The officials of the Aborigines Protection Society have never shown
much temper or sense, but the address which they circu- lated in New Zealand, in the Maori language, and which their secretary communicated to the Times last Saturday, is a much more imbecile and mischievous document,—the two qualities are often combined,—than they have yet produced. The goodiness for the Maories, the malice for the English settlers, all expressed in figurative language, with a sort of moral lisp to make it sound childlike and innocent, give it the effect of gruel and vinegar served up in quaint Dresden china. This is the style :- " Be as peaceable and as much of one mind among yourselves as you can be. Unless you do so, you will break to pieces like a glass bottle dashed on the stones, which cannot be mended." Why a glass bottle? We suppose bringing up children by bottle must have been in the mind of this nurse of aborigines. As to the substance of the address, its chief object seems to be to encourage the Maories in their hatred to the English settlers, and persuade them neither to sell nor let any more land to Englishmen. "To prevent his being robbed by selfish and dishonest persons, he [the Maori] should be unable to dispose of it [the land], and this rule should be made quite strong and safe. Even the letting or leasing of land should be discouraged, and never sanctioned without caution and registration. Colonists out of New Zealand have had lands let to them by natives, and then the colonists have kept possession and driven the natives away." The Maories are a noble and manly race. We trust they will despise the food of these political dry nurses. The English press has already had a good many shots at the society's bottles, and if these should really be broken so as " not to be mended," we think no one would miss the milk.
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