THE MELBOURNE PRESS ON THE MAORI QUESTION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 162, 16 March 1871, Page 6

THE MELBOURNE PRESS ON THE MAORI QUESTION.

Speaking of the late murder of Mr. Todd by the Maoris, a Melbourne contemporary says : — " The spurious Christianity which has been taught to the savage has led him to the conclusion that it is as mefcritorious to kill as to worship — to fight as to pray. He has had Christ represented to him with the evangel m one hand, and the sword in the other. The system of Mahomet has by mistake been substituted for that of Jesus. The 3STew Zealauder is as fond of war and bloodshed as ever, and if he does not eat human flesh, it is not because he is less disposed to do so, but because civilisation has provided him with certain available substitutes. It is at the door of the able but infatuated Bishop Selwyn that the colonists of New Zealand have to place the vast category of misfortunes which they have undergone during the last few years. He endeavoted to guide the savage, whose instincts are brutal, by the cultured ethics of advanced civilisation. He thought, in his supreme egotism, that he could accomplish what had never been acheived before — to do in a decade of years what has always hitherto required thousands. He expected the organised brute to detect the fine dis*

tinction between Christianised and Pagan murder — between the Christian's rpd uniform and his own war-paint. He cannot understand why, if we fight, we do not exterminate. As we do not, he concludes we cannot. He reasons rightly when he says that war has no conscience and no pity. We have as a race assumed an attitude in New Zealand which is simply grotesque. The preacher has attempted to persuade the savage to throw away his club, whilst at the same time the bayonet of the soldier was fixed behind him. He soon discovered the cheat, and learned to use the new aud more deadly weapon. As a race, we have committed the unpardonable crime of pitting tribe against tribe, and supplied the savage hordes with destructive weapons. Experience surely does not teach the New Zealanders, or, by this time, they would know how to settle the native question. It will resolve itself soon into the alternative, to exterminate the savage, or allow themselves to be driven into the sea. In this colony we can know nothing of the painful suspense, and insecurity of our fellow colonists in that unfortunate island. We can, however, sympthise with them, and in our hearts censure the author of the difficulties which continue to prevent their peaceful settlement on the lands, to which they have been decoyed by a treacherous, feeble, and truculent Go-

vernrnment.