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Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 33, 14 November 1871, Page 2

Now that the first a-ml strongest emotions consequent upon the fearful death of Bishop Patteson have subsided, the minds of men arc naturally turning to the practical recognition which the memory of the peaceful Christian soldiers should receive amongst us, and further to that trade which, begot of the worst passions of mankind, cradled in the vilest instances of man’s inhumanity to man, and maintained by those whose proper deserts should be a long rope and a short shrift, has led to the fearful atrocity, the tale of which hut as yesterday horrified our ears. In the first of these matters, the formation of a memorial which shall, in years to come, attest the affection and admiration of the people of this Province for the good Bishop of Melanesia, we observe the citizens of Auckland have already taken initiatory steps, and in this, the second district in the Province in point of wealth and population, these steps should be taken as an example, and should bear fruit in a local movement having the same object for its end. In writing upon such a subject as this, those who do so with true earnestness, with a true idea of its somewhat awful solemnity, and of the higher and more sacred ground on which they arc compelled almost of necessity to trench, find that the ordinary language of the everyday writer almost necessarily fails them. There is 'so much danger of detracting for a moment from the painfully serious manner in which such matters must be spoken of, that little remains save in the fewest and briefest words to state barely that which is called for. Such a difficulty do we feel, such a difficulty we freely admit. The martyrdom of a great good man, of one whose path through this life was for ever illumined by the greater radiance of the life to come, is, in the columns of a mere* newspaper, placed side by side with the many records of the purely temporal occurrences which take place around us, and it is no wonder, then, if we find ourselves unable to write, in as fitting terms as we could probably wish, of the duty which plainly devolves upon this community, So far then we shall simply content ourselves with saying that we trust such words as we have written may arouse those amongst us who feel as we do to take action in this matter,

But as regards the other portion Qf the question, that which concerns the revolting trade in human flesh, which, disguised under a dozen different terms, but remaining still a slave trade, now sullies the calm waters and. sea-girt isles of rthe Pacific, there can be no hesitation fn speaking trumpe,t-tongued in a spirit of the loudest denunciation. The innocent blood qf one Christian laborer and. his fellow-servant cries aloud for vengeance ; in the first place, on the poor benighted beings whose ignorance and-barbarity led them to the reckless deed, and in the second, and far higher degree, upon those human monsters, in the form and garb of civilized men, whose outrages roused to uncontrollable frenzy the savage passions of wild and barbarous beings. There must be no more paltering, there should be no more trifling in this question. The cloak, which human avarice has so long kept folded around the hideous slave trade of the islands, has ' at last been plainly rent asunder, and, in all its deformity, we have laid bare the accumulated horrors attendant upon the buying and selling of human souls. It is fearful to contemplate, but, nevertheless, it does seem too true that it required some such calamity as that of the death of Bishop Pattcson, to awaken us to the full realisation of the abominable .nature of the trade which has so long going on amongst the islands. The awakening has come at last, however, and the reckoning exacted from those who are responsible for the calamity should be ample and adequate. Amidst all our sorrow, above all our regret, we may feel that should the untimely fate of Bishop Patteson be the primary cause of the suppression of the slave trade,, then he, in his death, will have served last and best of all, the poor islanders whom in life time lie regarded as his children, and whom he loved so well.