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powers to the Government, it was provided that any person obstructing any person authorized by the Government to do anything in pursuance of the Act, destroying or removing any survey-peg, fence, or building, erecting any fence, or ploughing or disturbing any land in such a manner as to impede its lawful occupation, or destroying the surface of a road, or placing any obstacle thereon, or who assembled together armed or unarmed for such purposes, or should be present at the commission of any such offence and might reasonably be suspected to be present for any such object, should be liable to two years' imprisonment, and to be bound over to keep the peace for such further time as the Court should, think fit. The Bill also contained the singular clause that " The several Natives who have been arrested " or shall hereafter be arrested by virtue of the provisions of ' The Maori Prisoners " ' Detention Act, 1880 ' [passed less than a month previously] shall be deemed and " taken to be in custody under the provisions of • The Maori Prisoners Act, 1880,' " and shall be detained accordingly:" that is to say, prisoners arrested under one Act shall, by virtue of the provisions of a second, be deemed to be arrested under a third, all passed in one session of Parliament. 36. The main purpose of the Act was unanimously approved; but the introduction into it of penal clauses led to animated discussion. Strange to say, however, this particular clause excited little notice in the House of Representatives. 37. The Native Minister, in introducing the Bill, although alluding to "police " clauses," clauses under which "Natives may be apprehended and tried," made absolutely no reference to the clause affecting those already in prison, and which referred those arrested under one Act to the provisions of another. It was, of course, the object of this clause to set aside the proviso passed three weeks previously that no one arrested under the provisions of the Maori Prisoners Detention Act should be retained in custody beyond the Ist October. It may, however, possibly be doubted whether this object is secured. The Maori Prisoners Detention Act is still recognized as that under which the prisoners in question have been arrested; and, so long as the distinct proviso that prisoners arrested under that Act shall not be detained in custody beyond the Ist October remains unrepealed, it appears questionable how far it can be set aside by a clause in another Act relating to a different subject, and which enacts that the prisoners taken tinder the Maori Prisoners .Detention Act shall be treated as prisoners under another Act, which also expires on the Ist October. It is true that " The Maori Prisoners Act, 1880," contains a provision enabling the Government to continue it in force for a limited period; but it may perhaps be questioned whether such an extension would apply to prisoners arrested under another Act, whose term of imprisonment under that Act had expired, although the proviso in question might regulate their treatment until that period. The intention of the clause is clear, from the Attorney-General's speech in the Legislative Council. 38. It will be perceived that four different classes of persons are affected by the Acts now in force, — (1.) Those committed for trial by a Magistrate in 1879, but as yet untried ; (2.) Those iinable to find sureties to keep the peace on the expiration of the sentence legally inflicted on them in that year ; (3.) Those who have been or may be arrested by order of the Governmen on any charge, or indeed on no charge at all, in a certain district of the colony; (4.) Those convicted under the provisions of the West Coast Settlements Act. 39. I must now recur to the circumstances which led to the passing of " The '* Maori Prisoners Detention Act, 1880," and to the preparation of the penal clauses in the West Coast Settlements Act. 40. After the cessation of the ploughing operations at the end of July, 1879, the survey of the Waimate Plains for sale, and the construction of the road through the Parihaka District, were steadily prosecuted under the protection and with the labour of a party of Armed Constabulary. No event of importance occurred until May, 1880, when, unwarned by previous experience, the road was taken through a fenced field in the occupation of Maoris.
Hansard, A^cl. 37, p. 482.
Hansard, Vol. 37, p. 648.
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