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Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 23, 8 June 1867, Page 3

Tbuth and Falsehood.— There are at times strangely blended, witness the following in which a new colonial Bishop is the transgressor. “In an addiess delivered at Manchester, by the Bishop of Nelson, he is reported to have stated that one cause of the decay of the Maori race is to be found in the circumstance of their having, since the introduction of fire-arms, abandoned their strong places on the hills, and betaken, themselves to unhealthy swamps of difficult access, for protection against the colonists. We have here a mixture of truth and error not uncommon when New Zealand affairs are discussed in England. It is true that the Maoris left their mountain strongholds for the swamps; it is true that this change took place on the introduction of fire-arms; it is true that this has been one cause of the increased mortality among them; but it is utterly untrue that they did this for protection against the colonists. It was for defence against the hostile tribes of their own rate that this change in their residences was adopted, and the Bishop would have done well, before making so erroneous a statement, to consider whether there was any single fact in the history of the Colony on which such an assertion could be plausibly grounded.”