make himself the leader of a band of over one hundred of these simple folk, who live away up amid the peaks of the l-rewera, and for some years he has lived in dusky luxury. He numbers his wives by double figures, he toils not, neither does he spin—except tales—and he has had the command of thousands of pounds and thousands of acres. In his youth—he is now a man pt about forty-five years of age—he did not bear too good a reputation. If the police come up with him on this occasion it will not be the first time he lias been interviewed.

BECOMES A PROPHET. He was known as a pretty fair example of the indolent.Maori, but he did not attract notice outside his own district and the Bay of Plenty until a few years ago, when natives from away back in the Urewera began to talk about a great "prophet and his temple at Manngapohatu (Rocky Mountain,)" which is to the Ureweras as sacred as Parnassus was to the ancient Greeks. The pro' phet turned out to be our friend Rua. who had let his hair grow, and evolved from the Old Testament and Hauhauism a weird jumble, which was expounded daily from the temple—an elaborate structure which the faithful had built out of kahikatea slabs. The temple was circular in form, and had scats for the chief prophet, his twelve apostles, also with their hair a la Wild Man of Romeo, and other bigwigs. The village, to which natives had now been attracted from other parts of the district, was scrupulously clean, liquor was forbidden, and no tobacco was allowed within the pale—even pakehas had to disgorge when they came to the gates of the city, just as one gives up his umbrella at an art gallery—and the new order of things was hailed with delight by those who did not know the hirsute gentleman at the head of the mumbo-jumbo business. There were long and interesting paragraphs in some of the papers about the regeneration of the Maori, and Rua was hailed by some well-meaning folk as a sort of Savanarola.

BANKIXG JUGGLffi. Those wlio had inside information smiled. Run was simply exploiting the faithful. He was doing it very quietly, but most effectively. He could give a German Chancellor points in regard to high finance". They say that when he parted his State bank word was. spread among the faithful that pound notes were worthless', owing to the hankypanky business o! the pn lectin, but out oi the goodness of his heart the Chief Prophet would give in exchange the sum oi fifteen shillings for every note brought in. There was a goodly pile. When the writer was up in the Urewera the Christmas before last spending the night with a fine old Maori chief and his family he was asked to change a note, and the look of evident relief when he handed over twenty shillings in silver showed that the teaching of the Maungapohatu Bank officials had sunk In deeply.

One of Rua's boasts was that he could command tile sen, and a great cavalcade once went down the valley of the Whakatane river to Whakatane township to see the prophet make good his words. When they reached salt' water. Run turned to his tloek and asked In touching tones ''Do yon believe that I can command the waves?" The faithful answered with one accord that they did. ' "Then," said the long-haired one, "there is no need for mo to show.yon that I can.'' And the word was given to hit the trail again for Rocky Mountain. . Rua could certainly show ''points" to King Canute, who also had a little difference with his subjects concerning the briny ocean,

RUA-OX TOUR. . The Kim cavaleadc wasseenmore ttinn once iii Whafcatane. At a place called Ruatohi, a native settlement about fifteen miles ,ip the valley from Wlmkatane, Rua had a sort of half-way house, and used to make periodical Jaunts h>o' twecn the Urewera and the Bay of Plenty. He always travelled with his harem and several of his woolly satellites His lieutenant, or secretary, a small and hideous lium-hbnn!;. a sort of Quasimodo, the weird dwarf of "N'ntre Dame de Paris,'' was always a prominent figure in the progresses of the prophet. For a few years the mana of Rua was very strong among the Children of the Mist, and the power of his ''religion" was carried into all the mountain kni-

ngas. Then came a period of quiescence, tho prophet's mantle began to moult, and the next we hear of. the wearer is that he is summoned for sly-grog selling, ti) which he took quite as easily as he did to the Temple-citm-Bank business. And now there are at least fifty men in blue after this long-haired individual, who is, goodness knows where; in a land where the acres, like those of the potentate in "Xamgay Doola," are mostly "on end." KEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK. Halfway between Poverty Bay and Rntorua there is a range of mountains covered with the heaviest of bush; and rising four thousand feet sea-level. In winter the peaks, are snow-clad, and the Urewera keeps to his slab-built whare, earthed up at the sides and back to keep out the cold. From each side of this lofty range streams run down in profusion, cutting up the rugged country into innumerable ravines and gullies. It is up there that the police have to find "Run, and the hunt may develop into a Kathleen Mavonrneeii affair 'if the pro-phet-publican take s it into his Well-cov-ered head to resist. There are three wave of getting at the heart of the Urewera, where Manngapohatu is situated. The first is to travel up the valley of the Whakatane from Whakatane township. After leaving the village of Ruatokl the road degenerates into a mere track or else takes to the stony river bed altogether. .The second, and the easiest, is to go in from Rotorua, by way of Waiotapu, Mtiripara (the old militarj post Fort Oalatea, 8 name reminiscent of Te Kooti's wanderings In these same Urewera Mountains), Te Whaiti and Ruatahuna, the last-mentioned being about 73 miles from Rotorua,

A rather ojuaint suggestion was made to-day by a man who knows the Urewera Country and the Urewera Maori. ''l would undertake," said lie, "to have the whole boiling of them rounded up inside a week, All yon have to do \i to start a picture show at Te Whaiti. and I would guarantee that in less than four days you would have the whole of the. Urcwcras, big and little., long-haired and close-propped, sly-grog seller and sly-grog, drinker, safe 111 the pa. : 1 won hi not be surprised if Rim liimielf didn't venture down from the hills. They have never seen a picture show, and the attraction would have been irre : ?istiblo: Four policemen could have done the job nicely."