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discontinued, orders were at lengtli given on the 22nd June for the arrest of those engaged in the ploughing of granted lands, a step absolutely requisite to prevent an actual breach of the peace between the settlers and Natives. 22. On the same day, and before the receipt of these orders, an armed party of settlers had forcibly removed the Maoris engaged in ploughing up the lawn of a Mr. Livingstone. The Natives did not actively resist their removal, but returned again when released. They were again removed and again returned, and the first arrests were made on the 30th June, when seventeen of the ploughmen were taken into custody by the Armed Constabulary. The arrest of those engaged in ploughing on a charge of wilful damage to property was, it seems to me, amply justified by the persistence with which the trespass was repeated, and the extreme danger to the public peace which would have attended a repetition of forcible ejectments by the owners of the land.* The mere arrest of the trespassers, howevej, by no means satisfied the more ardent of the settlers. A fortnight later, when arrests were made wherever ploughing was attempted, threats of shooting the ploughmen were still made. Mr. Livingstone telegraphed to the Government that it " was not his determination' " alone to shoot, but that of the settlers to a man almost," and that he " approved! " of the sentiment." 23. No resistance was offered to the arrests made by the Constabulary, but the ploughing was not discontinued in consequence of them. The first arrests, as I have said, took place on the 30th June, and for nearly a month longer, parties of .Maoris, generally twelve or fifteen in number, and never exceeding thirty-four, from time to time, at irregular intervals, commenced ploughing in different localities, always submitting quietly to the arrest which inevitably followed. These singular proceedings took place on ten properties owned by private parties, and on a paddock occupied by the Armed Constabulary. Altogether, 180 Maoris had been arrested, when at the end of July the ploughing wholly ceased. Of those arrested, forty were tried for malicious injury to property, condemned to a term of imprisonment of two months, and required to find sureties to keep the peace for ten months more, which they could not do, and consequently had their imprisonment prolonged for that period. The remainder were committed for trial at Wellington; but before the date fixed for the trials, an Act ("The Maori Prisoners Act, 1879") was passed by the General Assembly, authorizing the Governor to determine where and when they should be held. This Act, which was passed at the short session held immediately before the dissolution of the Assembly, in August, 1879, was to remain in force only until thirty days after the reassembling of Parliament. 24. I have not been able clearly to ascertain why, having obtained a conviction, and a sentence of a year's imprisonment, against a considerable number of these men, the Government shrank from bringing the remainder to trial; nor, (Sir G. Grey's Government having left office on the Bth October,) is it now possible to say with confidence whether the allegation that all that was contemplated by the original Act was the postponement of the trials for a short period, and that they were then intended to take place before the Supreme Court in the ordinary manner on the expiration of the Act, is well founded. Another Bill, the " Peace Preser- " vation Bill," making such proceedings as those of the ploughmen, punishable by a year's imprisonment, and giving large powers of arrest and detention to the Government, passed the House of representatives without a division, but was strongly opposed in the Legislative Council by Sir P. D. Bell, and was thrown out. by a majority of ten. . ] 25. On the assembly of the new Parliament in October, a change of Government took place. The Maori Prisoners Act was allowed to expire, but the prisoners were not tried, and in December, an Act, which was in fact two separate Acts somewhat clumsily put together, (" The Confiscated Lands Inquiry and " Maori Prisoners' Trials Act, 1879,") passed the Legislature, by the first five clauses of which a Commission of inquiry into the alleged grievances of the Natives
Telegram, Parris to Sheehan, June 30, 1879.
Telegram, Livingstone to Whit- ' more, July 13.
Hansard^ Vol. 81, pp. 544, 548.
* How serious the risk may be judged from a telegram to Sir Gr. Grey from a meeting of Justices of the Peace and 26 June 1879 others, to the effect that at the end of ten days, "of which two are already passed," the Natives, if they " persisted in " molesting property," would be " shot down."
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